This IS our Faith…
What has long begun continues
Lesson #20 to be mailed September 22nd. 2019
“Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” Saint Pope John Paul II
… (Have Faith! God caught the “fish” THEN and will today too if we cooperate with Him; open your hearts and the hearts of many others, and let the Son in.)
The Beauty, the Majesty, the Glory, & the Mystery Ensconced in the Wonder and Awe of our beautiful Catholic Faith; the originall “Christian” Faith (1st Cor. 11:23-25) ; and The One-Faith desired andd established by Jesus Personally who commanded “Them” & us to lead Souls to Him. Matthew 28:19-20
Our weekly’ Bible reflection:
Mark 12: “[14] Who coming, say to him: ‘Master, we know that thou art a true speaker, and carest not for any man; for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth.’ “ … (Believe & Go and Do likewise!)
This week’s Lesson is: “Thee in Me and Me in Thee”
A very recent “P.E.W” Survey reported that 67% of self-professed Catholics Including weekly Mass attendees DO NOT UNDERSTAND OR BELIEVE IN THE “REAL PRESENCE DOGMA”; which is the very foundation for Catholicism and even Christianity.What a commentary on our Church’s lack of Proper catechesis and the effects of the New Mass and Exreaordinary Lay-Ministers of the MOST Holy Eucharist; GOD in Person, in the past 50years or so. We “IFPC’s” CANNOT assume that everyone going to Communion knows that it is Jesus; that IT IS JESUS! ….We MUST know how to share and explain this Dogma conviencly, as it is the “ROCK” and the very foundation of our Catholic Church ….There can exist no more compelling reason to BE a Catholic!!!
The most elementary fact about human life is that If GOD isn’t in US; we cease to exist/ Period and Amen!
(Our Catechism) 1324 The Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.” “The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch.” (Sacrifice)
1074 “The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; it is also the font from which all her power flows.” It is therefore the privileged place for catechizing the People of God. “Catechesis is intrinsically linked with the whole of liturgical and sacramental activity, for it is in the sacraments, especially in the Eucharist, that Christ Jesus works in fullness for the transformation of men.”
At the Eucharistic Consecration at every Catholic Mass throughout the world, it is Christ who is being lifted up again; and we who are participating in the Mass, are being offered up to God along with our Mass intentions with Jesus. It IS literally Jesus in His Original Sacrifice on the Cross who is being “Re-presented”; (in His, in THE Original Sacrifice on the Cross; made Present time and time again, until “time no longer matters) But it is the Risen Lord, and we are an “Easter People.” now Jesus in His Perfect Risen -Glorified Body, Blood Soul and Divinity; made Present to us (now in an unbloody manner, as even GOD can only die once), that we receive, NOT merely “represented” or “symbolized” as oh so many in self-imposed- ignorance evidence through their lack of Faith, or worse; assuming that God or His Bible is not reveling Mysterious; Miraculous Truth, or that God is lying or His Words are merely hyperbole in proclaiming that “It IS I”? (Mt. 14:27)
I am reminded of Saint John Paul II’s teaching: “Stupidity too is a gift from God but it must not be overused.” There exist a responsibility to seek the Truth. This is the grave moral obligation of all humanity.
We Catholics ARE literally in the Presence of our GOD. …There cannot be a more compelling reason to be an Informed and fully practicing Catholic.
Mass is all about God not us. What we like or don’t like is of no importance and of little consequence, except for our Spiritual Life. … Dislikes are distractions that only take away from our just and necessary focus; that being our Worship of the Son of GOD who is Physically in our midst … Catholics are uniquely gifted to be IN THE DIVINE Presence of Jesus, GOD! In Person at every Mass. Not as a mere “sign or symbol” as so-many choose in often self- imposed-ignorance (as the TRUTH is clearly articulated in the Bible). We are commanded to believe; that Jesus is “Really, Truly and Substanually present to us; with us and for us. God being Perfect, gains nothing from this reality except to further evidence His desire to do all that is possible to save us from ourselves. But we are expected to do our part. (1 Tim. 2: 3-4)
There is no greater grace possible than Catholic Mass attentively and worthily and humbly attended, when receiving Jesus in Catholic Holy Communion; receiving Jesus Himself into our very bodies as attested to by Jesus Himself: (John 6:56-57) “[56] For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. [57] He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him.” Testifies clearly and BOLDLY to this truth… Are we headstrong enough to believe that God cannot do this; or even worse that Jesus lied?” … LISTEN UP! GOD can do ANY “good thing.” God can accurately be defined as “All good things Perfected.” And this Gift of Himself is the greatest possible of ALL “good things”, the only truly Perfect Gift available to humanity in our LIFE-Times. So if there is a question it ought to be How and WHY Jesus in the greatest manifestation of humility possible chooses to be in the utmost intimate relationship possible with His New “Chosen People;” masking Himself with inanimate objects; ordinary bread and wine which at the Consecration become exta0rdinarly GOD; Jesus in Person.
