§ I. On the Attention of the Minister

1215. - Definition. Attention is the application of the mind to the things which are being done, or it is an act of the intellect by which a man considers that which he is doing.

Division. Attention is distinguished as twofold: one internal, which consists in the advertence itself of the mind to that which is being done; another external, which excludes every action physically incompatible with internal attention. - See the things said at n. 402.

Principles. - I. For the validity of the conferral of Sacraments no other attention is required except that which is found in every truly human act. Therefore Sacraments can be validly ministered even by a distracted Minister, or one thinking at the same time about other affairs. The reason is, because in order that an act be and be considered human, what is looked to is not actual attention, but the procession of the act itself from an act of the rational will. Moreover attention often does not depend upon the will of man; but Christ could not require in the Minister of the Sacraments a condition which is sometimes impossible.¹

II. For the licit conferral of Sacraments attention is required, so that every voluntary distraction be absent. The reason is, because the reverence due to the Sacrament demands that it be treated diligently, and that the danger of erring be avoided. Nevertheless, according to the common sentence of theologians, voluntary distraction ordinarily does not exceed venial sin, unless one exposes himself to a danger of gravely erring in the form.²

They except the Eucharist, i.e. the canon, and especially the Consecration and Communion, during which every notable voluntary distraction, on account of the greatest dignity of the Sacrament, is probably mortal. Others, however, deny this. St. Alphonsus adheres rather to the former sentence.³