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FloridaCatholic
Guest
not everything a saint says/does is doctrine
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Brendan_64
Guest
That is correct, but what they say is worth listening to. What St Jacinta had to say about the Eucharist is indeed worth listening to.
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Brendan_64
Guest
I thought it was 20 minutes or half an hour, but we won’t argue over timings.
But what constitutes consumption? To consume food is for it to enter the digestive system. Has a fragment caught between the teeth been consumed?
On another point, I do sometimes think about tea and coffee in the hall straight after Mass with the Christ still present inside you.
But what constitutes consumption? To consume food is for it to enter the digestive system. Has a fragment caught between the teeth been consumed?
On another point, I do sometimes think about tea and coffee in the hall straight after Mass with the Christ still present inside you.
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PetraG
Guest
A sacrilege is any violation or misuse of something sacred. It does not have to be deliberate and therefore it is not always a sin.
I would agree with those who say that this is not a sin because it was not deliberate nor was it neglect of normal care. You normally do not expect to find a fragment of the Sacred Host lodged on your teeth. You try to clear your mouth of all fragments when you consume Holy Communion in the first place and you assume that doing your best is sufficient.
OK, so in the future someone who has found he has gaps where things lodge might try not to allow the host in that part of his mouth, so as to avoid an unintentional repeat. It is objectively desirable, however, to avoid a scrupulous attitude, because this puts a soul in danger of "straining out the gnat but swallowing the camel (Matt 23:24), which is a serious spiritual trap. You only have so much attention to spread over your day and, as Steven Covey put it, “the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”
I think when we find we have unknowingly committed a sacrilege it is better to reflect on how often we unknowingly fail to reverence Our Lord by failing to practice charity or mercy. I’ve always liked this poem in that regard:
The Fool’s Prayer (by Edward Rowland Sill)
The royal feast was done; the King
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: “Sir Fool,
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!”
The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.
He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the Monarch’s silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!
"No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool;
The rod must heal the sin: but Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!
"'T is not by guilt the onward sweep
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
'T is by our follies that so long
We hold the earth from heaven away.
"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heart-strings of a friend.
"The ill-timed truth we might have kept–
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The word we had not sense to say–
Who knows how grandly it had rung!
"Our faults no tenderness should ask.
The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
But for our blunders – oh, in shame
Before the eyes of heaven we fall.
“Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;
Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!”
The room was hushed; in silence rose
The King, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
“Be merciful to me, a fool!”
So…I think when we are guilty of unintended offenses, the thing to do is to ask for mercy and to ask to be given the grace to extend mercy to those whose foolishness wounds us, lest we deserve the penalty due to hypocrites.
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Lifeisbeautiful3
Guest
@(name removed by moderator), please define ‘mistreating’ - if OP doesn’t know the host was in his teeth and flosses it? If he has a stomach bug and vomits a piece of host up?
That’s beyond scrupulous. OP did nothing wrong.
That’s beyond scrupulous. OP did nothing wrong.
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Lifeisbeautiful3
Guest
@(name removed by moderator) - inside of 15 minutes he should do … ‘what’, exactly?
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PetraG
Guest
If you were picking your teeth within 15 minutes of receiving Holy Communion, you would swallow whatever it was, rather than disposing of it in another way.
If you were cleaning up something spit out that had retained the appearance of the Sacred Host, you would take care of it in the same way as a if it had been dropped by accident during the distribution of Holy Communion but could not be consumed (which is to say to dilute it beyond recognition, if necessary, then treat it like a sacramental).
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CelticWarlord
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I’m afraid my parish priest hasn’t heard of this. With his lapel mic on you can hear him crunching away from down in the basement.
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CelticWarlord
Guest
The topic has been covered most amply. But if you need a bit more, here’s a piece from Father Larry Richards. Listen beginning at the fifteen minute mark;
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Hope1960
Guest
That was what I was taught as a kid, but now I often chew, sometimes legit dissolve.
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CelticWarlord
Guest
Not to worry, my friend. We each do what we find comfortable in many situations. To be honest, I wish Father would at least turn off the microphone before he chomps on the host. It is rather disconcerting. 
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