Father, I understand what you are saying, but I am trying to understand why this does not fall under the realm of self communing. I am not trying to argue or say the original situation is wrong, but trying to understand if the transfer of the pyx is somehow different from me being handed the ciborium and removing a consecrated host myself. I was always taught that the host should not be taken directly from the vessel and consumed by anyone that could not consecrate the Eucharist.
I’m really just thinking in cases of generalities of when is it considered to be self communing. For instance if an EMHC said “body of Christ” while proffering the host in a ciborium, is it licit for the communicant to remove the host themself? At what point does it go from being giving the sacred species to taking it? I’m just trying to understand the essential of self communion and what is licit in special circumstances.
If you were taught absolutely that the Host could never be taken directly from the sacred vessel and consumed by anyone that could not confect the Eucharist, that would be incorrect, actually, for a number of reasons. In your case, for example, a Deacon would indeed self-communicate, if he is the presider at a Communion service or at a Sunday Celebration in the Absence of a Priest, among various other situations.
In this case, I presume we are talking about a situation in which the judgement was arrived at that this method presented, on whatever basis or determination, a reduced medical risk to the person sufficient to justify this method.
I have had it happen where there was a high level of infection control with a contagious patient and I decided that the person would pick up and consume the single Host from the pyx himself (the pyx being subsequently sterilised) rather than my using a gloved hand to administer the Host…the latter would be more theologically and liturgically problematic.
Whether a person has an extreme compromise of the immune system and that is the reason to proceed thus or they are contagious and that is the reason to proceed thus (which in this case would be unlikely) or there is an extreme sensitivity of some sort and there is an effort to avoid even slight cross contamination and that is the reason to proceed thus or there are other equally plausible clinical scenarios, would be nothing more than idle speculation since I do not know either the clinical situation – or, for that matter, the history involving this person.
If, for example, a person suffered a medical episode as a result of some confusion on the part of one or more persons previously, I can certainly envision a situation in which that would be obviated in the future by the person herself preparing the low Gluten host in a sealed and distinctive pyx, which I consecrated at the Mass, and returned to her directly or via one of the other ministers of Holy Communion for her to receive the consecrated Host using her own hand rather than any hand that had touched other Hosts.
You could not, however, extrapolate from a situation where you are in a exceptional circumstance – and that of an extreme application for a medical reason – that you could then extend that to a general situation, such as you describe with the ciborium and the taking of Hosts by communicants at Mass; the situations are not comparable.
When it came to the application of an extraordinary provision, typically it was less that I made the call and more that the physician did so…or at least prescribed what could and could not be medically tolerated and then, out of what was deemed medically tolerable, I had to act based on what options the norms allowed or at least made a provision for.
This is something you should study when you have a sacramental practicum involving a clinical rotation in a critical care setting.
) under Church rules. Thanks.