4/17/2021
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| Giotto, "St. Francis Renounces all Worldly Goods" |
Where do we go from here? our mission is to clarify the understanding of what constitutes sufficient and necessary safeguarding of the MBS. We have yet to look at RS or at the Roman ritual for their inputs.
We also need to revisit the purpose of this work. Is it just safeguarding the reservation of the MBS that we’re concerned about? Wasn’t there a concern about appropriate veneration as well as the administration of Holy Communion?
The scope of this study on the MBS has to do less with expounding of deep theological insights than with the the direct and immediate effect of the sheer reality of the MBS on the office of the priest. Especially, what demands does the presence of this reality make on his ability to secure the premises, or to conduct fitting and reverent veneration or to administer Holy Communion to the faithful in accord with the dignity of so great a mystery.
So, these three themes recur, and have recurred for as long as I have been considering this topic of the priests duties to the MBS: safeguarding; venerating; communicating. The themes are obviously not my own. They are expressly proposed by the Church.
Abuses creep in, though. The tabernacle key left on the mensa, the adoration chapel with no one in it, extraordinary ministers taking hosts home with them or not returning the pyx to be purified.
If these three are the topics, then let’s say the work, generally, has three parts (for starters). Each part then includes, at least, the Church’s articulated discipline appropriate to each theme. Each part also includes a catalogue of frequently observed abuses. What else? A corresponding Eucharistic miracle?
