it with a missive not only of truce but absolute cessation. I am glad of it, for I have felt for some time past that too much was made of a small thing. I respond willingly, by burying the hatchet of war and by smoking my calumet of peace; and in token thereof I beg to compliment him on the ingenuity, the very considerable learning, and the knightly courtesy which marked his defence of what I deem a weak cause-exhibiting in his conduct those traits recommended by the Fathers of the Church to the truly Christian knight in intellectual tilting-in dubiis libertas, in omnibus autem charitas. S. MALONE. [This discussion is now finally closed.-EDITOR.] AD ALMAM MATREM. The RECORD has made a vow not to dally with the Muses, but we have obtained a dispensation in favour of Alma Mater. Maynooth! God guard thy loved walls well! Where youth's bright memories always dwell: In God's own House, and knelt and prayed, No wonder aged priests who bear The burden of accomplished days, On those dear walls and all declare gaze "Maynooth! our happiest years are thine! What marvel thy sweet grace should win The heart of youth from boisterous sports? Than thousands in the haunts of sin. Long is the great and glorious line Of sainted sons whom Heaven's decree Called from thy world-famed halls to be Shepherds o'er Christ's one fold divine: Maynooth! we love thee and revere For these and for thy wise of old, Whose dust is mingled with thy mould, Whose names our Irish Church holds dear. Aye and for those whose worth we knew, Of knowledge deep and vast, yet mild Have grown in spirit and in grace The streams of knowledge and of truth From Mary's well remembered shrine The unexpected wealth of youth. While memory of the past endures, J.J. K. CORRESPONDENCE. ON GIVING COMMUNION FROM A CIBORIUM BEFORE THE COMMUNION OF THE MASS IN WHICH IT WAS CONSECRATED. REV. DEAR SIR-Through some error a few words necessary to complete the sense slipped out of the quotation I gave from De Lugo in my last letter. The full sentence is as follows (the clause omitted in italics):— "Hoc inquam non rite fit: nam sicut ex hostia sua sacerdos non debet dare partem usque ad finem sacrificii, sic nec de illis particulis quae sunt etiam victima illius sacrificii, et non minus offeruntur quam hostia major; et ideo," &c. If I venture to offer a few remarks which will still run counter to the answers of the Very Rev. Fr. Browne on the particular question at issue, I would be understood as doing so with all due respect, and deference to his much greater learning and far larger acquaintance with theologians, than, as I am fully conscious, I can claim to possess; and as being quite ready at once to reform any opinion or statement I may advance when shown according to approved Authors to be inexact. And here in limine allow me gratefully to acknowledge my indebtedness to him for being enabled through his brief remarks in the April number of the RECORD to correct myself on a point I had expressed in my letter. I was previously not aware that Authors recognised the lawfulness of removing the consecrated particles from the altar even in exceptional cases. (Of course in these I am not including cases of absolute necessity, such as sudden fire, &c.) I have no opportunity of consulting Cavalieri, but in the extract given he evidently admits the lawfulness of such removal "si urgente aliqua necessitate pyxis ad aliud altare, vel ad infirmos deportari debeat." And Tamburini, as will appear later on, goes still further, so as to meet precisely the practice in question. I am however unable to see that either Cavalieri or De Lugo can be said to endorse the opinion, that a causa rationabilis " suffices to justify a practice which both the one and the other unite in condemning. 66 De Lugo fails to record any reason that would justify an exceptional departure from the prescribed order of the Sacred Mysteries whilst we cannot but presume the presence of what would be generally deemed a causa rationabilis in the very case he holds up for censure: scil. " aliquos, quos vidi," &c. For surely these priests would have for the motive of their action censured by De Lugo, the avoidance of an inconvenience, viz., some minutes' delay; and the desire to expedite the communion of the people. With regard to the measure of De Lugo's censure; his words: "minus rite facere," must of course be understood as he explains them himself immediately afterwards: "Hoc inquam non rite fit." The grave reasons on which De Lugo grounds his censure would serve to show that in his own mind that censure was anything but unimportant. For it must be remarked that he regards the practice not merely as a departure from the "ordo in Ritualibus praescriptus," but from the "ordo sacrificii ex institutione ipsius Christi." This is plain from the whole passage, and from what he says afterwards: "Facilius posset admitti, quod ante sumptionem Calicis daretur aliis communio; quia Christus non solum ante sumptionem, sed etiam ante consecrationem Calicis videtur dedisse Apostolis Corpus, ut ex contextu