4/9/2021
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| Giotto, "Confirmation of the Rule" |
Priestly vigilance excludes using adulterated substances as the matter for the MBS.
The priest, in selecting the matter for the MBS should either use recourse to experts above suspicion or make them himself at home. The bread is from wheat alone; the wine pressed from grapes, alone.
The ’29 SRC instruction next addresses the particular care taken lest fragments of the MBS be lost.
It repeats the doctrine that the entire Body of Christ is present in each fragment. It indicates that fragments which fall to the ground are “alas…mixed with dirt and trodden under foot!”
This part of the instruction clearly reflects faith in the Real Presence.
It urges prevention of such accidents by attention to how and by whom the hosts are made. That the makers be of “irreproachable honesty” and experienced. It commends the use of houses of religious for this purpose.
It next urges the observance of the Rubrics of the Missal which provide for the removal from the hosts of “any fragments that may be adhering” to it. It cautions the nice placement of the hosts into the ciborium rather than being thrown in a heap.
It draws the priest’s attention to the corporal which it says must be free from little pieces of wax which “can sometimes be hardly distinguished” from the fragments which are collected on the corporal. Likewise, for the purpose of easily collecting any fragments it urges the corporal “be kept always white, and free from stain.”
Again all of these reflect belief in the Real Presence.
