Ask Father: Home Chapel How To’s – Consecrated Chalice and Paten? Wherein Fr. Z Rants

Fr Zed has some thoughts on the use of non-consecrated items for the celebration of Mass and how multiple problems in the Church result from improper sacred liturgical worship.   

From Fr Z's Blog

I’ve been getting notes about, and seeing chatter about on the interwebs, people setting up home chapels just in  case.

I think it is good to have one anyway, not just in case.

In any event, while it is relatively easy to acquire the various accoutrement for Holy Mass in the Vetus Ordo (even easier for the Novus), it isn’t always easy to obtain a chalice and paten that are consecrated.

Remember: When some sacred object that isn’t in itself sacred (like a relic) it loses its consecration.   If a previously consecrated chalice is sold, it is “desecrated”, that is, it loses its consecration.  It doesn’t mean that it was defiled in a serious way as in misused.   When you regild (replate) a chalice or paten, it has to be reconsecrated.  If an altar is changed in a major way, e.g., previously fixed down or the mensa was detached for any reason, it must be reconsecrated. So, substantial changes or sales require reconsecration.

I think I have a solution for that.  If you are in a situation where the local bishop has refused to consecrate your chalice and paten with the older form in the Pontifical, you might drop me a line.

And I, frankly, don’t go for the line that all you have to do is use the chalice and paten once for it to be consecrated.   I hold an unconsecrated chalice used for Mass may thereafter be considered sanctified in some way but it is not consecrated. A chalice that is consecrated and then used for Mass is also sanctified. By consecration a chalice is formally, by special rites, set apart for a particular use.

“But Father! But Father!”, some of you are pewling. “This is just merciless nitpicking.  You are nitpicking merciless nitpicker!  You hate mercy and compassion and all those…. those… errrr… things that Pope Francis talks about … like… the Earth’s climate and fairness and … and you hate Vatican II!”

We have to make the distinction.  Qui distinguit bene docet.

And, quaeritur, why not consecrate the chalice with the special rite that Holy Church provides?  Why not?

I’ll tell you “why” since you are asking.

My I rant a little?

One exorcist I have had contact with suggested that multiple problems in the Church result from improper sacred liturgical worship.  Part of the problem is that things being used for Holy Mass (vestments, chalices, candles, linens, etc.) have not been duly consecrated.

What is consecration?

This world, as Jesus said, has its Prince.  The created realm fell in the fall of our First Parents and came under the domination of the Enemy.   Consecration rips things away from the Enemy and hands them over to God alone.  There are consecrated things, places and persons.  Harming them or using them wrongly is not just vandalism or assault or theft, etc.  It is also the sin of sacrilege.  Steal a consecrated chalice and, when you go to confession (if you are lucky) you have to confess not only the theft, but also the sacrilege.

It makes sense that everything used for sacred liturgy should be properly consecrated.

How is it that we lost sight of this?  It makes sense, right?   If I am not in a gulag, I want to do it right… with the right rite.  We are our rites!

Modernism has infected large swathes of the Church, including clergy.  Modernists (whether they know they are or not) reduce the supernatural to the natural (whether they know it or not).

Now think about what it means to say that we don’t have to, under normal circumstances, use blessed and consecrated things for Holy Mass.

Think about the ripple effect that has in the Church.

You might remember a school experience with a wave table, where you create waves of certain frequencies.  Then you create waves with a matching or harmonic frequency from another direction.  They cancel out.

That happens to priests too, by the way.  They get cancelled by priests and bishops who are going the opposite direction.  Believe me.  I know.

Thus endeth the rant.