As to the administration, the circumstances of time, place, and manner, and the ceremonies only will be referred to here, other details, as reservation, effects, etc., being considered elsewhere. (See EUCHARIST.) The ordinary time for reasonable cause justifies its administration outside Mass, provided it is within the time within which the celebration of Mass is permitted. There are some exceptions: viaticum can be given at any hour; it is lawful in cases of illness and of special indult.

Viaticum

Formerly it meant anything that gave spiritual strength and comfort to the dying and enabled them to make the journey into eternity with greater confidence and security. For this reason anciently not only any sacrament administered to persons at the point of death, baptism (St. Basil, "Hom. in sac. Bapt."; St. Gregory Nazianzen, "Orat. de bapt."), confirmation, penance, extreme unction (Moroni, "Diz. di erudizione stor.-eccl.), Eucharist (Fourth Counc. of Carthage, cap. 78, calls it "viaticum Eucharistiæ"), but even prayers offered up or good works performed by themselves or by others in their behalf, e.g. alms-deeds (St. Cyprian), and finally anything that tended to reconcile the dying with God and the Church came under this designation. In the course of time "viaticum" was applied to the Eucharist generally, but finally it acquired its present fixed, exclusive, and technical sense of Holy Communion given to those in danger of death.