Dear Ann,

Firstly, I am still regularly offering Masses for you and your intentions. Thank you for all your good work.

Secondly, what prompts this brief note, is your posting about Cardinal Burke and Eucharistic piety and reverence. I could not agree more. Even with brother priests I consider to be quite holy and reverent, it’s amazing to me how non-chalantly they will use their fingers during and after the Roman Canon, but then go through the motion of purification and ablutions of their fingers afterward anyway. This is what ‘liturgical digits’ are for – believe it or don’t; use them or don’t, but don’t make-believe or just do things some of the time.

The liturgical law currently in force notes in GIRM 278 ‘Whenever a fragment of the host adheres to his fingers…’ as the predicate for wiping or washing fingers. I had a sacristan in one assignment in the military, a good Puerto-Rican guy who loved the Lord, tell me that Padre Pio said the angels will catch the crumbs that fall from the fingers of the priest, to which I responded that this doesn’t mean I should intentionally make more for them to do!

It’s so very basic that none of it even has to be said, let alone ever be done.

Pax et Bonum,

Fr. X