Intinction by Laity

[PhilotheaZ]

We have a large number of non-English speaking people at our Mass who wouldn’t understand and instruction to consume the Host and would just get very upset.

I think the minister’s hand placed over the top of the chalice accompanied by a gentle shaking of the head “no” would be universally understood.

 

[tee_eff_em]

We have a large number of non-English speaking people at our Mass who wouldn’t understand and instruction to consume the Host and would just get very upset. They usually just ignore what your saying, look at you weirdly and sort of try and get to the cup and self-intinct.

I understand the language difficulty, but is it really easier to take the host from the communicant!? (I myself consume the host straight away, but if I didn’t and someone tried to take it from me, I can’t imagine I’d be particularly compliant?)

Rather than having someone trying to worm a consecrated Host past your hand and jostling the Precious Blood its easier, in our community anyway, just to intinct for them and then let the priest deal with it after Mass (he’s pretty multilingual)

This is also spoken to in *Redemptionis Sacramentum *#94 and the GIRM #160:
The faithful are not permitted … to hand [the sacred species] from one to another.
(And yes, that includes minister-to-faithful-to-minister-to-faithful-…)

If these are regular parishioners, perhaps the priest could occasionally catechise from the pulpit on this and similar matters?

:twocents:
tee

 

[anon77300002]

Another reason to return to receiving under one species only.

True. I’ll add that it’s another good reason to return to receiving on the tongue.
My personal belief is that only a priest should touch the host.
Consider this quote from Father James McLucas:
The fact is that many priests do have an instinctive reaction against the presence of the non-consecrated hand touching the Body of God. A non-consecrated hand in the tabernacle, or reaching for the Sacrament at the reception of Holy Communion, violates an intimacy that was, before the engineering of liturgical “roles,” exclusively the priest’s.[7] A dynamic equivalent to what would fuel the emotions of a husband who realizes another has shared the exclusive intimacy with the one to whom he has permanently committed himself, is present within priests.[8] The sense of alienation is more intense for the traditional celibate priest because he is aware that his spouse, the Church, has arranged and promoted the nonexclusivity.
Link:
/articles_emasculation.htmlhtt//www.latinmassmagazine.com/articles/articles_emasculation.html

 

[japhy]

But for further confusion: GIRM 161 (distribution under the species of bread alone) *also indicates only a priest (and I think, by implication, the priest celebrant)! GIRM 162 further allows distribution by “other priests who happen to be present” or by “extraordinary ministers”. Which raises the question: Does GIRM 162 likewise modify #287?

I would posit that it is not.

The US Bishops suggest that “the need to avoid obscuring the role of the priest and the deacon as the ordinary ministers of Holy Communion by an excessive use of extraordinary minister might in some circumstances constitute a reason either for limiting the distribution of Holy Communion under both species or for using intinction instead of distributing the Precious Blood from the chalice.” (NDRHC 24) This implies that the US Bishops see intinction as being permissible only by ordinary ministers (priests and deacons); the document is from 2001.

Furthermore, GIRM 191 makes it clear that the acolyte (the “regular” extraordinary minister of Holy Communion), when Communion is distributed under both kinds, “administers the chalice to the communicants or holds the chalice if Communion is given by intinction.” Although… EMHCs are permitted to distribute the Host also (“they are always to receive from the hands of the priest celebrant the vessel containing either species of the Most Holy Eucharist for distribution to the faithful”, GIRM 161).

Tricky. But the oral statements from the Church (and the norms from the USCCB) seem to restrict the practice to ordinary ministers.

 

[Ignatius13]

I have just finished my training as a Eucharistic minister and we were told that if someone attempts intinction you cannot refuse them as that would be to refuse them the cup and that although it is not aloud the best course of action and the one we should take as Eucharistic ministers is to take the host from the communicant, intinct it for them and place the chalice under their mouth and give them communion. This is to stop them spilling the blood. We were also told that we should tell the priest about it after Mass and they will have a quiet word with the communicant so they know not to in the future.

The best thing to do would be to place your hand over the cup and say that they must consume the host prior to receiving the cup. It is better for them to be a bit miffed at you than for you to willfully do something which is specifically prohibited. Wanting to not cause a scene is not a mitigating reason for committing sacrilege.

 

[Ignatius13]

Hi,

I’d like to go back to this for a moment. I believe there is a difference. If we go back to the reasons we are called to disobey legitimate authority, it is only in matters of Faith (doctrine) or morals. I doubt this would be a mortal sin, unless possibly extreme defiance and/or disobedience where a communicant was definitely told not to intinct, and did it anyway. My pastor did instruct that the commuicant was not to self intinct, but also instructed the EMHC not to withhold the chalice, if the communicant attempts to intinct.

I agree that it should be addressed, but not that it is a sactilege. Sacrilege must be a willful act of desecration, not a misunderstanding of norms and the reasons behind them.

Lux

First, I’m not quite sure where you are going with the disobeying legitimate authority thing.

Second, I did not say that it was necessarily a mortal sin, (if I did, I beg forgiveness. I must have been carried away in my zeal.) but that it was grave matter in a moral sense of the term: one of the three preconditions for mortal sin.

Third, it would indeed be sacrilege. Sacrilege and desecration are two wholly different acts. While the committing of the sacrilege might not end in mortal sin for the person committing it, because of a lack of knowledge, it is still sacrilege and thus grave matter. Failing to act to prevent this sort of atrocity while in a state of power or perceived power would cause scandal and make you an accomplice in the act.

Sorry forgot to paste this from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

Real sacrilege is the irreverent treatment of sacred things as distinguished from places and persons. This can happen first of all by the administration or reception of the sacraments (or in the case of the Holy Eucharist by celebration) in the state of mortal sin, as also by advertently doing any of those things invalidly. Indeed deliberate and notable irreverence towards the Holy Eucharist is reputed the worst of all sacrileges. Likewise conscious maltreatment of sacred pictures or relics or perversion of Holy Scripture or sacred vessels to unhallowed uses, and finally, the usurpation or diverting of property (whether movable or immovable) intended for the maintenance of the clergy or serving for the ornamentation of the church to other uses, constitute real sacrileges. Sometimes the guilt of sacrilege may be incurred by omitting what is required for the proper administration of the sacraments or celebration of the sacrifice, as for example, if one were to say Mass without the sacred vestments.

 

[bpbasilphx]

Another reason to return to receiving under one species only.

**Not a good reason at all.

But it IS a good reason to have at least two deacons ministering with the Holy Chalices.**

 

[bpbasilphx]

The fact is that many priests do have an instinctive reaction against the presence of the non-consecrated hand touching the Body of God. A non-consecrated hand in the tabernacle, or reaching for the Sacrament at the reception of Holy Communion, violates an intimacy that was, before the engineering of liturgical "roles,"

Our hands, along with the rest of our bodies, were consecrated at Baptism and Chrismation/Confirmation.

 

[Ignatius13]

The fact is that many priests do have an instinctive reaction against the presence of the non-consecrated hand touching the Body of God. A non-consecrated hand in the tabernacle, or reaching for the Sacrament at the reception of Holy Communion, violates an intimacy that was, before the engineering of liturgical "roles,"

Our hands, along with the rest of our bodies, were consecrated at Baptism and Chrismation/Confirmation.

Only in an abstract sense, not the real consecration of Holy Orders. You might consider yourself “consecrated to God,” but men in Holy Orders have literally been consecrated. What is received in Baptism and Confirmation is an anointing. don’t seek to usurp the rightful role of those in Orders: not everyone is meant to do everything.