Question about Holy Communion

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Amandylinee

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Hi,
I struggle with scrupulosity so please bear with me.
On Wednesday after receiving the Host I received the Blood of Christ. I had chapstick on my lips, and I got the Blood of Christ on my lips. I thought there was a possibility it would be bad to consume the Blood of Christ with my chapstick, but I licked it all off of my lips anyway. I later put on some more chapstick; I was worried that the Blood of Christ was still on my lips but I put on chapstick anyway. I’ve been trying to not be scrupulous lately but I feel like I was just being careless and this has been bugging me ever since. Am I in mortal sin for this??
God Bless,
Amanda
 
No, you are not in mortal sin. You did not even commit a sin here. I also struggle a bit with scruples, as a new convert learning about sin. One helpful thing I read said that in cases where a scrupulous person fears something is sinful, but they have no knowledge of something being a sin, they should do that thing on purpose.
As an example, if I get agitated at mass because someone is rude to my child and then I start worrying about if I committed a sin by feeling angry and then I worry if I should abstain from receiving communion because I sinned, THAT would be the time to make myself go forward to receive communion anyway. If later I am informed that receiving was actually sinful, I would confess, but the reality is that my scruples were getting the better of me and the Lord would be sad if I allowed my fear to keep me from Him.
(by the way, this example is a real one from my experience)

Another thing that helps me is the verse “Perfect love casts out fear.”
Any time I get caught up in fear about sin, I remember this verse and try to turn my thoughts to God’s love for me and His desire to heal me and free me.

God bless you!
 
Sweetie, I think you did fine. :grouphug: I get freaked out by these things too, sometimes…
I’m no expert, but my guess would be that, even in the unlikely event that something remained on your lips from Holy Communion after licking them (I doubt it, but I wasn’t there), the chapstick would dilute it to the point that the form would no longer be distinguishable as wine and Christ would cease to be present.

(An example that might be helpful to think about: if the Precious Blood is spilled in church, the cleanup involves diluting the spill with holy water. Although it must still be cleaned and disposed of with proper reverence, it is no longer the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ.)
 
The world would be a better place if people had half the scruples you do.
 
One rule of thumb is that if it no longer has the appearance of bread or wine, then the sacred species is no longer the sacred species.

Just like the example given above that consecrated wine is diluted with water and then sopped up and poured into the earth, we do that because when wine is so diluted by water, we wouldn’t call it ‘wine’ anymore. The same is done with consecrated bread that has gone bad or someone in a nursing home wasn’t able to consume after it was in their mouth. It gets soaked in a cup of water until it dissolves. No reasonable person would call that ‘bread.’ At that point it gets poured into the ground.

Science tells us that when we smell the bread and wine we’re taking into our noses and lungs molecules of bread and wine. But church practice and it’s philosophical understanding of the ‘form’ and the ‘substance’ of items relies upon human understanding of categories. We don’t normally think of the smell of bread and wine as being the actual bread and wine. In the same way, tiny and nearly imperceptible amounts of the sacred species, whether it be a few micro-ounces of wine mixed in with lip balm or the ‘dust’ of bread flaking away, or watered down wine… we don’t say, that is wine or that is bread as we normally understand what a drink of wine or a morsel of bread is, thus, we don’t regard it as the sacred species anymore. You are free to wash or wipe it away without worrying about sacrilege.
 
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