Valid Consecration?

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At Mass this morning, our priest read/prayed the words of consecration, with a one-time “irregularity” that I am 100% sure was unintentional. (side note: our priest is not an “innovator”…there are no liturgical abuses occurring that I am aware of, and he even tightened up a couple of minor things that had been occurring when he arrived at our parish a couple of years ago).

When consecrating the host, he solemnly read the words of consecration…for the chalice/precious blood (…"take this all of you and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood, etc…)…all while holding the host, then solemnly raising it just after ending with “…Do this in memory of me.”
He immediately followed with the actual consecration of the chalice (this time holding the chalice), solemnly repeating the same few sentences, ending with “…Do this in memory of me.”

Again, I am 100% sure that this was unintentional/accidental. What I think happened was a “senior moment” (our priest is around 70 yrs. old and, while he is ‘on fire’ for Jesus and serving Him, he can be a bit “spacy” at times)… in which he perhaps blinked or looked at another part of the page for a split-second, and looked back at the page (the wordings of the two segments seem reasonably similar enough) and continued reading where his eyes landed.

In any event, was the Eucharist validly consecrated, this morning?
I lean toward giving the benefit of the doubt, but I have to admit to receiving under both species today (which I don’t usually do), “just to be sure.”

Thanks,
C37
 
I dare not say, but know that you fulfilled your obligation.
 
Catholic37 said:
At Mass this morning, our priest read/prayed the words of consecration, with a one-time “irregularity” that I am 100% sure was unintentional. (side note: our priest is not an “innovator”…there are no liturgical abuses occurring that I am aware of, and he even tightened up a couple of minor things that had been occurring when he arrived at our parish a couple of years ago).

When consecrating the host, he solemnly read the words of consecration…for the chalice/precious blood (…"take this all of you and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood, etc…)…all while holding the host, then solemnly raising it just after ending with “…Do this in memory of me.”
He immediately followed with the actual consecration of the chalice (this time holding the chalice), solemnly repeating the same few sentences, ending with “…Do this in memory of me.”

Again, I am 100% sure that this was unintentional/accidental. What I think happened was a “senior moment” (our priest is around 70 yrs. old and, while he is ‘on fire’ for Jesus and serving Him, he can be a bit “spacy” at times)… in which he perhaps blinked or looked at another part of the page for a split-second, and looked back at the page (the wordings of the two segments seem reasonably similar enough) and continued reading where his eyes landed.

In any event, was the Eucharist validly consecrated, this morning?
I lean toward giving the benefit of the doubt, but I have to admit to receiving under both species today (which I don’t usually do), “just to be sure.”

Thanks,
C37
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The consecration was not effected and therefore the Mass would not have been valid.

It is most unfortunate that no one told him…it could have been remedied very simply in the moment if only someone in the sanctuary had quietly gone up to him at the Mystery of Faith and quietly told him “you said the words to consecrate the chalice twice…you did not consecrate the host(s)”.

As it is, not only was the Mass invalid but any hosts that were left over that were placed into the tabernacle are not consecrated. If there were indeed hosts that were placed in the tabernacle after that Mass, what is in the tabernacle now needs to be conditionally consecrated.

Someone needs to let him know also since a Mass needs to be offered for whatever was the Mass intention that was not fulfilled by the invalid Mass.
 
Whatever happened to the the intention of the priest to “do as the Church does”? If he were celebrating the same Latin rite in another language that he did not know well, and he mispronounced some of the words, would his intent not suffice to consecrate?

It is not as though this priest deliberately re-wrote or ad-libbed the prayers of the Church. There was, presumably, an epiklesis, invoking that the gifts (both the bread and the wine) both become the “body and blood”, since the prayer does not distinguish that only one element become the body and the other element become the blood, and we believe that both elements are fully “body, blood, soul, and divinity.”

I think it would be safe to take it in faith that the Eucharist was valid.
 
ChemicalBean said:
Whatever happened to the the intention of the priest to “do as the Church does”? If he were celebrating the same Latin rite in another language that he did not know well, and he mispronounced some of the words, would his intent not suffice to consecrate?

It is not as though this priest deliberately re-wrote or ad-libbed the prayers of the Church. There was, presumably, an epiklesis, invoking that the gifts (both the bread and the wine) both become the “body and blood”, since the prayer does not distinguish that only one element become the body and the other element become the blood, and we believe that both elements are fully “body, blood, soul, and divinity.”

