A Treasure To Be Shared

[ Estimated read time: 9 minutes ] A familiar quote for witnesses to the dirge of lukewarm religion. The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.  It has been found difficult; and left untried. ― G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World According to the enlightened, it is essential that we Catholics update our thinking so that we can live without guilt or shame or any of those nasty habits of mind that non-Catholics think we like to punish others with.  After all, God accepts us just as we are—right?  Despite the biblical record and apostolic teaching, the "progressive" way asserts that there is little or no need to change or grow in holiness or to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). Holiness, for some, is a bad word, an outmoded concept. For the progressive religionist, spiritual success is measured by involvement in social justice projects that make one feel good about oneself. In contrast to heterodox ways of thinking, th...

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret (1852–1929) | The Last Supper Jesus Christ is the Eucharist. He is Present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. A Basic Catholic Catechism (C) 1990 by Fr. William G. Most, Part 12 367. What is necessary to receive Holy Communion worthily? To receive Holy Communion worthily it is necessary to be free from mortal sin, to have a right intention and to obey the Church's laws on the fast required before Holy Communion out of reverence for the body and blood of Our Divine Lord. (a) Venial sin does not make us unworthy of receiving Holy Communion; but it does prevent us from receiving the more abundant graces and blessings which we would otherwise receive from Holy Communion. 368. Does he who knowingly receives Holy Communion in mortal sin receive the body and blood of Christ and His graces? He who knowingly receives Holy Communion in mortal sin receives the body and blood of Christ, but he does not receive His graces and commits a grave sin of sacrilege. (a) To receiv...

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10943-021-01282-x Published: 24 May 2021 Safety and Reverence: How Roman Catholic Liturgy Can Respond to the COVID-19 Pandemic Sergey Budaev  Journal of Religion and Health (2021) PDF version: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10943-021-01282-x.pdf Abstract The current COVID-19 pandemic is a major challenge for many religious denominations. The Roman Catholic Church strongly depends on physical communal worship and sacraments. Disagreements grow concerning the best balance between safety and piety. To address this issue, I review the major transmission risks for the SARS-CoV-2 virus and list certain measures to enhance the safety of the Roman Catholic Liturgy without compromising its intrinsic beauty and reverent spiritual attitude. This can be achieved through assimilation of several traditional elements into the modern liturgy. I emphasize that religious leadership and decision-making should be transparent and based on inclu...

America Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society. - John Adams Dismantling Deception Excerpt from Politicizing the Eucharist  - from the pen of the theological titan the Rev. Dr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM Cap . To refuse to give Holy Communion to dissident Catholic politicians, however, is not to politicize the Eucharist. The politicizing of the Eucharist occurs in the act of the Catholic politician presenting himself or herself to receive Communion even though he or she is well aware that to do so is contrary to what the Church teaches. Those who are objectively in the state of mortal sin, or who dissent from or promote contrary positions to the Church’s fundamental dogmatic or moral teaching are forbidden to receive the body and blood of Jesus, for they have made themselves unworthy to do so. Thus, such Catholic politicians, in presenting themselves, are using – and so abusing – the Eucharist for seemingly p...

1549 Book of Common Prayer Then shall the Prieste firste receive the Communion in both kindes himselfe, and next deliver it to other Ministers, if any be there present, (that they may bee ready to helpe the chiefe Minister,) and after to the people. And when he delivereth the Sacramente of the body of Christe, he shall say to every one these woordes. The body of our Lorde Jesus Christe whiche was geven for thee, preserve thy bodye and soule unto everlasting lyfe. And the Minister delivering the Sacrament of the bloud, and geving every one to drinke once and no more, shall say, The bloud of our Lorde Jesus Christe which was shed for thee, preserve thy bodye and soule unto everlastyng lyfe. = = = The words of administration in the 1549 rite were deliberately ambiguous; they could be understood as identifying the bread with the Body of Christ (i.e., the unchanging Catholic teaching) or (following Cranmer's theology) as a prayer that the communicant might spiritually receive the body o...

Holy Communion is that sublime moment when, in awe of God's gift of Himself under such a humble form, we should tremble in  fear  (awe, profound respect) and kneel before the Lord our Maker. Can anyone seriously argue that communion in the hand (CITH) has not drastically obscured the true nature of the august Sacrament? Or, for that matter, can anyone seriously argue that CITH has led to an increase in reverence for the Blessed Sacrament? Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. A viewing of the "communion line" on the occasion of the Dedication of Christ Cathedral (Diocese of Orange), the former Crystal Cathedral founded by Dr. Robert Schuller, tends to confirm the need for due reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. Communicants were handed the Sacred Host and, with few beautiful, reverent exceptions, proceeded with casual indifference. Shoppers show more decorum in a grocery store checkou...

Those of us privileged to attend Divine Worship, the Mass of the Ordinariate, are able to appreciate the necessity of receiving Holy Communion on the tongue. The state of affairs in the wider Church, in diocesan circles for starters, is of a kind that merits the witness of Ordinariate Catholics who kneel to receive communion on the tongue. The Ordinariate can help restore to the wider Church due reverence for the Holy Eucharist. Along with our Extraordinary Form brethren who hold to the same practice, we can help others recover a sense of profound adoration and reverence for the Holy Eucharist. Let us call to mind the (near universally ignored) teaching which sought to uphold, if even in a limp manner, the practice of communion on the tongue. It is a brief document worth quoting in its entirety. - - - MEMORIALE DOMINI Instruction on the Manner of Distributing Holy Communion Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship Issued on May 29, 1969. When the Church cel...

The completely untenable proposal to allow non-Catholic spouses to receive (in certain circumstances) the Holy Eucharist has been quashed by Papa Francis himself. Thanks be to God for Cardinal-elect Ladaria, for being the swift arrow that brought down the wild boar of heterodoxy. https://www.catholicregister.org/home/international/item/27487-pope-francis-rejects-german-proposal-for-inter-communion Pope Francis rejects German proposal for inter-communion by Catholic News Agency VATICAN – One month after Vatican and German delegates met in Rome to discuss a proposal put forward by German bishops to allow Protestant spouses in inter-denominational marriages to receive the Eucharist in certain circumstances, Pope Francis has rejected it. In a letter dated May 25 and addressed to Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and president of the German bishops conference, Cardinal-elect Luis Ladaria SJ, the Vatican’s top authority on matters of doctrine, said the text of the...

The current kerfuffle involving the German bishops who are pro-communion for non-Catholic spouses is an unfortunate distraction, and a serious one at that. Yours truly, once upon a time a non-Catholic enamoured of a lovely Catholic woman, did on a couple of occasions receive Holy Communion before being received into full communion with the Catholic Church. Said woman, my girlfriend at the time—who would also become my sponsor... a bad idea, I might add—asked me to stop receiving Communion. There was no argument from yours truly. I was given good reasons not to receive, among them the obvious—I was not (yet) Catholic. Though my baptism (in a protestant community that held to the Apostolic practice and theology of Trinitiarian Baptism) was valid, and I believed in the Real Presence, I had not yet been received into the Catholic Church. I was receiving Communion out of the genuine but poorly timed and incomplete notion that to so do would bring me closer to my then girlfriend. I w...