The widespread failure to use the “Communion Plate,” the paten, is one of the many tradgedies resulting from the loss of the St. Pius V Mass rubrics (traditional Mass). The dropping of a complete Sacred Host or the inevitable small particles happens frequently. I served Mass for eight years during the 1940’s, when the rubrics were firmly established and observed throughout the world. I can tell you from personal experience that never once during those years when I held the paten under the chin of the communicants, assuming there were more than 5 or 6 receiving, did I hand that paten back to the priest without small particles of the Sacred Host collected on the plate.
As for Communion in the hand (which I consider to be a sacrilege), the rules for receiving in the hand state that the communicants must consume the Sacred Body in the presence of the priest (minister), and NOT walk away with the Host in their hands. I have NEVER seen that rule observed. Everyone whom I have observed walks away, then consumes the Sacred Body. From my experience with the patent for eight years, I believe that the floor, shoes, clothing, etc. are covered with those Sacred Particles, each of which is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Risen Christ. If the rule was observed, then a paten could be held by an alter server under the area of the hands as the communicant consumed the Host, thus preventing a major portion of the sacriligious loss on the floor.
Few today, including priests and many bishops realize the difference for respect for the Sacred Species. It used to be a firm rule of rubrics that after the priest, holding the the wafer between his thumb and forefinger with both hands, performed the consecration, he kept his thumb and forefinger of both hands firmly togethet, except to handle the Sacred Body, until he washed them over the chalice after Communion during the purification. If you have ever seen the large Mass Missals from those times, the pages that had to be turned during that part of the Mass had large tabs that could be grasped without using the thumb and forefinger. All this in respect for the Real Presence. One of the many other things, as an altar boy I was instructed that if some vomited after receiving Communion, that the result must be covered and protected until the priest with his annointed hands could come and clean it up. I was never aloud to touch the Sacred Vessels, all this out of respect for the Sacred Species, and as a demonstration to the world that Catholics truly believed that the Species was no longer bread, but is God. That demonstration is lacking totally today.
