Never mind…I found this answer on
%between% a blog by a Canon Lawyer. I like it. It’s complicated; difficult to understand; and fully cited from canon law. Awesome! Here’s the full post (emphasis mine):
"The right answer to the right question
5 November 2003
Circumstances usually make it too difficult to answer individual questions in a blog format, but Mark Brumley has raised a good one:
Code:
Ed, I just read a Q & A concerning the point at which during the Mass one arrives too late lawfully to receive Communion. The answer raised a number of issues with me, issues which I anticipate others may have concerns about as well. First, what does the Church require in the matter? Second, shouldn't the issues of conditions for receiving Communion under be distinguished from the conditions for fulfilling one's Sunday obligation? I appreciate what the respondent was attempting, but it seems to me that his answer was problematic. Perhaps it would be helpful if you were to address the matter on your blog. I would have interest in linking to it on mine. Thanks. Mark.
In pertinent part, the Q & A Mark refers to reads as follows:
Question: At what point in time during Mass is it considered too late for anyone coming into the Mass to receive Communion? These days I see a lot of people who enter the Mass even as Communion is being given and they head straight to receive. Is this right?
Answer: Like most priests, I am loath to give a straight answer to this question because, in a way, it is a catch-22 question for which there is no right answer. … Although I prefer not to hazard giving a precise cutoff moment, certainly someone who arrives after the consecration has not attended Mass, should not receive Communion, and if it is a Sunday, go to another Mass.
I think this answer is wrong in several respects and I will offer below what I think is the correct reply. But the answer also underscores the importance of two important obligations that fall on those of us privileged to be approached by the faithful with questions.
First obligation: Answer correctly the question posed. Here, the question posed was “At what point in time during Mass is it considered too late for anyone coming into the Mass to receive Communion?” The correct answer is that one’s eligibility for Communion is not determined by the time of one’s arrival at Mass. A Catholic who is not conscious of being in grave sin (cc. 915-916), has fasted for an hour (c. 919), seeks the sacrament at a reasonable time (c. 843), and has not already received (c. 917), is eligible for Communion (c. 844). **To state that anyone who arrives late to Mass, even “after the consecration," may not receive Communion is simply wrong. No provision of Church law supports such a position. Indeed, it runs afoul of several canons upholding the faithful’s fundamental right to the Eucharist (cc. 213, 912) and leads people to assess inaccurately (perhaps embarrassingly so) the eligibility of others to participate in the Eucharist. **
But, then to go on and answer additionally that such a person needs to go to another Sunday Mass thoroughly confuses the question posed with one not actually asked, and that in turn leads us to another obligation.
Second obligation: Help the questioner ask the question he might, or also, want answered. Here, the questioner might (I say might, as there is no evidence of this in the question itself) have wanted to know “How much of Mass can be missed before one cannot be said to have satisfied the Sunday obligation?” A very different question indeed. In response, one should help the questioner see first that the Sunday obligation is not a Communion reception obligation at all, and that receiving Communion no more fulfills the Sunday obligation than not receiving Communion means one has not fulfilled the Sunday obligation. Once that distinction is clear,
helping the questioner avoid more legalistic descriptions of the Sunday obligation is easier, the unity of the entire Eucharistic celebration can be stressed, and the importance of being present at and participating in the whole liturgy is more obvious.
To the insistent questioner still demanding to know just how late one can be and still have it count, one must simply reply “The Legislator (Pope) has not told us how much of Mass one may miss under what conditions and still have it count toward one’s Sunday obligation, but this much is clear: if you arrive during, let alone after, the Entrance Rites, you are late, and you may be sure that you’ll being taking up your reason for being late with God at Final Judgment." Finally, the blanket assertion that “certainly … someone who arrives after the consecration … should go to another [Sunday] Mass” also needed, but unfortunately did not receive, some important nuances and qualifications. But enough of this.
It is not easy to avoid morphing questions we are asked into those we thought we were asked, or even into those we think we should have been asked, but that’s our duty as experts in canon law, liturgy, theology, and so on, to say nothing of our responsibility to get the answers right. If I react thus when I see a fellow seemingly commit these errors, it’s only because I bear the regret of having committed similar ones myself and hope others can avoid my mistakes. +++"
