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Question

Dear Father Angelo,

first of all, thank you for your enormous commitment and the help you offer  to me and to all those who want to improve.

I have a question about the words of the consecration of the Bread and Wine. For some months now  our priest, instead of saying “Take This, all of you, and eat of It, for This is my Body, which will Be given up for you”, he says “This is my Body, offered for the love for you …”. The first time I was astonished and I felt really bad after the mass (it still upsets me). I wonder if it is permissible to change the words and if the consecration takes place equally. A person of my acquaintance pointed this out to the priest, but he replied that this is fine.

Some time ago a well-known priest from the parts of Rome, in his online broadcast, said that absolutely no word can be changed, but one must scrupulously adhere to what the Holy Church says.

While waiting to receive your reply, I thank you and cordially greet you.

Anonymous (from Italian Switzerland)

Answer

Dear friend

1. The Council of Florence decreed that the consecrated words of the Eucharist are “the words of the Saviour with which he effected this sacrament” (D. 698).

2. According to the General Order of the Roman Missal, the following are the words of consecration: “Take This, all of you, and eat of It, for This is my Body, which will Be given up for you” and “Take This, all of you, and drink from It, for This is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me”.

3. Words required for validity are “This is my Body” and “This is my Blood”  because they signify and realise the presence of the body and blood of Christ.

All other words concern the integrity of consecration.

4. Therefore the consecration made by that priest is valid but is illegal because he has arbitrarily changed one of the central words of the Eucharist.

5. It should be noted that the words prescribed by the Missal are the same as those reported by Saint Paul, who says: “ For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you” (1 Cor 11,23-24).

Saint Paul says he learned this directly from the Lord.

6. That “which is for you” must be translated given up for you because that is exactly what it is. The prophet Malachi predicting the sacrifice of the New Testament that it would be offered everywhere (while that of the Jews could only be offered in Jerusalem) says: “ For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts”(Mal 1,11).

7. The Didaché, a text from the second half of the first century, stresses that it is a celebration of sacrifice: “But every Lord’s day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one who is at odds with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned” (Didaché 14,1).

8. Therefore that priest who arbitrarily changed the words of consecration was not faithful to the very words of the Lord, but interpreted them.

No one is authorised to do this.

In fact, he is not allowed to.

9. That priest should be reminded that the faithful have the right not to alter the words of the liturgy.

Priests are ministers of the sacred mysteries. And ministers are required to be faithful as Sacred Scripture reminds: “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy” (1 Cor 4,1-2).

10. For this reason the Instruction Redemptionis sacramentum of 25.3.2004 says: “The reprobate practice by which Priests, Deacons or the faithful here and there alter or vary at will the texts of the Sacred Liturgy that they are charged to pronounce, must cease. For in doing thus, they render the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy unstable, and not infrequently distort the authentic meaning of the Liturgy” (n. 59).

11. Already before John Paul II in the letter Dominicae Cenae of 24 February 1980 had said: “The priest as minister, as celebrant, as the one who presides over the eucharistic assembly of the faithful, should have a special sense of the common good of the Church, which he represents through his ministry, but to which he must also be subordinate, according to a correct discipline of faith. He cannot consider himself a “proprietor” who can make free use of the liturgical text and of the sacred rite as if it were his own property, in such a way as to stamp it with his own arbitrary personal style. At times this latter might seem more effective, and it may better correspond to subjective piety; nevertheless, objectively it is always a betrayal of that union which should find its proper expression in the sacrament of unity. Every priest who offers the holy Sacrifice should recall that during this Sacrifice it is not only he with his community that is praying but the whole Church, which is thus expressing in this sacrament her spiritual unity, among other ways by the use of the approved liturgical text. To call this position “mere insistence on uniformity” would only show ignorance of the objective requirements of authentic unity, and would be a symptom of harmful individualism.

This subordination of the minister, of the celebrant, to the mysterium which has been entrusted to him by the Church for the good of the whole People of God, should also find expression in the observance of the liturgical requirements concerning the celebration of the holy Sacrifice. These refer, for example, to dress, in particular to the vestments worn by the celebrant” (Dominicae cenae, n. 12).

12. What about these priests who ask the faithful to be obedient to their directives when they themselves first derogate from far more important directives? It is very unpleasant because the Lord asks priests to be “examples to the flock” (1 Pt 5,3).

I wish you all the best, I remind you to the Lord and I bless you.

Father Angelo