Article III. On The Attention Of The Minister

61. Attention is customarily distinguished as twofold: one internal, the other external. Internal attention is the application of the mind to those things which are being done. External attention is partly something negative, namely, the absence of any external action which is incompatible with internal attention, and partly something positive, insofar as it causes the external work truly to be done. Attention was treated more broadly above, II, n. 354.

1. For the valid administration of the sacraments no internal attention is required, but external attention is required and suffices.

Thus all teach, except Lacroix, whose opinion St. Alphonsus²⁴⁵ calls scarcely probable. The reason is that, when external attention exists, even though all internal attention is lacking, the action of administering the sacraments, by force of the prior intention, remains truly human. Moreover, for the valid administration of the sacraments it suffices that the act be truly human and be performed in the person of Christ, as was established above. Therefore, a sacrament is validly conferred whenever the minister truly pronounced the necessary form over valid matter, although he was voluntarily distracted.

2. For the licit administration of the sacraments, internal attention excluding every voluntary wandering of the mind is required in addition.

For the reverence due to the sacraments so requires, as is evident in itself. Hence a minister voluntarily distracted during the administration of the sacraments commits a sin, which nevertheless does not exceed venial guilt unless a true danger of erring in those things which pertain to the essence of the sacrament arises from it. But if a priest during the consecration itself in Mass were altogether voluntarily distracted, then, on account of the great irreverence committed against Christ at the very moment when He miraculously descends into the hands of the one consecrating, according to several authors there would be mortal sin; this, however, is denied by others²⁴⁶ and is not certainly established.

²⁴⁵ L.c., n. 14.

²⁴⁶ Cf. St. Alphonsus, l.c.