Licit or illicit

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dmh

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We just came from Mass(?). Father “forgot?” to say the echaristic prayer, therefore there was no consecration of the bread and wine–so no Jesus present for us to receive, right? A few people noticed, including a couple of the EMHC. Should someone have told him before communion so he could have said the eucharistic prayers? I did not go to communion as it was only bread and wine and NOT our LORD. Are the people who did receive, guilty of worshiping bread and wine ( although many unknowingly )? Also, did my family and I fulfill our Sunday obligation since there was no Jesus present in the form of bread and wine? Should I mention this to our priest or not? Thank you for your help and answers.
 
Wow! In my mind, I am sure I’ll be corrected if I am wrong, No Concretion = No Eucharist.

Sorry to hear about this incident.

I will be reading the responses to this thread carefully.
 
That wasn’t just an illicit Mass, it was invalid!!! Although, I have encountered something similar here… how old is the priest? At my parish we have an elderly monsignor who sometimes mumbles through the Eucharistic prayer or stops and picks up at the wrong point. I take it on faith that the Church will provide in that case since it is most certainly his intention to correctly celebrate the Mass. He’s just physically unable to it sometimes because he can’t breathe very easily. And regardless, he ALWAYS seems to have renewed strength at the consecration. Enough strength to genuflect. Sometimes it makes me so sad to see the humble old priest struggling to get back up. Dunno how much longer he’ll be able to celebrate Mass.

If it’s a situation like that at your parish, I think that the Mass would still be valid. But omitting the Eucharistic prayer and consecration altogether?!? That’s something that doesn’t happen by accident or a result of poor lung capacity. I hate to speak ill of a priest, but I suspect that yours may have done this intentionally. You were right to not go to communion. If this happens even once more, write, call, and visit your bishop personally if you can to explain the offense.
 
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dmh:
Are the people who did receive, guilty of worshiping bread and wine ( although many unknowingly )?

Also, did my family and I fulfill our Sunday obligation since there was no Jesus present in the form of bread and wine? Should I mention this to our priest or not? Thank you for your help and answers.
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If the people who received did so out of ignorance of what was going on, then it is most certainly not the worship of bread and wine! They thought that they were going to receive their Lord, and I think that Jesus is honored by their simple faith. Probably a little ticked at that priest… but if they did not fully understand that there was no consecration, then no, they are not guilty of idolatry.

As far as the Sunday obligation goes… since this was out of your control, then quite frankly there was no obligation to fulfill. You did not know beforehand that the Mass would be invalid, and if you could not get to a valid Mass for whatever reason, everything’s ok. I had to pose this question to a priest when my girlfriend and I went to a Byzantine Divine Liturgy but found out that the priest there was very sick and there would be a Typika service instead (distribution of the pre-sanctified gifts). We were very nervous that our obligation to attend a Mass was not met. I went to a Latin church Mass later that evening but she couldn’t since she was flying home for the summer. When I emailed the good folks at EWTN about this, I was told that since we expected to be going to a Mass instead of a communion service, our obligation was, in a sense, met. You and your family are not guilty of mortal sin if my understanding is correct. If this happens again next week, though, you might want to find another Mass or Liturgy to go to.
 
I just came from mass also.Today I attended Mass at another parish. I decided to try another parish to see how the new norms document has been implimented. Our parish has always been in line.It is a local Benedictine parish. I knew they have always been a bit goofy in the way they handle rubrics. I had hoped though that they would have conformed more with the new instruction, Redemptionis Sacramentum. I was wrong.

The only improvement I saw was they used bread made according to the rubrics instead of their homemade hosts of the fluffy crumbly kind.

The chatting and visiting before mass was deafening. The talking here and there during mass was also very disturbing.

That was just the usual for this parish. That has not changed. The hand holding was as usual with even the priest holding the altar servers hands through the Our Father.

Green sacred linens and catchy cumbyya music.

I guess father forgot who the Pope was and who our Bishop is? Not mentioned at all.
[72.] It is appropriate “that each one give the sign of peace only to those who are nearest and in a sober manner[152]
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The Sign of peace was as usual a gab fest and opportunity to run from pew to pew.

