The Eucharist while online mass is presented

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homeboundandalone

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My Catholic Faith is passionate but I need guidance about the Liturgy of the Eucharist during online or live streaming masses as they are presented.
I feel incomplete because I don’t get to participate or receive the actual Body and Blood of Jesus. I am homebound because of underlying medical conditions and my wife is physically handicapped with Multiple Sclerosis leaving her without an immune system.

My faith has led me to place a host and wine in front of the television as the priest presides through the Liturgy of the Eucharist and the consecratory prayer. I find so much relief and spiritual fulfillment because of my faith that Jesus becomes truly present as the consecratory prayer fulfills its purpose of bringing Jesus’ presence in the bread and wine. As long as the priest is the celebrant of the liturgy this seems to be a valid expression and reception of Christ for us homebound believers.
I have no intentions of abusing this or creating a movement over it, I just need guidance to assure that I am still within tradition while accomodating our needs during this pandemic. I miss mass and Eucharist so much.
 
homeboundandalone said:
My faith has led me to place a host and wine in front of the television as the priest presides through the Liturgy of the Eucharist and the consecratory prayer. I find so much relief and spiritual fulfillment because of my faith that Jesus becomes truly present as the consecratory prayer fulfills its purpose of bringing Jesus’ presence in the bread and wine. As long as the priest is the celebrant of the liturgy this seems to be a valid expression and reception of Christ for us homebound believers.
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Are you saying you believe that the bread and wine you place in front of you transubstantes into the true Body and Blood of Christ because the priest is celebrating Mass on the screen in front of you? If so, then no, that is not correct. It’s not possible. Intent matters when it comes to the Sacraments, and the priest has no idea that you’re doing what you’re doing. It wouldn’t become the Eucharist even if you had that bread and wine hidden under the altar near the priest’s feet.

I am very sorry you cannot attend Mass at this time.
 
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We’ve had several past threads about people who want to sit in front of the live stream with their own bread and wine. I sympathize, I know it is very hard to go without receiving Jesus. I went for over 2 months without receiving and we just recently opened up here. It was very hard.

However, Fauken is correct. Your personal bread and wine don’t become the Eucharist.

Your great faith would enable you to make an awesome spiritual communion though.

I hope you are able to soon return to Mass or have a priest or EMHC bring Jesus to you at your home.
 
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homeboundandalone said:
My faith has led me to place a host and wine in front of the television as the priest presides through the Liturgy of the Eucharist and the consecratory prayer.
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I’m sorry, but I do not think this is a healthy expression of faith.

I HIGHLY recommend that you listen to this homily from the 4th Sunday of Lent 2020 about “Spiritual Communion and God’s Will”


I pray you listen to this homily & that it is a help.

God Bless
 
If the Sacraments Aren’t Essential, Nothing Is Essential
The faithful need to be reminded, through words and deeds, that there is nothing more essential than the sacraments. [John Clark Catholic Registry

Last year, I wrote a column arguing that if priests and bishops refuse to stand up for the Sacrament of Matrimony, they will eventually grow reluctant to stand up for the other sacraments as well. I sorely hoped I would be wrong. With some of the clerical responses to COVID-19, however, that’s a prediction that has come true in ways far worse than I could have imagined.
For millions of Catholics — as we all know quite well — neither clerical Baptism nor Communion nor Confession nor Matrimony nor Confirmation nor Holy Orders nor Anointing of the Sick has been available for months.
The end-of-life sacramental issues have been the most newsworthy. In some dioceses in America, dying without the sacraments has become the new normal. Many a Catholic goes to bed at night worried that if he gets sick anytime soon — with any illness — his call to the rectory might go unanswered, and sacramentally unaddressed.
There have also been beginning-of-life sacramental issues, as infant baptisms have been postponed indefinitely. (Presumably, some Catholic parents have baptized their own babies during this time. But with catechetics as it is in America, many Catholic parents are unaware that they are sometimes permitted to baptize their own children — nor would they know how to baptize them.)
This is tragic.
The Code of Canon Law (867) states, “Parents are obliged to take care that infants are baptized in the first few weeks.” That’s a weighty obligation, especially when you consider why : “The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude…” (CCC 1257).
Some might be quick to point out that God’s love and mercy is not confined to the sacraments; indeed, the Catechism states, “God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments.” Here, the Catechism makes a powerful point, but — if overemphasized — this can tempt us to laxity, as has been on such horrid display these last couple of months.
In other words, some Catholics might start thinking that if God does not truly require the sacraments, then why bother receiving them at all?
 
How many Catholics have been at home for the past three months asking themselves this question? How many have come to doubt the essential nature of the sacraments, or even of the Mass? In many ways and instances, the princes and prelates of the Church have sent a mixed message in this regard. There are those priests and bishops, for instance, who are happy about the ability to livestream Masses to American homes. Much as I’d like to share their optimism, I fear that they will come to serve as a trojan horse in the spiritual lives of Catholics — meaning that Catholics may come to see no essential difference between attending Mass in person and viewing a virtual Mass. But the difference is clear not only on a liturgical basis, but on a physical and metaphysical level as well.

