Or the crumbs on the paten, for instance. I wouldn’t call a crumb of crust “bread,” but I still view that as having as much of the real presence as a larger host. Is that correct?
It depends on the size of the crumb. If it’s a particularly large crumb–something you would look at and think “That’s a piece of bread” then the Real Presence would remain. If it’s a particularly tiny crumb, something you would look at and think “That’s a speck of wheat dust” then the Real Presence does not remain. If it’s an ambiguously sized crumb then it is doubtful whether or not Christ is really present.
For safety’s sake, the Church tends to err ont the side of caution both before and after the consecration of the elements. Before the consecration if it is
doubtful that the matter is valid then it cannot be used. After the consecration if it is
doubtful whether the Real Presence remains then we are to assume that it does.
In obvious cases, though, (e.g., this is clearly cornbread or this clearly looks like a speck of wheat dust) then the Real Presence is not presumed and we are NOT TO SCRUPLE ABOUT THIS.
And a follow-up in one of his comments (emphasis mine):
At a certain point it ceases to be an object that has the necessary quantity to count as bread the way God set up the sacrament, and Catholic theology has traditionally regarded very small particles as falling below that threshold.
It is not necessary for the particles to be microscopic for this to happen. A particle the size of what I have termed “wheat dust” would no longer be considered bread, even if it has a chemical strucure identical to bread.
I once read (Fr Hardon? Fr Stravinskas? I can’t find it!) that if one put a drop of the Precious Blood into a glass of wine, the consecrated Blood would still be the Precious Blood but would not consecrate the wine into which it was poured, remaining distinct in its nature. And still, one would have to dispose of the wine properly as if it were all Precious Blood, because a drop, though highly diffused, was still in there, and physically inseperable. However,
Jimmy Akin counters:
But if he poured in a large amount of red wine then at some point a reasonable man would say, “That’s not the same wine any more” and at that point the accidents masking the Real Presence would have changed so much that the Real Presence would have ceased.
and
point the Real Presence would cease is not something that can be determined, any more than the precise point that so much water is added that it ceases can be determined. We can say, in general terms, that this happens when so much water has been added that it would no longer appears to be wine, but we can’t specify a percentage of change where this happens. It’s a fuzzy boundary, like the boundary between red and orange on a color spectrum.
Aquinas’ Summa seems
to agree with Jimmy Akin.
This is the Original Roman Catholic, Eastern Catholic and Coptic Catholic, etc. & Orthodox Fasting Requirement.