Sacred vessels??? Plain clear Glass pitcher and Glasses (not a chalice in site) The priest added the water to the pitcher and consecrated it in the glass pitcher. The hosts were in a large glass dish which he consecrated them in.The woman assistant EEM (for lack of a better term) poured the wine into the glasses. At least the priest scooped the hosts out of the large dish himself and placed them into small glass dishes (read that salad bowls) Then said woman assistant took them from the altar and distributed them to the other EEMS.
[119.] The Priest, once he has returned to the altar after the distribution of Communion, standing at the altar or at the credence table, purifies the paten or ciborium over the chalice, then purifies the chalice in accordance with the prescriptions of the Missal and wipes the chalice with the purificator. Where a Deacon is present, he returns with the Priest to the altar and purifies the vessels. It is permissible, however, especially if there are several vessels to be purified, to leave them, covered as may be appropriate, on a corporal on the altar or on the credence table, and for them to be purified by the Priest or Deacon immediately after Mass once the people have been dismissed. Moreover a duly instituted acolyte assists the Priest or Deacon in purifying and arranging the sacred vessels either at the altar or the credence table. In the absence of a Deacon, a duly instituted acolyte carries the sacred vessels to the credence table and there purifies, wipes and arranges them in the usual way.[209]
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None of the above was done. Said woman attendant just whisked them away.
 
Forgot the Eucharistic Prayer? How could a priest forget to say the Eucharistic Prayer? Did he just jump from the Creed directly to the Lord’s Prayer?

JimG
 
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JimG:
Forgot the Eucharistic Prayer? How could a priest forget to say the Eucharistic Prayer? Did he just jump from the Creed directly to the Lord’s Prayer?
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I was wondering the same thing. It’s tough to “forget” to say the Eucharistic Prayer. He might mess up the words somewhow, but if there was bread and wine ever present on the altar, then the priest most certainly said the Eucharistic prayer.

Whether he said it rightly or wrongly is the question.
 
We had just said the Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might… when Father picked up the host, broke it and said, “This is the Lamb of God…”. We replied, “Lord, I am not worthy…”. Then he consumed the host and again said the “This is the Lamb of God…”, caught himself and said, "Oh, I forgot the Our Father. You could tell something wasn’t going right inside his head. So I don’t know if he hasn’t been feeling well or what, but all I know is that he left out the eucharistic prayer and the consecration of the bread and wine. He seemed embarrassed about what had happened, but didn’t seem to realize that he totally forgot about the consecration. He is a semi-elderly priest, maybe in his 70’s(?), I don’t really know. Plus he may have a lot on his mind, because the spanish parish in our town is having to close and our parish will become their new “home”. Maybe this is partly to blame. I do know that he didn’t intend to purposely forget the consecration. He’s never done that before, at least to my knowledge.
 
He did not say the words of consecration, “Take this all of you and eat of it, this is My Body…”
 
I don’t think it was consecrated then. But as it was not intentional (it sounds like) I don’t think your obligation was neglected. You did everything right as far as you were able.
 
This is a hard situation. I have served Mass for elderly priests who became a little confused, and my stubby finger was always ready to point to the exact part of the Sacramentary they needed to be at. This is what I would advise in your case–an adult acolyte (NOT a child altar server) who could serve Mass and help the priest if he loses his place.
 
On another forum (EWTN, perhaps), someone asked “how correct” the words of the consecration needs to be, as sometimes Father forgets in his old age. The answer was that it is so important to use the exact formula, that someone should be deputed to listen very carefully and point out any mistakes when they occur. The point being, someone should have spoken up immediately.

Another point to make, is that perhaps hosts consecrated at a previous mass might have been retrieved from the tabernacle and distributed? Now some people have received and others haven’t. And what happens if the consecrated and the (apparently) unconsecrated get mixed together afterwards? I think that “maybe” the consecrated hosts cease to be so, but I wouldn’t want to make that call.
 
That is what Father did. He went to the tabernacle to retrieve the consecrated hosts from another Mass. So, some of the people received Jesus, while others, did not. I did not want to take a chance, because only Jesus knows which were the consecrated hosts. So I chose not to receive. I wondered if someone shouldn’t have told Father about his mistake as there would be another Mass later that morning and he would then take the chalice from the tabernacle which held some of the unconsecrated hosts from the Mass I attended as well as some of the consecrated hosts from a previous Mass that was said. So now, you have at least two Masses in which people have unsuspectingly(?) NOT received our LORD. I still don’t know if anyone has told him of his error, albeit accidently.
 
