Washing of the Hands
As long as the receptionist controversy goes on among us, there are extra reasons the ceremonial washings of the celebranty’s hands are important. But even if it weren’t, those washings are well worth including in the rubrics for the mass. For we believe the elements we are handling to be the very Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus, for us Christians to eat and drink. And since this is so, ought we not to be performing all the functions of the distribution in accordance with this faith?
These washings are called the lavabo and the ablutions. The lavabo is the washing of the fingers just prior to the Verba, and the ablutions are the washing of them after the distribution. These really ought to be seen as important additions to the standard rubrics for all of our parishes.
The lavabo, wherein a server (or, if necessary, the celebrant himself) pours water over the celebrant’s fingers into a bowl before the Consecration, is done to ensure that the fingers of the celebrant are clean of foreign substances, in preparation for their touching of the Body of Christ. This ceremony is meant to indicate, simply, that we know what we are about to touch, and therefore it is fitting that we prepare the fingers here in making them as clean as possible. It is assumed, of course, that the celebrant has already washed his hands before the service, and needs only this additional washing of his fingers to rinse off anything that may have come into contact with them since then. The point is that he is acutely aware of what he is about to touch. And he now touches nothing else with these fingers (the index finger and thumb of each hand are now joined, except to handle the hosts),
The ablutions, after the Distribution, are equally as important, if not more so, for they are washings intended to ensure that any tiny fragments of the sacred Body of Christ that might have adhered to his fingers are then rinsed off of them, and that every drop of the sacred Blood is likewise rinsed off. This time, the washings are into the chalice, and then taken, that is, drunk, by the celebrant (older rubrics even direct that some wine should be mingled with this water to ensure a greater cleansing off of all the Blood of Christ). The point here, as in the case of the lavabo, is that the celebrant does not want to treat even the smallest fragment or the smallest drop as common food, but to revere them as Christ’s true Body and Blood to be eaten and drunk with faith.
There are three ablutions. For the first, a server pours some water over the celebrant’s fingers into the chalice. Then, for the two others, now that the celebrant’s hands are washed, he takes the water cruet himself and pours water into each vessel that has been used for the Blood of Christ, rinsing it into the chalice (if there is no server, the celebrant must pour the first ablution himself, carefully picking up the cruet with his left hand while his thumb and index finger are joined, and pours over the joined fingers of the right hand into the chalice, and then transfers the cruet to his now rinsed right hand (at this point the fingers no longer need to be joined) and pours water over the fingers of the left hand into the chalice).
These rubrics are not really insignificant minutiae, if one knows their purpose. They should never have been set aside in the first place, and I don’t quite know why or when that happened, but especially now, in view of the ubiquitous evidence of sloppy disregard for the holiness and sacred character of the Elements of the Blessed Sacrament, their use can serve not only as an indication of what we believe about the Sacrament, but as a bold confession of this belief in the face of aberrant practices.
I was a bit amused when I recently saw a service in which the torch bearers and crucifer wore white gloves—a laudable practice in itself, as it protects the metal—but the celebrant did not wash his fingers before and after the consecration. If you’re going to go to the former lengths, why in the world not go also to the latter?
In the same vein, we could go on to the preferable practice of receiving the Host directly on the tongue, as Luther recommended, rather than in the hand, notwithstanding some early church evidence that suggests otherwise. The point stands, as in the case of the Ablutions, that we don’t want fragments to remain anywhere, another simple confession of what we believe they are. Every fragment, every drop, even to the smallest, is what Jesus said it is: a fragment or drop of His very Body and Blood, given and shed for us poor sinners to eat and to drink.