Eric Michel Ministries International Chaplains

Chaplains bring the Eucharist to sick individuals in hospitals, nursing homes, or private residences who cannot physically attend Mass. This profound pastoral care ensures that those suffering remain spiritually united with the parish community.

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The ministry follows a specific procedure to ensure reverence:

• Transport: The consecrated host is reverently carried in a small, secure container called a pyx.
• The Rite: The brief visit involves Scripture, a communal prayer, the recitation of the Lamb of God, and the distribution of the Eucharist
• Viaticum: When the sick are near death, the Eucharist is given as “Viaticum” (meaning “food for the journey”) to provide spiritual strength and grace for the passage into eternal life.
• The Tabernacle: To ensure Holy Communion is always available for the sick, consecrated hosts are reserved in the church’s Tabernacle after Mass.

Viaticum is a term used for the Eucharist (also called Holy Communion), administered, with or without Anointing of the Sick (also called Extreme Unction), to a person who is dying; viaticum is thus a part of the Last Rites.

The 1983 Code of Canon Law describes the Eucharist as “the most August sacrament in which Christ the Lord himself is contained, offered, and received and by which the Church continually lives and grows”, and further teaches that the Eucharistic sacrifice is “the summit and source of all worship and Christian life”, with all other sacraments and works of the apostolate ordered to it. Catholic theology commonly distinguishes three closely related dimensions of the sacrament: Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist, the reception of Holy Communion, and the sacrificial character of the Mass.

Transubstantiation (Latin: transubstantiatio) refers to the change of the substance of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, without change in the accidents of bread and wine, within the sacrament of the Eucharist

• Part of the Holy Eucharist Page