Evangelii colligi potest." De Lugo had in the paragraph preceding the citation in my letter, condemned the practice of placing the pyxis after Consecration outside the altar-stone, basing this censure also on reasons intrinsic to the Sacrifice. But as the prescriptions regarding the altar are of exclusively ecclesiastical institution, and deviation therefrom does not per se infringe upon what may be of divine institution, it was doubtless for this reason that Cavalieri, after approving this censure of De Lugo, adds: "Multo magis reprehendi veniunt," &c., as such invert the order of the Holy Mysteries set forth by Christ Himself, and this he says only some urgent necessity can excuse. What that urgent necessity might be which Cavalieri had in mind for removing the consecrated pyxis to another altar, or for therewith communicating the sick before the priest's communion, he does not explain But we must note well that he does not speak of a causa rationabilis," but urgente aliqua necessitate," and these two are very different. 66 We should, moreover, bear in mind that theologians and rubricists, when treating of the celebrant breaking off a portion of his own Host, in the absence of any small consecrated particles, for communicating a dying person, or for other exceptional cases, never (so far at least as I can discover) contemplate his doing so before his own communion, even though the sacred fragment is to be conveyed to the moribund by another priest; and that theologians, v.g., De Lugo, Lacroix, St. Alphonsus, De Herdt, hold that the case of all the particles consecrated in the sacrifice is parallel, or rather one and the same with that of the large Host, and that they are therefore to be dealt with in the same way. I will now give a passage from Lacroix (Lib. vi. p. ii, 308), both because it shows the opinion of that great theologian, and because it entirely reflects the teaching of De Lugo on the two questions, first, of removing the consecrated particles from the altar, and secondly, of giving them in communion to the people before the priest's communion, whilst at the same time it contains the opinion of Tamburini. 1 Gury (Cas. Consc. P. II. 262) says: urgente gravissima causa." "videtur fieri posse ex "Non sufficit autem hostias esse in ara consecrata, dum consecrantur, verum etiam debent (tam parvae quam magnae) in eadem relinqui tempore sacrificii, et non alibi (licet supra aliud corporale) deponi, v. g., propter loci angustias, quia omnes sunt unica victima et per modum unius offeruntur. Quapropter rubricae missalis eas super corporale ante vel post calicem poni volunt. Hinc etiam minus recte faciunt, qui consecratione facta mox hostias minores a se consecratas dant alteri sacerdoti distribuendas populo, quia sicut sacerdos non debet de sua hostia dare, priusquam ipse sumpserit, sic nec de aliis, cum sint una victima et hostia, omnesque orationes, oblationes, et benedictiones sequentes non minus spectent ad parvas hostias, quam ad magnam, neque ante sumptionem sacerdotis perfecte et integre sacrificata sit victima." Lugo, d. 20 n. 69. "Eum tamen qui contrarium fecerit a peccato saltem mortali, imo si necessitas fuit expediendi communionem populo ab omni excusat." Tamb. L. v. exp. Sae. c. 5. necessitas expediendi, It is to be noted that Tamburini says 46 &c." What such necessity may be for expediting the Communion by a few minutes, or how far it may be identical with a “rationabilis causa," I must leave others to judge. "causa In conclusion, whilst I am unable to allow that a rationabilis," taken in its ordinary acceptation, would justify departure from the Order of the Holy Mysteries, "ex institutione Christi," and as prescribed "in omnibus Liturgiis, et Ritualibus ac Regulis antiquis." Neither could I admit that the justifying reason for such departure is a question to be decided by the local authorities. I know of more than one learned priest who in conscience could not suffer his sacrifice to be interfered with in a case of the kind. Clearly it is not within the competence of any local authorities to lay down new rules of their own, or to prescribe on questions of Rubrics and the Order of Mass, or deviation therefrom. This belongs to the organs of Pontifical authority alone. In a particular case it must be left to the celebrant, who is responsible for his sacrifice, to decide whether there be such urgent necessity as will before God and the Church justify his departure from the ordinary prescriptions which per se bind him sub gravi; and he must make his decision hic et nunc according to his dictamen conscientiae, improved and guided, as best may be, by the recognised rules and principles of sound theology brought to bear on the eircumstances of the case.-Your obedient servant, EXTREME UNCTION. TO THE EDITOR OF THE IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL RECORD. C. DEAR REV. EDITOR,-Please allow a Subscriber to submit the following for solution in your esteemed Magazine:—It is your servant's practice-and also the practice of many priests-while |