Can a priest take from the Paten?

[K.e.williams22]

I was watching mass the other day, and there were two priests present. One presided (lead the mass) and the other was kind of just there. When the presider turned to the other priest to administer Communion, the other priest took a Host from the Paten instead of receiving it. Is this okay? I don’t like it; I get he’s a priest but we aren’t supposed to take Communion, but receive it.

 

[UpUpAndAway]

Priests are allowed to self-communicate.

 

[1ke]

Paten instead of receiving it. Is this okay?

Not only OK, but the way it is supposed to be.

I don’t like it;

Well, it’s not really up to you.

 

[Cor_ad_Cor]

and the other was kind of just there.

I’ve never known a priest to “just be there” at a Mass. Even in the unlikely and unusual scenario of being seated in the pews, he’s still going to pray the consecration silently along with the presider and in a way exercise his priestly office.

 

[dochawk]

I don’t like it; I get he’s a priest but we aren’t supposed to take Communion, but receive it.

[headsmack]

This is very basic liturgical practice.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

K.e.williams22:

and the other was kind of just there.

I’ve never known a priest to “just be there” at a Mass. Even in the unlikely and unusual scenario of being seated in the pews, he’s still going to pray the consecration silently along with the presider and in a way exercise his priestly office.

Do you mean that priests do this, even when they simply attend Mass? I don’t doubt that they could, if they wanted to, but can’t they just sit in the pew and assist at the Mass, the same way a layperson would?

 

[Cor_ad_Cor]

Every priest I’ve ever known does. Could he attend Mass in the pew like a layman? I suppose… I’ve just never known it to happen. Even when I’ve seen a priest seated in the pews in “street clothes”, he silently mouths the words of epiclesis and consecration.

 

[dochawk]

I’ve seen priest attend both in black shirt and collar for both the Divine Liturgy and Mass, and receive Communion in the regular lines.

I’ve also seen them (including the local RC bishop at an EC ordination) enter the Holy Place for the anaphora.

I wasn’t watching the priests, but I’m certain that the RC bishop didn’t know the words to mouth silently (we had him seated in a chair just outside the iconostasis until he was brought in for the anaphora).

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Do you mean that priests do this, even when they simply attend Mass? I don’t doubt that they could , if they wanted to, but can’t they just sit in the pew and assist at the Mass, the same way a layperson would?

Yes, in some circumstances priests will just sit in the pews and “attend Mass” like a layperson would. The most recent story I heard about that involved one of our local priests who took a vacation down south (before all the COVID hit) and attended a local Sunday Mass there in his lay clothes and the other parishioners were so happy to see a young man attending Mass (since apparently that was a rarity at their church), the priest didn’t have the heart to tell them he was actually a priest on vacation. Obviously he wasn’t exercising his priestly office from the pew in that case.

However, I think there’s some guideline or rule that came up when we last had this discussion that said priests should usually be acting as priests when they are at Mass.

 

[Phemie]

K.e.williams22:

and the other was kind of just there.

I’ve never known a priest to “just be there” at a Mass. Even in the unlikely and unusual scenario of being seated in the pews, he’s still going to pray the consecration silently along with the presider and in a way exercise his priestly office.

I watch Mass from the Mt. of Angels Abbey. Not all the priests are able to fit in the sanctuary for the Eucharistic Prayer. But all of the priests who are in the stalls make the gestures from their stall and receive as concelebrants.

At first I was very confused because the concelebrants were wearing what appeared to be dalmatics but then I realized that they simply had white habits with stoles while the other monks had black habits.

 

[BartholomewB]

One presided (lead the mass) and the other was kind of just there.

It’s called concelebration. The Catholic Encyclopedia explains:

• Concelebration is the rite by which several priests say Mass together, all consecrating the same bread and wine.

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04190a.htm

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

Do you mean that priests do this, even when they simply attend Mass? I don’t doubt that they could , if they wanted to, but can’t they just sit in the pew and assist at the Mass, the same way a layperson would?

Yes, in some circumstances priests will just sit in the pews and “attend Mass” like a layperson would. The most recent story I heard about that involved one of our local priests who took a vacation down south (before all the COVID hit) and attended a local Sunday Mass there in his lay clothes and the other parishioners were so happy to see a young man attending Mass (since apparently that was a rarity at their church), the priest didn’t have the heart to tell them he was actually a priest on vacation. Obviously he wasn’t exercising his priestly office from the pew in that case.

However, I think there’s some guideline or rule that came up when we last had this discussion that said priests should usually be acting as priests when they are at Mass.

OK, it’s all good.

I do have one more question, but it is really going to come across as a nitpick — and I don’t mean it that way — does it matter that these priests aren’t vested, wearing either clericals or generic street clothes instead, and aren’t following the physical rubrics (stand, sit, kneel, genuflect, etc.)?

