Communion in the hand particles on the floor

[adamhovey1988]

I’m with you. I usually receive on the tongue, but giving the pandemic, the priest, who’s otherwise very traditional, actually prefers that we not right now, but will let you, if you go last. I checked my hands. I just noticed that my palm is more pale than my backhand. No particles or crumbs or anything like that.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

I’ve never heard of the size of the Particle determining whether or not It is the Real Presence.

Then portions of the Eucharist are lost everyday all over the world. There is no method of distributing small pieces of bread to several hundred people that guarantees literally no microscopic speck will fall off. I don’t care how ninja like the priest is, if the standard is “even a piece of the Host invisible to the naked eye remains the Host” then it’s unavoidable.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

(Yes, I know CITH was practiced in the early Church, and the Church did away with the practice. Was she wrong all those centuries?

Well, maybe. The other alternative is the Church was wrong to permit it in the early centuries, so it’s not like the Church being wrong about something like this is a crazy impossibility.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

In the Byzantine Tradition the Hosts are immersed in the Precious Blood and Communion is administered with a spoon. In one of the Eastern Churches the priest uses a pair of tongs to give Communion.

 

[Buks]

I receive in the hand, and see particle(s) once in a while (I check). Since it is only sometimes, I wonder if the issue is how the package of hosts is handled. I can easily imagine that along the line, perhaps at the church, someone handles the package in a way that causes some small degree of crushing or crumbling, so that some hosts have a particle on them at the point we receive. I tend to think this is avoidable, but you can’t except that there’ll never be a careless person involved.

 

[po18guy]

I allow the Church to decide, as I am incompetent to do so.

If God can live with that, so can I.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

In the Byzantine Tradition the Hosts are immersed in the Precious Blood and Communion is administered with a spoon. In one of the Eastern Churches the priest uses a pair of tongs to give Communion.

I don’t see how either of those would prevent even microscopic portions of the Host falling to the ground. Obviously, we do our best to be careful, but if you accept that we’re going to physically distribute something for several hundred people to consume, there’s always going to be something lost, even if it’s 1/1000000th of an inch in size.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

(Yes, I know CITH was practiced in the early Church, and the Church did away with the practice. Was she wrong all those centuries?

Well, maybe. The other alternative is the Church was wrong to permit it in the early centuries, so it’s not like the Church being wrong about something like this is a crazy impossibility.

Another alternative is that the Church is neither “wrong” to mandate COTT, nor intrinsically “wrong” to permit CITH by indult. That does not vitiate the fact that CITH is conducive to visible, unseen fragments ending up in places and circumstances where they shouldn’t be.

Margaret_Ann:

I’ve never heard of the size of the Particle determining whether or not It is the Real Presence.

Then portions of the Eucharist are lost everyday all over the world. There is no method of distributing small pieces of bread to several hundred people that guarantees literally no microscopic speck will fall off. I don’t care how ninja like the priest is, if the standard is “even a piece of the Host invisible to the naked eye remains the Host” then it’s unavoidable.

That’s not the standard. Whether a particle of size X retains the accidents of bread (or wine) is the standard. Appearance is one of those “accidents”.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

That’s not the standard. Whether a particle of size X retains the accidents of bread (or wine) is the standard. Appearance is one of those “accidents”.

I agree. I’m responding to the idea that the Host always remains the Real Presence, regardless of size.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

Thank you for posting this! Btw, I might still have that issue of The Angelus.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

That does not vitiate the fact that CITH is conducive to visible, unseen fragments ending up in places and circumstances where they shouldn’t be.

So is COTT. That’s my point. There is no method outside of a controlled laboratory environment that perfectly guards against this. I’ve seen someone bobble COTT and have it slip off the tongue and onto the ground. I have no doubt that the communicant meant no irreverence and it was a genuine mistake, but it happens.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

That’s not the standard. Whether a particle of size X retains the accidents of bread (or wine) is the standard. Appearance is one of those “accidents”.

I agree. I’m responding to the idea that the Host always remains the Real Presence, regardless of size.

I do not think that @Margaret_Ann is correct on this. I realize that traditionally, there were pious sentiments about the angels plucking up the nano-microscopic particles that fly into the air, unseen by human eyes, but that was never Catholic doctrine, just sentimental piety. I go with Aquinas. Jimmy Akin also had some good things to say in his article — I liked his reference to the “common estimation of men”.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

That does not vitiate the fact that CITH is conducive to visible, unseen fragments ending up in places and circumstances where they shouldn’t be.

