Should We Receive Holy Communion on the Tongue or in the Hand?

Are you receiving the Eucharist on the tongue or in the hand? Is one way better? Fr. Josh Johnson provides clarity on this misconception based on information from the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) and reassures us that the church allows Catholics to receive Communion both ways.

Snippet from the Show

Both are good, both are true, both are beautiful.

Glory Story (1:41)

Listener Question (6:04)

Hey Fr. Josh. Thank you so much for this show. I have learned so much listening to you over the years. My question is about receiving Holy Communion. My parents taught me to receive Communion on the hand, and I did that all the way up until college. When I was in college, my group of friends primarily received on the tongue and I felt moved to do so as well. I now only receive on the tongue. I am wondering if the Church says that one way is better than the other? I sometimes think that people who receive exclusively on the tongue think that is the best way. Could you shed some light on this?
-Nicole

Prayer (20:27)

Mediator Dei, On the Sacred Liturgy, Pope Pius XII, 194758. It follows from this that the Sovereign Pontiff alone enjoys the right to recognize and establish any practice touching the worship of God, to introduce and approve new rites, as also to modify those he judges to require modification. Bishops, for their part, have the right and duty carefully to watch over the exact observance of the prescriptions of the sacred canons respecting divine worship. Private individuals, therefore, even though they be clerics, may not be left to decide for themselves in these holy and venerable matters, involving as they do the religious life of Christian society along with the exercise of the priesthood of Jesus Christ and worship of God; concerned as they are with the honor due to the Blessed Trinity, the Word Incarnate and His august mother and the other saints, and with the salvation of souls as well. For the same reason no private person has any authority to regulate external practices of this kind, which are intimately bound up with Church discipline and with the order, unity and concord of the Mystical Body and frequently even with the integrity of Catholic faith itself.