Eucharist Minister Guide (Updated 1/15/2009)

Purification of the communion cups and plates.

Starting with 1st Sunday in Advent (12/3/2006) Eucharistic Ministers are no longer allowed to purify communion cups and plates.

The new ( promulgation 3/1/2009) Archdiocese of Boston Guidelines for Eucharistic Ministers contains a mandate from the Cardinal that the purification is to be done by the priest or deacon at the end of communion. At St. Isidore we will implement this as follows.

• The corporal will be left on the altar during communion.
• At the end of communion all Eucharistic Ministers will bring all the vessels to the altar and wait for them to be purified. Altar server will bring small cruet of water (if server forgets, a eucharistic minister can bring it).
• If there are any hosts left, one Eucharistic Minister will go to the tabernacle and bring a ciborium to the altar. If there is a need for a new ciborium, a Eucharistic Minister will get it from the sacristy.
• The priest or deacon will purify the chalices and communion plates
• The Eucharistic Ministers will bring the full ciborium back to the tabernacle and the vessels into the sacristy. The tabernacle key should be brought into the sacristy as well. Altar server will bring the water cruet into the sacristy.
• Euchistic ministers may rinse the purified vessels in the sacrarium and rinse out the purificators and hang them to dry.

Other than the purification, nothing else has changed. Eucharistic ministers are still able to finish any of the precious blood that is in the cups, and to consume any leftover consecrated hosts, especially if they are stale or broken into small pieces. Precious blood or consecrated hosts should never be poured or washed down the sacrarium.

There is no need for a Eucharistic Minister to stay in the sacristy.

Procedure for using hosts from the tabernacle during Sunday Liturgy

The strong preference expressed in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (No. 13) is that all those who receive Communion at Mass receive hosts that have been consecrated at that Mass. At the same time, the Instruction specifies that sufficient consecrated hosts must be reserved to ensure that Communion is available to the faithful as needed. So some consecrated hosts need to be reserved in the tablenacle. So ideally, enough hosts should be put out at the start of mass so that all who want to receive at that mass can receive from the hosts consecrated at that mass, and there are sufficient left over to reserve for sick calls, viaticum, or other requests for communion throughout the week. The reserved hosts are also to be renewed on a regular basis so that they do not spoil with time.

There are designated people who set up the altar before each Mass. As part of that process, the person setting up checks the tabernacle to see how many hosts are reserved. If there are only a small number (say 1/2 a ciborium or less), the setup person will put out sufficient hosts for the usual number of attendees at that Mass (roughly 80-100 for the 5, 80-100 for the 8, and 160-200 for the 10:30).

If there are a great number of hosts in the tabernacle, or more than the usual number of people show up (e.g., family members for a baptism), then the reserved hosts will have to be used so that all can receive. If the setup person sees that there are too many hosts reserved, he or she will intentionally set up fewer hosts than normal.

When it is obvious at the start of communion that more hosts are needed

Euchatistic ministers should check the paten on the table at the back of the church as then gather for mass to see if there are fewer than the usual number of hosts setup. Or as they come up to altar, they can estimate whether additional hosts will be needed (one sign is that there are no hosts in one or more of the glass plates). If they are needed, one of the eucharist minister should go to the tabernacle and bring back one of the ciboria to the altar. Normally the priest or deacon is the only one who would distribute the hosts from the ciboria to the plates.

Since Christ is equally present in the hosts on the altar and in the tabernacle there is no need to genuflect before or after opening the tabernacle. One may genuflect if so desired.

When more hosts are needed during communion

The Eucharistic Minister who is standing next to the celebrant should take it upon themselves to check the other ministers' plates to see if they are running out of hosts. If it looks like more hosts will be needed, that minister should give Fr. Dave the hosts remaining in their plate. Then he or she can go to the tabernacle, take enough hosts from the tabernacle to distribute to all the other ministers, and then go back and give each minister hosts before resuming giving communion again. In other words, only one minister should go to the tabernacle and that normally would be the eucharistic minister standing next to the celebrant.

Questions:

How do you know if there are enough hosts setup? This will take a few times to get a feel for how many hosts are sufficient for each mass. The large host breaks up into 64 pieces. So for the 5 or the 8, there usually only needs to be another 20-30 of the round hosts. 20-30 hosts will sparsely cover the silver platen. For the 10:30, there needs to be another 100-130 hosts. This will cover the silver platen fully with 2 or 3 layers in some places.