Spilled Blood

[MrsFrozen]

I posted this at the Catholic Questions forum, but I wanted to see what you guys thought.

God bless.

[quote]Frozencell and I attended a mass at a different parish than ours this weekend. It was a nice experience--the music was wonderful and everyone sang loudly, everyone said the responses and there was a lot of love during the sign of peace. The homily was great, too. But there were some things that I noticed they did wrong, such as the priest coming down to the floor for the homily and for the sign of peace. Honestly, though, I'm not the type of person who is brave enough to go up to a priest and tell him what he's doing wrong!! Also, the E. M. E.'s all stood behind the altar with the priest, which I'm pretty sure isn't proper...

Anyhow, my real question is this. One of the E. M. E.'s accidentally spilled the Precious Blood. He and another E. M. E. used their cloths to quickly wipe up the spill, and then that was it. Right after that, people were walking on that spot and everything. I am a new E. M. E. and at my church, I was told to try as hard as I could not to spill even a drop because there was a big procedure which basically included quarantining the area off and cleaning it in a special way. What is correct?

I'm not trying to sound like some sort of know-it-all, but maybe if what they did was wrong, I should tell the priest my concern. What do you think? Thank you very much. God bless.  [/quote]

[dUSt]

I'm pretty sure that the proper procedure is to wash the area with water, which should then be poured into the sacrarium.

[thicke]

From the GIRM:

[url="http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/current/GIRM.pdf"]http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/current/GIRM.pdf[/url]

280. If a host or any particle should fall, it is to be picked up reverently. If any of the Precious
Blood is spilled, the area where the spill occurred should be washed with water, and this water
should then be poured into the sacrarium in the sacristy.

[p0lar_bear]

What usually happens if a spill occurs during Mass is that the minister (ordinary or extraordinary) will lay a purificator over the spot and clean it after Mass. If they have the opportunity, they will often try to soak up as much as they can with a purificator at the time, then come back and clean more thoroughly.

[Dave]

As big a klutz as I am, I'm glad I'm not an extraordinary minister!