From what was posted it seems that the Mass was invalid. However if hosts were removed from the tabernacle for distribution at Commumion at least some reveived a valid Communion. What will need to be done is those hosts that are in question will need to be placed in a special container, then placed at the proper time on the altar during the next Mass. When the next Mass takes place the priest can intend to “Conditionally” Consecrate them. They can then be placed in the taberncale, but not before.
 
Several months ago, we had a sacristan who was new. He mixed consecrated hosts with non consecrated hosts getting ready for the next mass that day. Our priest is very careful and when he found the almost empty chalice he had placed in the back already refilled before he could complete his task he had a fit.His solution was to have all the people who he could gather, quickly consume all the hosts. Consecrated and unconsecrated so the next mass would have a clean slate. I think a conditional consecration must not be valid or he would not have done so.

It was a dilemma also in that we did not have enough hosts for the next mass after the goof up. We all scrambled into our cars and drove to other parishes to borrow unconsecrated hosts to use for the next mass. We barely made it back in time before the needed time of the mass. I of course then had to scramble to another parish for mass as I missed the gospel reading while scouring for hosts. Thank the Lord for other parishes. 👍
 
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dmh:
We had just said the Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might… when Father picked up the host, broke it and said, “This is the Lamb of God…”. We replied, “Lord, I am not worthy…”. Then he consumed the host and again said the “This is the Lamb of God…”, caught himself and said, "Oh, I forgot the Our Father.
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I see; he said the Preface and the Holy Holy Holy, then went to the Agnus Dei and skipped back to the Our Father. You say he is elderly and possibly not in good health; so I’m sure it was not intentional on his part. Maybe he would appreciate having an adult server who could kind of help him keep his place in the Sacramentary, if that is allowed.

JimG
 
You may not have received Jesus in the Eucharist, but you did recieve Him in the community of the faithful, and the Liturgy of the Word. Did he pray over the gifts? Was there any indication of the Epiclesis? (…that they may become the Body and Blood…) If so - that is the true Consecration.

You really need to speak to the priest. If this is the first time something like this has happened, it could not have been malicious.

Had a weird experience myself today. We visited a new parish, and the priest referred to Our Lady in the Consecration as Mary, the Virgin Mother (deliberately leaving out “of God”). There was no excuse for this. This guy is only 45. He also did not genuflect during the Elevation of the Host and the Precious Blood. He merely bowed, and not a profound bow at that. After Mass they had a parish picnic, and he obviously is healthy - he went into the “Dunk-your-priest” tank.
 
Detroit Sue:
You may not have received Jesus in the Eucharist, but you did recieve Him in the community of the faithful, and the Liturgy of the Word. Did he pray over the gifts? Was there any indication of the Epiclesis? (…that they may become the Body and Blood…) If so - that is the true Consecration.
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I’ve never heard anything like this - please explain.

Thanks,
Betsy
 
“You may not have received Jesus in the Eucharist, but you did recieve Him in the community of the faithful, and the Liturgy of the Word. Did he pray over the gifts? Was there any indication of the Epiclesis? (…that they may become the Body and Blood…) If so - that is the true Consecration.”

Two different manners of receiving Christ. One is His True and Real presence, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. The other are receiving Him in Spirit, in the community and Scriptures.

The Epiclesis does not effect the Consecration. The priest must speak the words of Consecration “This is My body”, and “This is the cup of My blood” in order for the Consecration to take place.
 
Br. Rich SFO:
The Epiclesis does not effect the Consecration. The priest must speak the words of Consecration “This is My body”, and “This is the cup of My blood” in order for the Consecration to take place.
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You are correct. My brain works faster than my fingers sometimes. What I meant to say is if the Epiclesis was said, there would no doubt have been intent to complete the Consecration.

However, because dmh did not receive the Body and Blood of our Lord, she still experienced Him. She may have not received the Fullness of Christ, but there aren’t 2 different kinds of receiving Him.
 
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