The Eucharist IS:
FROM God the Father
OF God the Son
By God the Holy Spirit
1Peter 2: 7-9 “[7] To you therefore that believe, he is honour: but to them that believe not, the stone which the builders rejected, the same is made the head of the corner: [8] And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of scandal, to them who stumble at the word, neither do believe, whereunto also they are set. [9] But you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people: that you may declare his virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light”
God becoming a mortal man is indeed profound-mysterious humility; what then can we say about that SAME God becoming an inanimate object and food for our spiritual nourishment? Literally “Thee in Me and Me in Thee”?
The Biblical and even the scientific evidence is clear, (GOOLE “Eucharistic Miracles) precise, clearly articulated, and overwhelming. Indeed just as intended, the evidence is exceedingly clear and so compelling that one must even ignore common logic, and pretend that what Jesus teaches in His Bible is either metaphorical, or hyperbole; anything BUT actual truth. “Rome can’t be right on this”! Such cynicism can only be overcome by God’s grace. No amount of logic; biblical evidence, or even scientific proof (without grace) can or will change the head-strong, hardhearted, “know-it-all” lead encased-minds intent on remaining ignorant. Souls that Jesus gave all to save. (And mysteriously still MIGHT save? But that’s a separate subject for another day.)
Here is a comment from a “COMING Home Network” convert (whose father is a Presbyterian Minister). The article is entitled: “Journey Home.”
…. “Again simple logic (which requires God’s graces) indicated that if the Almighty King of the Universe could reside in the material substance of human person (The Incarnation) while maintaining His full divinity then it was not a far stretch that He could be present under the appearance of anything He chooses, including bread and wine, while maintaining His full divinity.”
In presenting the evidence I think it is necessary to remain positive and charitable. Still asking questions along the line of “are we to assume that God cannot do any good thing? …. This seems to me to be the crux of the challenge before us. Either GOD IS able to do any good thing, or He cannot be God. And then explaining the simple logic behind this premise: “IF God is TRULY and Literally Present” in Catholic Holy communion which is attested to by five different Authors of the New Testament; three of whom are Apostles; Matthew, John and Paul; and Luke and Mark who were at times Scribes for the Apostles; Mark for Peter and Luke for Paul, would seem to establish prima facie evidence of sufficient weight to be convincing. But without grace; without True Faith; nothing can or will be convincing; hence very much prayer for Conversions of Spirit of these Souls is required.
But within the community of “Catholics” (unbelievers are not truly members in an active sense), we must seek out doubters, the uneducated, under-educated and the outright unbelievers, and enter into in -depth discussions with them, and then know how to present this reality of what is the MAIN difference between Catholicism with its 2,000 year old in belief and practice teachings. We IFPC’s DO have God “Really, Truly and Substanually” (the entire Christ) in our Midst, while they, despite the verbiage and beliefs of their particular Protestant denomination; at best, have, dare I say “only” the Spirit of God.
The prophesies of “Old Time” Roman Catholics who lived with the Beauty and Majesty of what is now termed the “Extraordinary Form” (and indeed it was and is), because it’s focus was solely focused on Godly Worship; which cannot be said of the New “Ordinary Form” of the Mass.
The undesired innovations of removal of the Communion rails, no-longer kneeling and receiving Jesus ONLY on our tongues; rather than TAKING Him into our unconsecrated hands; having the priest now on a “stage” facing and TRYING to please his congregation (just like the Protestant Minister must do); and the reintroduction of centuries old practice; (NOT even CLOSE as to how it was done in Apostolic times; the difference on the levels of piety are STAGGERING!) and soon proven impracticable and even extremely less piously (It IS GOD), and for a make believe “need” Rome was forced into Authorizing as “EXTRAORDINARY” (the description of same that has NEVER been met), Ministers of the Eucharist” to satisfy the WANTS of some; at the expense of PIETY for all and ability to believe for MOST…. IF just “anyone” can distribute communion, CAN IT REALLY be GOD? And because EM’s are now a widely accepted norm; it’s no stretch to permit EVERYONE to TAKE Jesus IN PERSON (GOD) into their hands.
