From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
Is it allowable for a priest to consecrate a ciborium at a TLM but then distribute Hosts from the tabernacle (which is likely from the Novus Ordo), and then not distribute the new consecrated Hosts? Is there a canon or a directive that addresses this issue?
The ideal liturgical principle is that the Hosts distributed at a Mass should be consecrated at that Mass. However, there are practical reasons for distribution of previously consecrated Hosts which have been preserved in the tabernacle.
It makes no difference if the Hosts that are distributed were consecrated during a Vetus Ordo or Novus Ordo Mass: they are both validly consecrated. Neither one is less or more the Eucharistic Lord than the others.
There are some trads (often of the “mad trad” school) – or at least there were – who think/thought that Novus Ordo Hosts are somehow bad and that they will get Novus Ordo Cooties from them. That is as spiritually sophisticated as the relationship of 6 year old boys and girls on the play ground during the post lunch energy burn.
If these folks say that the Novus Ordo consecration is invalid they are in serious error. That, however, would at least be a reason not to receive: they would think (wrongly) that what is being distributed is just bread and, therefore, it would be participation in idolatry. That’s false, but it would at least be a cogent, though errant, reason.
Otherwise, if they don’t want the Hosts from the Novus Ordo preserved in the tabernacle simply because they don’t like the Novus Ordo, they are in a real intellectual conundrum: if they are validly consecrated, then they are the Lord, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. Why should they not receive such Hosts? Out of… what?… spite?… as a protest?
That would make their Communion time a moment of protest, which would put them on a plane parallel to those who wear rainbow sashes.
To repeat, the ideal liturgical practice is to distribute Hosts consecrated during that Mass. That isn’t always practical, particularly for Masses with large congregations. Consecration of many Hosts usually results in consecration of too many Hosts. They have to be reserved and distributed at some point.
We should avoid the sort of rigidity which reflects the spirit of the Novus Ordo exclusivists rather than those who truly understand the spirit of the Roman Rite.
