WHEN I SAW THE HOST FALL ONTO THE PATEN

Today at Holy Mass I went to receive Holy Communion, knelt down and went to receive Holy Communion on the tongue. I held my head back, saw the priest raise the Sacred Species over my head and then watched the Host roll between his finger and thumb and onto the round, gold paten that was being held so perfectly in front of the priest by a trusty altar server. There the Host was, on the paten, and both me and the priest let out a restrained gasp. The priest is so exactingly diligent in his execution of the Traditional Latin Mass that this was something that never normally occurs. Then he didn't hesitate to take It from the paten and put it on my tongue. 

Over the past 23 years I've assisted at thousands of Traditional Latin Masses, in parishes in my native Ireland, several places in England and America, and all over Southern California. This has never happened to me before, or anyone that I've known. After Holy Mass, when I was with my friends, and I told them about this, they audibly gulped. We had all piled into a car and gone to a High Holy Mass which was so exalting we thought we levitating - we were not - but we felt we were. We were like Charlies and his grandfather in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory after they drank the fizzy lifting drinks. One friend is a convert and so holy that I'm learning so much from her deportment at Mass. 

It will stay with me for the rest of my life; the sight of the Host falling in the middle of the paten that glowed. It begs the obvious question; what would have happened had the paten not been there?  I won't get pedantic, we all know the answer. 

Technically the paten is meant to collect falling Particles of the Eucharist, but it can have an emergency purpose. And yes, that sounds melodramatic, but nonetheless true. 

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The classic painting of the Blessed Mother receiving Holy Communion which accompanies this post was executed by Johann Andeas Wolff.