In watching livestream Masses during the COVID-19 situation, it is not the case that we have been fulfilling our liturgical obligation ; it is that the obligation has been abrogated . That is an essential difference that the priests and bishops should painstakingly make clear to the laity.

If approached with the proper disposition, watching Mass at home may constitute prayer, but it does not constitute “assisting” at Mass. As Pope Pius XII explains in Mediator Dei :

The worship rendered by the Church to God must be, in its entirety, interior as well as exterior. It is exterior because the nature of man as a composite of body and soul requires it to be so.…Every impulse of the human heart, besides, expresses itself naturally through the senses; and the worship of God, being the concern not merely of individuals but of the whole community of mankind, must therefore be social as well.…Exterior worship, finally, reveals and emphasizes the unity of the mystical Body, feeds new fuel to its holy zeal, fortifies its energy, intensifies its action day by day…” (emphasis added)

Most immediately, the faithful must understand the central importance of the Eucharist. Like many families, our family has made spiritual Communions during this time, but a spiritual Communion merely expresses the desire to receive Jesus sacramentally; it does not constitute receiving Jesus sacramentally. That is a metaphysical difference.

Yet, despite all this, there are those who will insist that they feel like they can attend Mass at home — that they “feel more spiritual” in their own living rooms. It is going to prove difficult to put that genie back in the bottle.

Some of those in the highest positions of power in the Church have failed to teach the central importance of the sacraments. And the response to COVID-19 has highlighted this glaring omission. To the priests who have been heroically serving during this crisis, we appreciate everything you’ve done. But please know this: we have hungered and thirsted for the sacraments, and we have been starving for the Holy Eucharist. We need you to remind us faithful through your words and deeds that there is nothing more essential than the sacraments.

[JOHN CLARK Catholic Registry
 
I’m sorry, but the article you cited does not at all support what you are doing, and nowhere did I say the Sacraments are not necessary. They are. But the Sacraments have both a form and matter to them, and if one is missing, then it’s invalid. Spiritual communion is not putting up bread and wine in front of a televised Mass and it transubstanting into the Eucharist. It is a prayer asking to receive Jesus spiritually since we cannot receive Him physically. A priest cannot consecrate what he does not intend to consecrate into the Eucharist. That is a settled matter in theology.
 
homeboundandalone said:
My Catholic Faith is passionate but I need guidance about the Liturgy of the Eucharist during online or live streaming masses as they are presented.
I feel incomplete because I don’t get to participate or receive the actual Body and Blood of Jesus. I am homebound because of underlying medical conditions and my wife is physically handicapped with Multiple Sclerosis leaving her without an immune system.

My faith has led me to place a host and wine in front of the television as the priest presides through the Liturgy of the Eucharist and the consecratory prayer. I find so much relief and spiritual fulfillment because of my faith that Jesus becomes truly present as the consecratory prayer fulfills its purpose of bringing Jesus’ presence in the bread and wine. As long as the priest is the celebrant of the liturgy this seems to be a valid expression and reception of Christ for us homebound believers.
I have no intentions of abusing this or creating a movement over it, I just need guidance to assure that I am still within tradition while accomodating our needs during this pandemic. I miss mass and Eucharist so much.
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Unfortunately, we cannot do this. The Eucharist cannot be “remotely” consecrated. Pushing the argument as far as it could possibly be pushed, the priest has to have the intention of consecrating these particular Hosts, and his intention cannot include Hosts that are in front of random computer monitors or television sets. This is something that evangelical Protestants might do, but they regard the Lord’s Supper as a mere symbol, whereas we know that the Holy Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the living Christ.

I make the distinction of “these particular Hosts” because, when I was a teenager, I noticed a ciborium on one of the credence tables and it was full of Hosts. I asked the priest “weren’t those consecrated too, when you celebrated the Mass?”. He said no, because he didn’t intend to consecrate them — they were in place for a later Mass. He explained that intent determines whether they are consecrated or not — it’s not as though there is a “spiritual force field” around the priest at the time of consecration, when any Hosts within X radius automatically get consecrated.
 
It might help you to know that these kinds of situations have existed prior to COVID.

Back in the early 13th century, that is 800 years ago now, the entire country of England was laid under the Interdict. And this was well before the “Reformation”. I believe close to 3 years went by where no priest or bishop could administer the Sacraments.

It was speculated that this would lead to a widespread renunciation by the people of their faith.

In actually, that century, the 13th, is widely regarded by historians as the Magnificent Century; a century dedicated to seeking God through the magnificence of Gothic architecture, the incredible theological gifts of St. Thomas Aquila’s, etc.

The people of England went on after the Interdict was lifted to engage even more fully in their Catholic lives and practices.
 