So is COTT. That’s my point. There is no method outside of a controlled laboratory environment that perfectly guards against this. I’ve seen someone bobble COTT and have it slip off the tongue and onto the ground. I have no doubt that the communicant meant no irreverence and it was a genuine mistake, but it happens

Traditionally, that was when you called the priest over to retrieve the Host and purify the floor.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

Traditionally, that was when you called the priest over to retrieve the Host and purify the floor.

But then why not do the same thing if someone fumbles the Host and drops it while receiving in the hand? Why can’t the same safeguards and procedures work in that case?

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

anyway, I realize we’re not going to solve this one today. but OP, I think you can safely walk into a church and pray without stressing about this.

 

[Irishmom2]

I have never seen a priest or a communicant drop the host. Not saying it doesn’t happen somewhere, just that I have never seen it. Have I gone to some kind of special churches in all my years that it hasn’t happened? No, I don’t think it happens as often as some would have us believe.

I am one of the 7-8 women that clean our church every week. We have not found hosts lying around. There are no crumbs on the dark colored carpet in front of or behind the altar Where we vacuum each week.

I just don’t think it happens as people lead others to believe.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

Traditionally, that was when you called the priest over to retrieve the Host and purify the floor.

I can’t post the link but this is a true story:

The Day the Host Dropped

The pre-Vatican II rubrics for when a Host is dropped, like the rubrics of the Latin liturgy, safeguarded the reverence due to the Blessed Sacrament. The May 1949 American Ecclesiastical Review explained:

“This procedure requires that the spot on which the Sacred Host has fallen be purified, usually with a dampened purificator, and then scraped and the scrapings thrown into the sacrarium [small sink in sacristy that drains into ground under the church]. Authors, generally, in order to avoid delay in going on with the distribution of Holy Communion, interpret the fulfillment of the rubric to allow marking the spot on which the Sacred Host has fallen, either with a linen cloth or with the plate used with the cruets, the priest returning after Mass to purify the place in the manner prescribed in De defectibus. ”

This strict procedure not only gives God the reverence that is His due, but profoundly impresses the spectator, as it impressed me at a young age.

The year was around 1965, I was a boy of about 7 years old. My father took me for Sunday Mass to the “Italian Parish”, Our Lady of Consolation in Philadelphia. The Mass was still in Latin, the sacred atmosphere still pervaded the church and the liturgy, though the first updrafts of change were in the wind.

During Communion time on this particular Sunday, the priest accidentally dropped a consecrated Host. We were sitting up front, and my father drew my attention to it.

The priest briefly interrupted the distribution of Communion to fetch a small white cloth which he placed over the Host on the floor. The distribution of Holy Communion resumed, with the priest and altar boy carefully stepping around the Veiled Guest.

My father purposely kept me after Mass so that I could see the purification rubric from the front pew.

All was done simply, quietly, for there was no talking in church whatsoever back then, in reverence to the Blessed Sacrament.

The priest and the altar boy approached the spot near the altar rail inside the sanctuary, the spot covered with a white cloth. The priest then dropped to his knees, lifted the veil, retrieved the Sacred Species and consumed it with dignity and decorum. Slowly, reverently, still on his knees, he then cleaned and purified the section of the floor where the Host had dropped.

He took his time. There was no rush. An air of solemnity, holiness and adoration pervaded his every move.

I was fascinated and edified by the procedure. I remember thinking to myself, “truly, the Sacred Host is the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” because the priest tended to It with awe-inspiring care and reverence.

It was the best catechism lesson on the Real Presence I ever had.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

Imo, they should but then again I don’t have a say in the matter

 

[Margaret_Ann]

In the EF, the altar boy has a paten with a long handle that he puts under the chin of every communicant. The altar rail cloth is there too. The priest MUST keep his index fingers and thumbs joined from the consecration to after communion. There’s lots of rubrics the priest must follow in order to safeguard the Blessed Sacrament.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

The guy shook the back of unconsecrated hosts, before removing one. then he flicks the one host with is thumb and forefinger. In other words, he set up the situation in order to make it look worse than it ever is.

Keep in mind that God the Father makes the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus, he also has the power to make it cease being the body and blood of Jesus if it lands on the ground by accident or is taken to be abused in anyway.

This doesn’t mean we can have a cavalier attitude when receiving the Eucharist, just don’t limit God’s power about it.