What is done when the Host is dorpped on the floor?

[BonnieBj]

REcently on a Mass over EWTN a priest dropped a host while administering communion. Since the recipients were the choir and were behind a wall we couldn’t see what was done. I did see that the host was picked up and placed on the paten, but what are the prescribed procedures for this kind of event. I remember in “the old days” a big to-do was made and there were rituals.

 

[Joseph_Bilodeau]

Unless something occurs making the Host not fit for consumption, the person ministering Holy Communion usually consumes the Host himself or herself in a discreet manner after everyone else has received. A Host dropped onto a reasonably clean floor or carpet in a church should not necessarily be considered unfit for consumption, but a Host that has been in a communicant’s mouth who has been unable to swallow would be (this sometimes happens when the Blessed Sacrament is taken to patients in hospitals or nursing homes.), as might a Host dropped onto a floor where serious health issues might exist, such as a hospital. In such cases, the person ministering Holy Communion generally has to use his or her best judgement.

If a Host is rendered unfit for consumption, the Host should be brought back to the church (if the Host was outside the Church) and dissolved in water until the appearance of bread no longer exists. The water with the dissolved Host should be poured down the sacrarium and the vessel in which it was dissolved carefully rinsed and poured down the sacrarium as well.

 

[marty1818]

If a host drops at our parish on the tile, we will go grab a purificator, wet the purificator, the wipe the tile with the purificator to purify the area in which the host fell. The host is then consumed by the priest.

 

[Jayson]

I was gonna say, if it fell in a mud puddle I’d probably still eat it

 

[pazdziernik]

This past Sunday, Corpus Christi, I stayed after mass to pray. As I was leaving I saw what appeared, from a distance, to be a piece of paper of the ground in the middle of the aisle. I discovered that it was a host. I did not know if it was consecrated or not. I suspected that it was. Since, the pastor was busy with a Baptism in the rear of the Church I consumed the host. I know that I was not susposed to receive Holy Communion twice in a day if the second Holy Communion was not at Mass. I made the decision to consume it as an extraordinary circumstance. There were many people at mass for this baptism. I have never seen them before. I suppose that I will never see them again. In any event, how sad to see Jesus Christ as such on Corpus Christi.