Do married priests/vicars need to purify themselves before celebrating Sunday divine liturgy/service

[George720]

I honestly have no idea how often Eastern Catholic priests celebrate their liturgy.

Daily Liturgy would most assuredly rule out children!

We do Sunday Liturgies, plus major Feast Days - Some 15 per year, I should think, plus 2 Presanctified per week during Lent. The Service normally lasts an hour and a half, and follows an hour long Orthros Service on Sundays…

So that the Daily Latin Mass now, at least for this aging miscreant, makes total sense in its requirement for a celibate Priest… Marriage wouldn’t even matter in terms of celibacy if daily Mass were done… And there is a sense, in the Eastern Church, that the wife is a key element in the Priesthood of her husband… The Latin Church is more akin to the Priest being almost “married” to the Church… The Eastern Church has this level of “marriage” only in Her monastic priests, although in a derivative sense in her widowed ones… Yet they still have a worldly family… Some, however, do become monastics, and some this for the sake of the Episcopacy…

Looks like I misread you again - Please, again, forgive me!

geo

 

[mythbuster1]

The Sunday Mass is full-length, by which I mean there are normally the Gloria, an Old Testament Reading, a Psalm, a New Testament Reading, the Gospel Acclamation, a Gospel reading, and a recitation of the Creed after the Homily. This format is used for weekday Masses only on Solemnities or for special events like weddings and funerals. Of course, there are seasonal variations: the Gloria is not sung on Sundays of Advent and Lent, we don’t read from the Old Testament during Paschaltide, reading instead from Acts of the Apostles, and Palm Sunday has two Gospel readings.

 

[twf]

I think a priest abstaining from marital relations is more akin to fasting than ensuring purity. Fasting from food is also traditional prior to receiving communion.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I think a priest abstaining from marital relations is more akin to fasting than ensuring purity. Fasting from food is also traditional prior to receiving communion.

I agree with this.
I would note that in the Latin Rite church, the fasting from food has also been reduced greatly from what it used to be. In the past, one would have to fast from food from midnight the night before, until receiving at Mass the next day. Nowadays we just have to fast from food for one hour before receiving.

 

[mythbuster1]

In instances of necessity, the priest who is conscious of mortal sin with no opportunity to confess before Mass must make an Act of Perfect Contrition with resolution to confess at his next opportunity. Perfect Contrition with a resolution to confess at your next opportunity effects absolution in anticipation of your next Confession, thereby providing the requisite state of grace in a case of necessity. A priest who celebrates Mass after making such an Act of Perfect Contrition does not incur sin thereby, provided there is a case of true necessity (e.g. he is the only priest in the parish, and the faithful would be precluded from fulfilling their Sunday obligation if he left to go to Confession).

 

[po18guy]

Some threads become so toxic, I’d rather take my chance with the virus.

 

[tafan2]

Well, as posted above, depends on which ones. However, in Eastern Catholic Churches it is customary for Priest to abstain from sexual relations for at least a day before celebrating Liturgy. I am not sure if it is indeed required with Roman Catholic Priests who are married (converts from Anglicanism for example).

Thanks, hate to speak for the OP, but it seemed a couple of the answers treated it as a *dumb" question. It obviously was nit, and I had thought this was the case in many Eastern Churches. Or at least had been in the past.

 

[ltwin]

I think a priest abstaining from marital relations is more akin to fasting than ensuring purity. Fasting from food is also traditional prior to receiving communion.

And that’s fine. Fasting is a great spiritual discipline. I was reacting to the OP’s use of the word “purify” as if being married made someone impure.

 

[Paul_Edwards]

in Eastern Catholic Churches it is customary for Priest to abstain from sexual relations for at least a day before celebrating Liturgy.

Interesting, does this mean they don’t celebrate liturgy every day, or that they don’t end up having relations in the end?

 

[XXI_4]

I did not know that Eastern Rite Priests are required to do the daily mass?

