Can a layperson give Communion to a priest?

[banowd]

I am an altar server at a weekday Mass once or twice a week. It is the practice in our parish that an EMHC distributes the precious blood at weekday Masses, usually the altar server. One morning, as I was distributing the precious blood, our parish priest came forward and received Communion (he was not vested or otherwise wearing clerical garb). A visiting priest was the celebrant. On one level, I do not feel right about having given Communion to a priest. On another, it seems very odd to me that our parish priest would attend Mass in “civilian” clothes, and would not make himself available to distribute Communion. Am I being overly sensitive about this?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

Am I being overly sensitive about this?

Yes. I don’t know why the priest did not wish to concelebrate the Mass and to assist in distributing Communion, but if he chooses to attend Mass as a layperson in lay clothing then he should receive Communion as a layman would. Granted, if he wanted to attend Mass as a layman, it would have been less confusing to his congregation had he chosen to attend a daily Mass in a parish where he was not known as a priest.