Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
 
May the Lord give you His peace! Every priest has his little idiosyncrasies, especially when it comes to celebrating the Holy Mass. Sometimes you can hear the little whispers of the parishioners; Why does he do that? Which is, of course a great question. There are a bunch of little things that I do that have sparked a whole bunch of questions. I love questions and I have answers, mostly.

People have noticed that I do this little thing after Consecration where I keep my thumb and pointer fingers together. Some have asked: Why does he do that? Others; I haven’t seen a priest do that since I was a child. So, why do I do that? Good question.

When a priest is ordained, after the bishop lays his hands on the priest’s head conferring on him the Holy Priesthood, the bishop will then consecrate the priest’s hands. Using the Sacred Chrism, the oil mixed with balm and blessed by the bishop at the Sacred Chrism Mass (the same oil used to bless the forehead of the newly baptized and confirmed) the bishop anoints the palms, thumbs, index and middle fingers of the priest. It is with these fingers that the priest will take mere bread, pronounce the words of consecration; This is my body and transubstantiate the bread into the Sacred Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. With those same fingers he grabs the Sacred Chalice filled with mere wine and by the words of consecration; This is the chalice of my blood transubstantiates it into the Sacred Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. In priest speak we refer to these six fingers as our Canonical Digits.

One of our American Saints and Martyrs is Saint Isaac Jogues (d. 1646), He was a missionary from France to the Native Americans in upstate New York. He made many converts to the faith and some enemies. The Mohawks captured him and tortured him by chewing off three of his six fingers that he used for celebrating the Holy Mass. Saint Isaac escaped, went back to France and received special permission to celebrate Holy Mass with his other fingers. Out of love for the Native Americans he returned to them and again preached the gospel and baptized many. Eventually he was martyred for the faith. The Mohawk Indians are Catholic today because of the missionary zeal of Saint Isaac.
For well over 1,700 years every Catholic priest would only touch the Holy Eucharist with his consecrated fingers. It was a way of reverencing our Lord’s true, real and abiding presence in the Blessed Sacrament. It was such a part of the rubrics that, like Saint Isaac Jogues, if a priest didn’t have these fingers anymore, he would have to get special permission from Rome to use any of his other fingers. It was a way for priests to not only show reverence but also to remind him of the sacredness of the Holy Eucharist and the sacredness of his own priesthood, a gift given by God to him for the good of God’s people. A gift he did not deserve nor could ever be worthy of, freely given to him by God.
Like all things with the Church’s practices, it also served a very practical purpose. Because the Church teaches that in each particle of the Holy Eucharist, no matter how tiny, is truly, really, fully and substantially present Jesus Christ. After touching the Sacred Host, the priest would keep his thumbs and index fingers joined so that, if there were any particles of the Holy Eucharist on his fingers, the particles would not fall to the ground and be desecrated through neglect, indifference or carelessness. It once again reminded the priest of the sacredness of the Holy Eucharist, that it is a who not a what!  That who being the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity.

After Consecration the priests would never touch anything but the Holy Eucharist with those fingers and if not touching the sacred Host, he kept them tightly united. Only after the altar server poured water over his fingers into the chalice, thus purifying his fingers, did he separate them and begin to touch other things with them again. Any particles of the Holy Eucharist that would have been on the priests’ fingers would be washed into the Sacred Chalice and then the Sacred Chalice would be purified.

Since the new rubrics for the New Mass do not tell me what to do with my fingers, and, believing in our Lord’s true, real, abiding and substantial presence in the Holy Eucharist, I have elected to follow the tradition of the Church. For me, it not only is a means to protect the Holy Eucharist, but it also reminds me of the fact that, after the words of consecration, I am holding Jesus Christ truly present in the Holy Eucharist. When I hold up the fractured Sacred Host for you to see and proclaim to you the words of Saint John the Baptist; Behold the Lamb of God and when I say: The Body of Christ, I mean it!

After the Second Vatican Council the Church has allowed, in extraordinary circumstances, lay people to assist the priest in distributing Holy Communion. Although their hands are not consecrated in the way a priest’s hands are, they too are to be very careful to purify their fingers in what we call the ablution bowl. That’s the water bowl next to the tabernacle used only for purifying the fingers of those who will not be purifying the Sacred Vessels.

For those of you old enough to remember, Holy Communion was always given on the tongue. No one ever would receive in the hands. According to present day Church rubrics, communion on the tongue is still the preferred option (but that is another letter for another day). Now, when people do receive in the hand, they are to be as careful as the priests in making sure that not the smallest particle of the Sacred Host is neither on their palm or their fingers. If there are particles of the Sacred Host, it should be consumed immediately.

That was a long answer to a very simple question. However, the reason for why I do what I do has to do with my own desire to treat the Sacred Host with as much reverence as possible and to protect Our Lord form any unintentional sacrileges; Why? Because I love our Lord Jesus Christ and in my love for Him, I wouldn’t treat Him any other way than with the utmost reverence. Keeping my fingers closed after Consecration and until purification also reminds me of the sacredness of the Holy Priesthood of which I am not worthy.

I’ll end with a little story about Saint Francis: A town had a very bad and wicked priest. The townspeople had had enough of him. When Saint Francis came to visit that town, the people dragged the priest to Saint Francis hoping that Saint Francis would give him a good scolding. When all the people gathered and they stood the priest before Saint Francis and told him of the priest’s behavior, Saint Francis dropped to his knees before the priest and kissed the priest’s hands saying; Whether you are a saint or sinner I don’t know. All I know is that from your hands alone can I receive my Lord in the Most Holy Eucharist. The priest fell to his knees and began to weep, and his life was never the same.

May God Bless you and may Mary keep you,
Fr David Mary