Common Best Practices
As we enter the flu season, increased attention to hygiene due to the Flu and other infectious diseases, including Covid-19, is certainly appropriate. Please use this opportunity to remind ministers and parishioners of common sense practices and liturgical guidelines many of which were taught to us from our earliest days as sage advise from our parents: cover your mouth (when you cough or sneeze), keep your fingers out of your mouth and away from your nose and eyes. Wash your hands after contact with surfaces others have touched, after using the restroom, after blowing your nose. If a person has a fever, is vomiting, or has had either ailment within 24 hours of the Mass, they should not participate in Mass.
It is important to keep the flu situation in perspective. Every year, approximately 36,000 people in the United States die due to flu related illnesses. Deaths related to H1N1 are typically in people with other chronic illnesses. If people have the flu, they should stay home and consult their physician. Ministers who have the flu or other communicable illness should not serve the liturgical assembly. Please see the USCCB site for a question and answer page on the topic: http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/sacred-art-and-music/influenza-and-the-liturgy.cfm.
General Reminder
All the faithful, and especially liturgical ministers, should be mindful of these basic norms:
Holy Communion
Communicants:
Every few years, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops contacts the Centers for Disease Control regarding the norms for distribution of Holy Communion. The response has always been that there is no documented evidence of transmission of pathogens when parishes follow the established norms for distribution (see “Liturgical Ministers” below).
Communion under both forms is a richer sacramental sign in response to our Lord’s instruction to “take and eat” and “take and drink.” However, the doctrine of concomitance reminds us that the real sacramental presence of Christ (body, blood, soul, and divinity) is present entirely under each species, bread or wine.