I think it would be safe to take it in faith that the Eucharist was valid.
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The intent to do as the Church does is only ONE of the requirements for a valid Sacrament. The other two are just as essential, form and matter. If any of these are missing or defective, the sacrament is invalid.

So no, Don Ruggero is correct. There was a defect of form for the bread, which means the bread was not consecrated.

He is also correct in that the Mass itself is invalid because even though the wine was consecrated, and yes, Jesus is alive whole and entire in the Precious Blood, the Mass requires the DOUBLE and SEPARATE consecration; the Body and Blood are consecrated separately to make the Death present.

In the Host, the Blood is present only through concomitance, and in the Chalice, the Body is present only through concomitance. For the Mass to be valid, we need both the Body and Blood separate on the altar.

So all we had was consecrated wine: the Precious Blood. But we had no Body under the sacred species, which means there was no Sacrifice, and therefore no Mass.
 
ChemicalBean said:
Whatever happened to the the intention of the priest to “do as the Church does”? If he were celebrating the same Latin rite in another language that he did not know well, and he mispronounced some of the words, would his intent not suffice to consecrate?

It is not as though this priest deliberately re-wrote or ad-libbed the prayers of the Church. There was, presumably, an epiklesis, invoking that the gifts (both the bread and the wine) both become the “body and blood”, since the prayer does not distinguish that only one element become the body and the other element become the blood, and we believe that both elements are fully “body, blood, soul, and divinity.”

I think it would be safe to take it in faith that the Eucharist was valid.
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NOTHING can supply for lack of sacramental form and/or lack of matter. The host(s) were not consecrated. The Mass was invalid.
 
The only remedy here would be that the priest realized (at some point) that he did not consecrate the bread and then quietly, without drawing undue attention to the fact, actually did consecrate the bread.

Nothing else can make the situation into a valid Mass. Nothing.

Again, in anticipation of the questions and comments: nothing.
 
He may have made a simple error. Not sure how it affects validity. I’ll leave that to those with special training.
 
I hope the OP has politely and discreetly approached the priest / contacted the parish since starting this thread so that the situation can be remedied. As the reverend Don pointed out, there could be unconsecrated hosts sitting in the tabernacle… plain bread that others may believe to be the body of Christ.
 
I see no way to think of this as a valid consecration.

I recall seeing a video of Pope Benedict doing the same thing as this priest. I didn’t watch the video to see if he said the appropriate words later in the Mass or not. In the Pope’s case, there were other priests there concelebrating and the video makes it clear that at least some of the priests said the right words at the right time.

Dan
 
=Catholic37;13489795]At Mass this morning, our priest read/prayed the words of consecration, with a one-time “irregularity” that I am 100% sure was unintentional. (side note: our priest is not an “innovator”…there are no liturgical abuses occurring that I am aware of, and he even tightened up a couple of minor things that had been occurring when he arrived at our parish a couple of years ago).

When consecrating the host, he solemnly read the words of consecration…for the chalice/precious blood (…"take this all of you and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my blood, etc…)…all while holding the host, then solemnly raising it just after ending with “…Do this in memory of me.”
He immediately followed with the actual consecration of the chalice (this time holding the chalice), solemnly repeating the same few sentences, ending with “…Do this in memory of me.”
Click to expand...
Again, I am 100% sure that this was unintentional/accidental. What I think happened was a “senior moment” (our priest is around 70 yrs. old and, while he is ‘on fire’ for Jesus and serving Him, he can be a bit “spacy” at times)… in which he perhaps blinked or looked at another part of the page for a split-second, and looked back at the page (the wordings of the two segments seem reasonably similar enough) and continued reading where his eyes landed.
Click to expand...
In any event, was the Eucharist validly consecrated, this morning?
I lean toward giving the benefit of the doubt, but I have to admit to receiving under both species today (which I don’t usually do), “just to be sure.”
Click to expand...
Thanks,
C37
Click to expand...
Yes, both valid and licit:thumbsup:
 
PJM said:
Yes, both valid and licit:thumbsup:
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How, since the priest never used the words, “This is my body”?

Also, two priests have pointed out in this thread that there was no consecration of the host(s).
 
PJM said:
Yes, both valid and licit:thumbsup:
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At least 2 priest have weighed in on this: neither valid nor licit, albeit that the defect was unintentional. But still, the OP’s “obligation” was met.
 
This is a text book example of what would constitute an invalid Mass.
 
ProVobis said:
Seriously?

Where do you draw the line then?
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From my bitter experiences in the dreaded liturgical wasteland of the 1970s (and in some ways I fear those days are back to haunt us), some never draw a line. . 😦
 
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