Case LIX: Consecration Outside of Holy Mass

A priest is required to take the Viaticum to a dying person. For want of a consecrated Host, he takes an unconsecrated one, pronounces over it the words of consecration, with the intention of consecrating the Host, and gives it to the dying person. Is such consecration, in case of necessity, outside of Holy Mass, valid?

Yes, it is valid. To this question St. ALPHONSUS replies as follows: Lugo denies it because, as he says, the nature of the sacrament cannot be separated from the nature of the sacrifice...; but others commonly affirm it, because in every sacrament, whenever the minister pronounces the form over the matter with the due intention, he effects the sacrament. This opinion is indeed very probable, but the opposite does not seem improbable (Th. Mor., L. VI., n. 196, Dub. 3).

Such procedure, however, is always grievously sinful. LEHMKUHL, in his Theol. Mor., II, n. 131, teaches: He sins gravely who consecrates outside the celebration of Mass; and Dr. Müller, in his Moral Theology, states (L. III, par. 92, n. 3): Not even in a necessity however grave—for example, that Viaticum may be furnished to a dying person—is it lawful to consecrate only one of the two matters.

ADOLPH. SCHMUCKENSCHLAGER,