On an Incident envolving Consecrated Hosts

[DAPDN]

Dear friends,

Today I served as an altar servant at the Mass I usually go at Sundays. I had served before as an altar boy a long time ago when I was just a kid, so this was my first time since my coming back to the Faith and to the Church.

An incident happened today when the celebrant priest and we, the altar servants, were preparing to give communion to the faithful. As the celebrant priest was putting some of the Hosts, already consecrated, on another recipient, two of them accidentally fell on the floor. I was just next to the celebrant priest, and, within a fraction of seconds, as I saw that no one immediately took procedures to solve the situation, I instinctively decided to grab them from the floor with my hands, and then gave them back to the celebrant priest. It seemed like the most obvious thing to do, at the time.

Did I do wrong or did I do right? I am particularly unconfortable with the idea of receiving communion in the hands, but at the time, it felt like it was preferable for the Lord Jesus to have me grab His precious body with my own two hands, rather than staying on the floor, where the dirt of the feet of people lays. Is there any particular procedure for unfortunate moments like this one?

Thanks in advance!

DPN

 

[LilyM]

Absolutely you did right - after all, if you yourself were ministering Communion (as laity are permitted to do in cases of necessity) and dropped a host, you’d do the same.

 

[Aramis]

In general, most of the EMHC’s I’ve known (myself included) would hold them aside and consume them after the general communion. This is what the pastor of the parish I was trained as an EMHC in taught, and he’s got his Doctorate of Theology from Rome.

Why?
to reverently consume them, without scandalizing those who are unwilling to consume something that hit the floor.

 

[Tinajo]

I’ve seen this happen once (at my nuptial mass - the only time I’ve been close enough to see what servers do in detail anyway!) and in addition to picking up the host, one of the servers laid a folded altar cloth to cover the spot. When I asked about it afterwards, it was explained as preventing anyone from accidentally treading on His Body since some crumbs of the consecrated host might be lying on the spot.

 

[Claire_from_DE]

What you did wasn’t wrong; it was instinctive and reverent. However, since you were not an EMHC, the priest might prefer that you point it out to him, if you could do so immediately, so he could pick up the Hosts.

 

[DAPDN]

Thanks a lot for the good advices, dear friends.

Claire from DE, that’s precisely what I’m going to do if it happens again.