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Jonathan Ross wrote: |
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Hi, guys —
At Ash Wednesday Mass today, the priest broke the host in two when he handed it to me.
- Is there any significance as to why he may have done this?
Jonathan
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| { Is there any reason why, when the priest placed the whole host in my hand, it broke in two? } |
Eric replied:
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Jonathan —
It has profound significance indeed.
It means he foresaw that he wouldn't have enough hosts to distribute to all the communicants in line, so he was trying to conserve.
Rest assured though that you receive the whole Eucharist even in a broken piece of it.
Eric
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Jonathan replied:
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Eric,
You misunderstood . . . when he placed the “whole” host in my hand, he did so in a way where the host broke in two for me to consume.
Jonathan
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Eric replied:
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Jonathan —
I suspect it was just accidental. There is no significance to this.
Eric |
Jonathan replied:
Thanks for the explanation.
Jonathan
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Bob replied:
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Jonathan,
He probably was doing one of two things:
- in one case he was giving you a portion of the large Host that is elevated for all to see, which is more than he wanted to consume, or
- he could have been stretching to accommodate the number of communicants anticipated with a short supply of hosts.
Beyond these practical considerations there is no obvious reason he would do that.
- A third possible reason is that the priest is attempting some type of liturgical novelty because the Scriptures say Jesus “broke” and “gave” it to the disciples, so this priest was trying to reenact that in an individual basis with each communicant.
That would be a heterodox practice which would not only be greatly impractical but it would also create a liability of many unwanted particles that could be mishandled.
Unfortunately the way priests are trained these days there is a great deal of license afforded which gives too many the notion that they have to be creative to be relevant, and many novelties have arisen as a result. The only way of knowing what happened is to see if he does this with everyone and then asking him.
Peace,
Bob Kirby |
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