No virtual consecration please, we're Catholic!

Following Ordination I swiftly noticed that the majority of my friends on Facebook were fellow clerics. During the lockdown, with little else to do, many of my friends have been debating theology, liturgy, and how to deal with the lockdown. One of the discussions earlier this week centred on whether we could consecrate Mass virtually, that is if during the Eucharistic Prayer someone watching a video of the Mass held up bread and wine at the appropriate moments, they would be consecrated. My initial response was no, and remains so. Here's why,

First because it doesn't fit with how we understand the Prayer of Consecration. In Common Worship, the Missal used by the Church of England, the instructions are that following the Offertory the Minister celebrating the Mass takes the bread and wine in his hands. This why, even if the table has been prepared previously by another Minister, you'll see the Celebrant touch each chalice and ciborium, he may even adjust their position on the Altar. In doing this he is both following the rubrics (the rules which set out how to celebrate the Mass), but also following the example of Jesus, who at the Last Supper (and at Emmaus), took the bread, blessed it, broke it and the gave it to his disciples. In the Mass the Priest, who is in the Mass holding within himself the person of Christ, is doing just as Christ did.

There's a danger that virtual consecration is open to all kinds of abuse. The Church is quite strict on what can and can't be consecrated. The wine must be alcoholic, the bread made from wheat. Where the Mass is consecrated virtually, an unscrupulous watching could consecrate anything; a glass of coke; the dog, or something sacrilegious. A linked danger is that it encourages the idea of Lay Presidency, that is someone who is not a Priest or Bishop who has been Ordained by a Bishop through the laying on of hands celebrating the Mass. This is something rejected by the Church since ancient times, but which could conceivably result from a virtual celebration of the Mass, where the watcher in holding up the bread and wine places themselves in the place of the Priest.

Finally my fear is that it encourages individualism, that is as individuals we have no relationship with wider society, and that our relationship with God is personal to ourselves alone, and is not shared with others in their relationships with God. The Mass is always celebrated in the community, on behald of the community and its needs*; a Priest whilst he may be alone never celebrates it alone, or for himself alone. When I celebrate the Mass and livestream it I am conscious that I only have those in my household with me, but I am aware that others are watching the Mass. Whilst I receive on my own (and it is a sadness not to be able to share the bread and wine with others), I am mindful that they too will be recipients of the graces we receive from God when we receive the Mass, or a blessing. To consecrate virtually, with those watching holding up their bread and wine at the same time breaks that connection of community, we are no longer celebrating together, but for ourselves alone.

* It's for this reason that I am not fasting from celebrating the Eucharist during this period of lockdown as some of my friends are. They are doing so out of solidarity with their parishioners who cannot receive the Mass, I am celebrating because in a time of national crisis, such as we are in at the momnent, we more than ever need the Mass to be celebrated, because it is efficacious and because  it is spiritually powerful.