I offer a whole-hearted thank you to all who responded with loving guidance. I will relay the information to my nursing home and residential home bound friends.
 
You should arrange for the local parish to send a Minister of Holy Communion to your nursing home as soon as possible, and on a regular basis, so that you may avail yourselves of the Sacraments as it is your right and duty.
 
You do not make it clear but imply that you believe that the bread and wine you are placing in front of the TV screen are consecrated by the priest who is celebrating the televised Mass.

This raises a whole host of questions; however, the simple fact is the bread and wine you place near the TV aren’t consecrated. For any sacrament to be valid there are a number of requirements that have to be met. One is the intent of the minister. To consecrate bread and wine at Mass the priest must intend to do this. He cannot simply intend to consecrate any bread and wine. If you think that through we’d be in a very strange position in that all bread and wine in the world that existed at that point would be consecrated, and all the implications that stem form that. No, the priest must intend to specifically consecrate bread and wine that is in a specific time and place. The priest does not know it is there in front of your TV. It simply does not, and cannot, happen.
 
homeboundandalone said:
, I just need guidance to assure that I am still within tradition while accomodating our needs during this pandemic.
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No. It is not OK to do what you have described and no this bread and wine do not become consecrated through the TV.

Call your priest and ask for communion for the homebound.
 
L’eucharistie est bien la chose la plus étrange et la plus mystérieuse qui soit. Comment comprendre que ce morceau de pain devienne le corps du Christ. Quand on parle d’institution de l’Eucharistie, on désigne à la fois de façon très originale la tradition sur le repas et le partage du pain.

Que dit de l’Eucharistie?

«Ceci est mon corps, ceci est mon sang.»

Je dirai tout simplement qu’à la lecture de textes comme ceux de la Transfiguration ou sur l’institution de l’Eucharistie au cours de la dernière Cène, mais une fois une critique historique réalisée, il ne reste à peu près rien de ces textes pourtant si lourds de l’enseignement théologique. En conclusion je pense qu’il n’y a rien d’étonnant dès lors si de telles explications n’aboutit souvent qu’à des résultats fort équivoques. Sur cet arrière-fond je conclurai que la doctrine de l’Église vit en effet de la liturgie eucharistique.
Avec mes Amitiés
Wahrani.
 
My first language is Arabic and second is French, but I’m going to translate you according to a Google translation:

The Eucharist is indeed the strangest and most mysterious chosen. How to understand that this piece of pain becomes the body of Christ. When speaking of the institution of the Eucharist, indicates both in a very original way the tradition on the meal and the sharing of the bread.

What does the Eucharist say?

“This is my body, this is my blood.”

I would simply say that at the conference of texts such as those of the Transfiguration or on the institution of the Eucharist during the Last Supper, but once a historical criticism has been carried out, almost nothing remains of these texts yet so heavy with theological education. In conclusion, I think it is not surprising since such explanations often only succeed on the basis of very ambiguous results. Against this background, I will conclude that the doctrine of the Church does indeed live from the Eucharistic liturgy.

My friendships
Wahrani.
 
First of all, your post is hard to understand from a language barrier standpoint.

Second, if I am understanding correctly you’re trying to make a post debunking the Eucharist on a Catholic forum and on a thread that is not about that topic.

Please kindly read the user FAQ. As a non-Catholic you are expected to show respect for Catholic teaching here and not be arguing against the Eucharist on an unrelated thread.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
Second, if I am understanding correctly you’re trying to make a post debunking the Eucharist on a Catholic forum and on a thread that is not about that topic.
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I am not sure you understood correctly. I derived the opposite meaning from his original French and the translation thereof. Correct me if I am wrong, though; the poster, being a Muslim, has motivated reason to disbelieve the Real Presence.
 
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Homeboundandalone,

If you live near me, I will bring the Eucharist to you. I live in mid-Michigan, lower peninsula. We need only determine the time and place and I can do the rest. If you are not living near me, I suspect that there will be others near where you live who would do the same for you as I am promising. No Catholic should ever - ever - be denied the gift and promise of sacramental grace if it is available (which, I suspect in your case, it is). You should be able to receive the body and blood of Christ without impediment.

Please call your parish, explain your situation and ask them how to proceed based on the information you provide to them. If (God forbid!) the parish denies your request, please contact your diocese immediately and explain your situation to them. I assure you, they will not deny you the opportunity to receive the Eucharist. The Church will not deny sacramental grace to her people.

On another and very important point for consideration, we, as Catholics, must never prefer virtual reality for veritable reality. The internet present a false reality, a digital reality; essentially a technological ruse that tends, by its very nature, to replace face-to-face reality. It offers people a place to hide from our life in the flesh in all its complications, tensions and consequences. The Mass on-line is nothing more than a show and we become an audience. The Mass in person, however, is a prayer of the faithful that achieves its promise: Christ is truly present to us in His body, blood and divinity. Let me know if I can be of assistance and may God bless you with His abundant love.
 
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