The Precious Blood of Christ

Since the Spring and Summer seasons, our parish has been discussing and discerning how we might return to the practice of distributing the Precious Blood as an option at Mass. After our Parish Pastoral Council agreed that this could be a good benefit to parishioners who desired to receive the Eucharist under this species, our parish liturgy committee set about the work of how it might be implemented practically. We then went about surveying parishioners and our ministers to get a sense of what the desires and possibilities might be. Many things have changed in our parish since before the pandemic when the chalice had to be withheld as an option. For right now, our liturgy committee thought that our best option would be to offer the Precious Blood on certain special occasions.

These were some of the reasons why we’ve thought this a good path to take:

-The Principle of Progressive Solemnity: By their very nature, those liturgies of the greatest solemnity within the liturgical year demand a higher and more ceremonious ritual form than other liturgies and will, therefore, contain various ritual elements that are not usually included in more common celebrations. We see this principle at work throughout our liturgical year.  For instance: Daily Masses are shorter and less ceremonious than Sunday Masses.  Masses within the Octave of Easter are more solemn than Masses in Ordinary Time.  These varying degrees of solemnity allow the less-catechized to intuit the importance of each respective celebration.

-Reinforcement of the Catholic doctrine of concomitance: This is an important element of our faith and an opportunity for catechesis. This doctrine, which must be held by all the faithful, teaches that the entire Christ is present, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity within each Eucharistic species. Consequently, a person who receives only one species without the other does not receive less of Christ, nor one part of Christ at the exclusion of any other, nor even less grace, than a person who receives both species. Rather than giving the communicant “more Jesus,” reception from the Chalice offers another or a different opportunity to receive the same Eucharistic Lord Who was already fully received within the Consecrated Host.

-Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion: These lay men and women assist the priest as the Ordinary Minister of Holy Communion, specifically in celebrations of Mass where particularly large numbers of the faithful are present, and which would be excessively prolonged because of an insufficient number of ordained ministers to distribute Holy Communion. Our parish is blessed to have these dedicated men and women serve on regularly at such occasions. Not all of our EMHCs feel comfortable in distributing the Precious Blood for various reasons, which means we have a smaller pool of volunteers to draw from. Rather than over-scheduling them and risk burning out our lovely volunteers, we thought it best to call upon them and ask them to serve only for special occasions.

What special occasions might the Precious Blood be distributed? These are occasions that the Church already suggests as good options: 

-All the faithful who participate in the Easter Vigil, especially the newly baptized;

-The bride and groom celebrating their Nuptial Mass or jubilee;

-Those who are receiving their First Holy Communion.

-The Christmas Mass During the Night;

-Those who participate in the Holy Thursday, Mass of the Lord’s Supper;

-Divine Mercy Sunday;

-The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord;

-The Solemnity of Pentecost;

-The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity;

-The Solemnity of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ;

-The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus;

-Mass with the Rite of Confirmation;

-The Mass celebrating the patronal feast of the parish;

-The anniversary Mass celebrating the dedication of each church.

As you can see, there are a good number of occasions that may be options for our parish to see if distributing the Precious Blood would be possible. I think we will be starting with this path for Christmas this year, and seeing how things go into the future. We will keep you updated on this. Please feel free to give feedback or ask questions.

May the Body and Blood of Christ keep us safe for eternal life. Amen.

Fr. Brian Trueman