This comes from a reader…
QUAERITUR:
On a somewhat lighter note, what liturgical changes do you think would have to be made for chaplains of a hypothetical Space Force to celebrate Mass in the Extraterrestrial Form? In particular, the Precious Blood seems particularly difficult to consecrate safely in zero-gravity environments, and some of the more traditional vestments might experience issues as well. I’m curious to know if The Manual has contingencies for this sort of situation.
What people come up with!
I should at this point add that I, Fr. Z, am also a character in a sci-fi series. We fight critters which want to kill, even eat, the human race. SpaceHawks!
First, ad orientem worship becomes an interesting question. Of course, when the priest is at the altar, he is facing liturgical East even if he is whizzing about.
I suppose that Roman Vestments would be more practical, since they have less fabric to float around. They should probably be a little stiff, so they won’t wave about.
It seems to me that we have to find a way to keep the Host on the paten. For that, I would use a variant of the sacred vessel called an asterisk which covered the Host (held it down) during Papal Solemn Mass. Let’s say that the sacred vessels are magnetized steel which has been gilded. The asterisk will keep a host in place. A ciborium has a cover. A chalice could have a cover as well. There is already a sacred vessel, a metal tube, called a fistula that can be used to consume the Precious Blood.
Questions remain. For example, do Communicants have to be on the same plane and with the same basic “vector” as the priest? Can they be, relatively speaking, “upside down”. How does kneeling work? Velcro on knees?