I realize that their “concelebrating” is inconspicuous and that there is a priest on the altar who is vested, just a thought.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I’ve never seen a priest participating in Mass as a priest who wasn’t in sufficient vestments, whether he was in the pew or in the sanctuary. In other words, I’ve never seen a priest in lay clothes exercising his priestly office from a pew, though I have seen plenty of them in vestment-type garments doing that (particularly at abbeys with a small chapel and a number of priest members of the order in attendance - they stay in the pews because there’s not enough room for them all to go stand by the celebrant, plus often they are elderly and can’t stand well or at all). So I don’t know.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I’ve never seen a priest participating in Mass as a priest who wasn’t in sufficient vestments, whether he was in the pew or in the sanctuary. In other words, I’ve never seen a priest in lay clothes exercising his priestly office from a pew, though I have seen plenty of them in vestment-type garments doing that (particularly at abbeys with a small chapel and a number of priest members of the order in attendance - they stay in the pews because there’s not enough room for them all to go stand by the celebrant, plus often they are elderly and can’t stand well or at all). So I don’t know.

I had in mind the scenario of the priest who, for whatever reason (travel, etc.), is part of the congregation at Mass — unless he is wearing clericals, it’s not even obvious he is a priest — and who concelebrates sotto voce.

 

[Gorgias]

I had in mind the scenario of the priest who, for whatever reason (travel, etc.), is part of the congregation at Mass — unless he is wearing clericals, it’s not even obvious he is a priest — and who concelebrates sotto voce .

Then he isn’t concelebrating, but rather, merely attending Mass.

 

[TheMortenBay]

My parish has one auxiliary priest. Usually the parish priest will preside and then he will either hand the other priest the paten or the host, but he’ll never communicate him. One time he accidentally said “Body of Christ” to him, but he immediately corrected himself and apologised.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

I had in mind the scenario of the priest who, for whatever reason (travel, etc.), is part of the congregation at Mass — unless he is wearing clericals, it’s not even obvious he is a priest — and who concelebrates sotto voce .

Then he isn’t concelebrating , but rather, merely attending Mass.

How do you figure this?

If he has the intent to concelebrate, and if he is reciting the prayers in union with the priest, even if he is only softly whispering them… then he’s concelebrating.

I have no issue with this. If more priests concelebrating a single Mass translates into more graces, then I think we can all agree, the Church and the world need all the graces they can get. And even if it doesn’t, the present norms of the Western Church allow for concelebration, so it is the priest’s prerogative.

 

[Titivillus]

I have plenty of times experienced concelebrated Masses*, but I don’t have as much experience of priests attending “in choir”**, as I believe it is termed, and do not know if they are technically concelebrating or if they silently pray the canon or what (though I am pretty sure they communicate directly from the paten)? Anyone with a better grasp of the particulars care to expound?
*
I attended a minor seminary for high school with daily Mass concelebrated by many priests. I think there must have been occasions when a priest wound up unvested and in the pews – Perhaps he had arrived too late to vest? Perhaps he had already celebrated his maximum number of Masses for the day?
But I confess I don’t recall watching them closely enough to recall how they behaved.
**
I have a pretty vivid recollection that during the funeral of the late Senator Ted Kennedy it was made clear that Cardinal O’Malley was in choir and was not celebrating the funeral Mass?

 

[Michaelangelo]

How do you figure this?

If he has the intent to concelebrate, and if he is reciting the prayers in union with the priest, even if he is only softly whispering them… then he’s concelebrating.

I have no issue with this. If more priests concelebrating a single Mass translates into more graces, then I think we can all agree, the Church and the world need all the graces they can get. And even if it doesn’t, the present norms of the Western Church allow for concelebration, so it is the priest’s prerogative.

In his role as a priest the priest in the pew is joining the celebrant, and eventual concelebrants, in the epiclesis and institutional parts of the liturgy of the eucharist, but he does not have a role as a concelebrant of the mass.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

How do you figure this?

If he has the intent to concelebrate, and if he is reciting the prayers in union with the priest, even if he is only softly whispering them… then he’s concelebrating.

I have no issue with this. If more priests concelebrating a single Mass translates into more graces, then I think we can all agree, the Church and the world need all the graces they can get. And even if it doesn’t, the present norms of the Western Church allow for concelebration, so it is the priest’s prerogative.

In his role as a priest the priest in the pew is joining the celebrant, and eventual concelebrants, in the epiclesis and institutional parts of the liturgy of the eucharist, but he does not have a role as a concelebrant of the mass.

But as long as he participates in the consecration (and, I suppose, epiclesis), has he not been one of the priests who consecrates — even though nobody except he knows this — and thus a “concelebrant”. just as much as the priests on the altar? Is that not par excellence the most important part of the Mass?