I had no idea…

Only in the latinized Eastern Catholic Churches.

 

[RyanBlack]

Interesting, does this mean they don’t celebrate liturgy every day, or that they don’t end up having relations in the end?

At least in the Eastern Churches of the Byzantine Rite, daily Divine Liturgy isn’t part of our tradition, except in monasteries. I can’t speak to the traditions of the Alexandrian, Armenian, and Syriac rites with respect to daily liturgies.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

So we have a tradition that holds that when someone is not Prepared to Receive Holy Communion, an Angel lifts out the Gift from the Body and Blood in that person’s Spoon as he or she receives, and it acts in the Grace transmitted as if it were Antidoron and Holy Water…

That goes against 1 Cor. 11: 27 et seq:

[27] Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. [28] But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. [29] For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.[30] Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep.

[27] “Or drink”: Here erroneous translators corrupted the text, by putting “and drink” (contrary to the original) instead of “or drink”.

[27] “Guilty of the body”: not discerning the body. This demonstrates the real presence of the body and blood of Christ, even to the unworthy communicant; who otherwise could not be guilty of the body and blood of Christ, or justly condemned for not discerning the Lord’s body.

If an Angel could take the Real Presence of Our Lord from the appearances of bread and wine, then no one would ever receive Our Lord unworthily and consequently not be under condemnation. It sounds like the EOC believes in consubstantiation (i.e. the substance of the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ coexists with the substances of bread and wine) versus the Catholic teaching that after each consecration, the substances of bread and wine no longer exist and it is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ under the appearances of bread and wine.

Sight, taste, touch in Thee are each deceived,
The ear alone most safely is believed…

(Excerpt from the Pange lingua)

Furthermore, all the prayers that both priest and people pray for a worthy Holy Communion would be unnecessary, like as seen here:

Grant that they may serve Thee with fear and love, and be always made worthy of Thy Holy Mysteries without blame or condemnation…

Not for judgement nor for condemnation be for me the partaking of these Thy Holy Mysteries, O Lord…

The Catholic teaching of transubstantiation is the only one that accords with Scripture.

 

[George720]

That goes against 1 Cor. 11: 27 et seq:

The Catholic teaching of transubstantiation is the only one that accords with Scripture.

Well, Margaret_Ann, I should think that THAT settles THAT!

My only plea might be to lamely observe that the general health of these folks does seem to be a tad sub-par, but of course this proves nothing, since many Saints are life-long invalids with sickly lives… Nor is that tradition Holy Tradition, but is a local one where the fast is not kept, as Holy Tradition supplies, but is understood delusionally as no longer all that binding…

And whole Churches can actually believe that fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays is not a necessary part of Receiving Holy Communion on Sunday… Hard to imagine, but true, I know… I know one in Minneapolis, as a matter of fact…

It is good to know that the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching on this matter is fully in accord with Holy Writ…

geo.

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

In instances of necessity, the priest who is conscious of mortal sin with no opportunity to confess before Mass must make an Act of Perfect Contrition with resolution to confess at his next opportunity.

Thank you for explanation! That makes sense I can’t believe I missed that our Priest probably told us this but I misunderstood at the time. It was very close to my conversion years back so I was not familiar with Act of Perfect Contrition or anything like that.

 

[mythbuster1]

Remember Perfect Contrition- contrition motivated by sorrow at having offended God, for it may save your soul. You never know when you may be stricken by sudden illness or injury, leaving you no opportunity to receive the Last Rites. Perfect Contrition, with the desire to confess allows you to die in a state of grace even if you can’t confess or be anointed.

 

[George720]

As usual, we are pretty much out of synch with the world, but only by a week this year…

So things are looking up!

geo

 

[dochawk]

plus 2 Presanctified per week during Lent.

but those exist in the context of fasting from the Divine Liturgy during lent, and as an accommodation to the difficulty ongoing all week without the Eucharist.’

modernly, though, its seems that weekday liturgy is little offered or attended outside of Lent . . .