LITTLE APPENDIX: ON THE MANNER IN WHICH THE EUCHARIST IS TO BE MINISTERED TO THE SICK IN THESE PROVINCES, AND ON THE METHOD OF RESERVING IT

Among the faculties of Form I, which are customarily communicated to our priests by the Bishops, the 24th (p. LXXII.) reads: "Of carrying the Most Holy Sacrament secretly to the sick without light, and of retaining it without the same for the same sick, in a decent place nevertheless, if there is danger of sacrilege from heretics or infidels."

Lest in the use of this faculty abuses creep in or even persevere, the things which follow are to be well noted by priests.

1302. - 1° The faculty is given for the case in which "there is danger of sacrilege from heretics or infidels." This danger must be said to be present scarcely not everywhere among us. Nevertheless in this region also there are certain wholly Catholic places in the country, in which, when the sick person is not far distant from the churches, that danger is in no way to be feared; in which case the Eucharist will have to be carried in the manner prescribed by the Church. The Encyclical Letter of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide, given on 25 Feb. 1859 to our Bishops, not obscurely suggests this; in it, among other things, these things are read: "The Sacred Congregation further willed that the individual Prelates be urged, as by the tenor of the present letters they are urged, to keep the common discipline of the Church in this matter, as far as circumstances of time and places, and also the account of introduced customs, allow."²

2° "While they carry the Most Holy, let them avoid vain and useless conversations; rather let them give themselves to pious contemplation or prayers."³ In agreement with this admonition of the Plenary Council, pastors will repeatedly teach the people what is to be prepared in the house of the sick person, and that, while they are companions to the priest carrying the Eucharist to the sick person, they abstain from every useless conversation. "But on a journey," says Kenrick,⁴ "which requires several days" (which nevertheless today is more rarely necessary than formerly), "and where some persons met on the way occur, one cannot abstain from conversation; although speech is to be had sparingly and cautiously and with the utility of the hearers. For he sins gravely who, carrying so great a Sacrament, mingles idle conversations."

3° "The carrying of the Most Holy Sacrament is restricted to urgent causes only, and to the actual exercise of the priestly ministry."¹ But what is an urgent cause will have to be judged from the circumstances of place, time, and others.² Meanwhile it is certain that it is not lawful for a priest to carry the Most Holy Sacrament with himself from morning until evening for the sole cause that perhaps he could come upon some sick person.³

4° "A strict obligation is imposed on priests always in these cases of carrying the Holy Host upon the breast."⁴ "Never, unless in extreme necessity, should they touch either the Host itself or the sacred vessel in which it is preserved, unless they are vested at least in a stole. When they draw the Most Holy from the tabernacle in the church, let them always be vested in surplice and stole. Ministering the Sacred Eucharist to the sick, let them most diligently observe the prescriptions of the Roman Ritual, insofar as the circumstances of things permit."⁵

5° What was said above n. 1299. q. 4° and 7° concerning a priest carrying the Eucharist while riding or running will be lawful for Missionaries carrying it privately and secretly from a lighter cause.⁶

1303. - In rural churches, near which no priest resides, it is not lawful to reserve the Holy Eucharist, and it is to be consumed by the priest before he departs. Resolve the same concerning a single priest residing near a church, but departing beyond eight days (after which namely the sacred species are to be renewed), or not residing so near it that in case of fire he could remove the Most Holy Sacrament from it in time, or prevent other irreverences.⁷