Pick your own host?

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bluerose

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I’ve attended Mass at two different parishes in El Paso, TX in the last few months and in both churches, there was a large bowl of unconsecrated hosts sitting near the entry with a pair of tongs and a ciborium. The procedure is for people who are planning to receive communion to choose a host from the large bowl and add it to the ciborium. I assume this is so that the priest does not consecrate too many hosts for a particular Mass.

I was taken aback. If the usher hadn’t pointed it out to me, I wouldn’t have known about it and would have received, thus (I assume) shorting a parishioner who had put a host in the ciborium for themselves.

Has anyone else seen this?
 
Yes, quite frequently when I was smaller and we’d be camping so we’d drive into a small town for Mass on Sundays. My university also does it. Usually a few extra hosts will be added “just in case”. Failing that, the priest can break hosts into halves and quarters of the need arises. Worst case scenario, someone has to make a spiritual communion.
 
bluerose said:
I’ve attended Mass at two different parishes in El Paso, TX in the last few months and in both churches, there was a large bowl of unconsecrated hosts sitting near the entry with a pair of tongs and a ciborium. The procedure is for people who are planning to receive communion to choose a host from the large bowl and add it to the ciborium. I assume this is so that the priest does not consecrate too many hosts for a particular Mass.

I was taken aback. If the usher hadn’t pointed it out to me, I wouldn’t have known about it and would have received, thus (I assume) shorting a parishioner who had put a host in the ciborium for themselves.

Has anyone else seen this?
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Yes, it is quite common, and, as the previous poster said, usually extra hosts are added, just in case. No need to worry. 🙂
 
We do that at my parish. I think it was Father’s way of getting around the sacristan’s habit of putting out a ciborium filled with enough hosts to ensure we’d be able to provide a 777 full of Catholics with Viaticum should there be a crash. No, really, that’s one of her biggest worries. Can’t convince her that Fr. would have ample time to say Mass before he’d even be allowed near the site.
 
It used to be very common in the late 60’s and early 70’s; some parishes used tongs and some didn’t ( this is just about the time that people started to be overly germ conscious ). Father always added extra hosts and there were always hosts in the tabernacle. Vatican II encourages that the congregation receive host consecrated at that mass, if reasonably possible. Both of these practices have seemed to fall by the wayside; most masses I go to use at least half of the host from the tabernacle.
 
DJJG said:
It used to be very common in the late 60’s and early 70’s; some parishes used tongs and some didn’t ( this is just about the time that people started to be overly germ conscious ). Father always added extra hosts and there were always hosts in the tabernacle. Vatican II encourages that the congregation receive host consecrated at that mass, if reasonably possible. Both of these practices have seemed to fall by the wayside; most masses I go to use at least half of the host from the tabernacle.
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Our Pastor doesn’t go to the tabernacle unless he runs out of Hosts. He prefers not to break them so that everyone can have enough.
 
It’s not a bad idea but you need 100% cooperation for it and what are the odds you’ll get that when you have 500 or even 100 or so in attendance?
 
Quite common
I’ve also been to Masses where the Usher’s asked at the door if one would be receiving communion.
I’ve also been asked as an Usher to keep a “mental” head count of the people passing thru the doors. The bells ring at my church about 5 minutes before Mass and all of the Ushers add our counts and the Head-Usher takes that count up to the sacristy. Not sure how Father counts out the hosts… suspect that after so long he has a feel for it 😃
 
Oh, yes. We used to do that for daily mass when it was held in a chapel a bit of a distance from the tabernacle in the main church. There were maybe 40 people, on average, in attendance. Only a very few extra hosts were added as the priest consumed any remaining hosts at each mass.

Now that six parishes have been merged into one, daily mass attendance is about 150 and the chapel we use has a tabernacle so we don’t do this any longer.
 
This was the practice at my previous parish. The ushers added to it if it seemed there wasn’t enough or more were taken out of the tabernacle. My current parish doesn’t do this. The sacristan sets the hosts out and some are taken from the tabernacle.
 
We only see it around here for smaller church buildings where there is only one primary entrance. Several area churches have multiple doors, thus the practice (in my mind) wouldn’t make much sense.
 
This was common at my mom’s home parish in a very small town, when we visited grandma growing up. There were tongs and we’d carefully take one and place it in the ciborium. The parish was not very big (not sure how many families, but many have moved away or passed away in the years).
 
Yup. My parish is the only one in years that doesn’t do this. Our Deacons eyeball the crowd and pretty much know how many handfuls to use.
 
It would not be feasible for my parish to have that practice because we are an historical mission with a lot of tourists every week. I suppose that the practice is alright since they are yet unconsecrated hosts, but I would not prefer it unless I saw everyone using the tongs. I’m not a major germaphobe, but I have seen too many people walking out of the restroom without washing their hands, or with just a quick rinse.
 
We did this in Los Gatos. That was not a particularly small parish. Don’t know if they still do it or not.

I think I recall my brother mentioning they did that at his parish, but I’ve not seen it done here in a while.

Remember that getting a fraction of a wafer does not mean “you get less of Christ”.

Blessings,
Stephie
 
Allegra said:
I’ve never seen this.
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No, neither have I, and I’m very glad I never have. I must be one of those people that DJJG (post #5) criticizes for being “overly germ conscious.” I wouldn’t want to swallow a host that had been left out in the doorway to gather dust and attract insects, not to mention for people to sneeze on.

On the other hand, I have no objection at all to being handed a host that’s spent a few days in the tabernacle, rather than a newly consecrated one. Does the consecration carry a “valid until” date? I don’t think so.
 
BartholomewB said:
No, neither have I, and I’m very glad I never have. I must be one of those people that DJJG (post #5) criticizes for being “overly germ conscious.” I wouldn’t want to swallow a host that had been left out in the doorway to gather dust and attract insects, not to mention for people to sneeze on.

On the other hand, I have no objection at all to being handed a host that’s spent a few days in the tabernacle, rather than a newly consecrated one. Does the consecration carry a “valid until” date? I don’t think so.
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I’m not really concerned about germs. They actually do set the hosts on a little table right in the walkway when people come in, but they don’t encourage folks to dig around in there. I have no idea what they do with extras, but I do know that there are several nursing homes in the area that people take communion to, so maybe that’s where it goes?
 
It’s not a widespread practice. I haven’t seen any parish in my archdiocese do this, not that I visited every one of them, but I have been in at least 30 of them. I have seen in done this way once or twice in another state, but that was about 20 years ago.
 
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