2 Samuel 6: 6-7 “[6] And when they came to the floor of Nachon, Oza put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it: because the oxen kicked and made it lean aside. [7] And the indignation of the Lord was enkindled against Oza, and he struck him for his rashness: and he died there before the ark of God.”
Dear Friend I encourage you; NO! I BEG YOU not to be an “EM”, or to receive Jesus into your hands. LEAD BY EXAMPLE. Genuflect before receiving Jesus; then receive Him on your tongue, rather than taking Him into your unworthy hands. If you are physically able too (I’m no-longer able to do this); Kneel to receive Jesus on your tongue. On your way up to communion be looking straight ahead at the Crucifix and have you hands FOLDED; on the return to your pew, have downcast eyes and FOLDED hands. … BE walking Bibles. Be the evidence of our RIGHTFUL-beliefs. … Despite the Indults (exceptions to the NORM) reluctantly issued by Rome; The UNIVERSAL NORM is receiving on the tongue, preferably kneeling as was required by Pope Benedict IF you were to receive Jesus from him…
The Eucharist was Instituted by Jesus at the Traditional Passover meal, where an unblemished lamb was to be shared in a meal. Very specific and precise directions were given by GOD on just exactly what to do and HOW to do it and WHY it must be done:
Exodus 12:[3] Speak ye to the whole assembly of the children of Israel, and say to them: On the tenth day of this month let every man take a lamb by their families and houses. [4] But if the number be less than may suffice to eat the lamb, he shall take unto him his neighbour that joineth to his house, according to the number of souls which may be enough to eat the lamb. [5] And it shall be a lamb without blemish, a male, of one year: according to which rite also you shall take a kid. [6] And you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month: and the whole multitude of the children of Israel shall sacrifice it in the evening. [7] And they shall take of the blood thereof, and put it upon both the side posts, and on the upper door posts of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. [8] And they shall eat the flesh that night roasted at the fire, and unleavened bread with wild lettuce. [9] You shall not eat thereof anything raw, nor boiled in water, but only roasted at the fire: you shall eat the head with the feet and entrails thereof. [10] Neither shall there remain anything of it until morning. If there be any thing left, you shall burn it with fire. (THEE ENTIRE LAMB) [11] And thus you shall eat it: you shall gird your reins, and you shall have shoes on your feet, holding staves in your hands, and you shall eat in haste: for it is the Phase (that is the Passage) of the Lord. [12] And I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and will kill every firstborn in the land of Egypt both man and beast: and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. [13] And the blood shall be unto you for a sign in the houses where you shall be: and I shall see the blood, and shall pass over you: and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I shall strike the land of Egypt. [14] And this day shall be for a memorial to you: and you shall keep it a feast to the Lord in your generations with an everlasting observance.”
Look now at the New Testament evidences; and learn then:
John 6:47-58 & 67-70: (I call this “the sandwich presentation.”)
[47] Amen, amen I say unto you: He that believeth in me, hath everlasting life. [48] I am the bread of life. [49] Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and are dead. [50] This is the bread which cometh down from heaven; that if any man eat of it, he may not die.
[51] I am the living bread which came down from heaven. [52] If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world. [53] The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat? [54] Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. [55] He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.
DOUAY CATHOLIC BIBLE EXPLANATION [54] “Eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood”: To receive the body and blood of Christ, is a divine precept, insinuated in this text; which the faithful fulfil, though they receive but in one kind; because in one kind they receive both body and blood, which cannot be separated from each other. Hence, life eternal is here promised to the worthy receiving, though but in one kind. Ver. 52. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh for the life of the world. Ver. 58. He that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. Ver. 59. He that eateth this bread, shall live forever. (TRUE BUT CONDITIONALLY)
[56] For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. [57] He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him.(WHICH DESCRIBES PRECISELY WHAT DOES TAKE PLACE IN CATHOLICHOLY COMMUNION) [58] As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me.”
Then posit these questions: How could Jesus or John be more precise and specific in the language that they choose? Can GOD not do “any good thing?” … CAN either God or His Bible lie?
John 6:67-70 “ [67] After this many of his disciples went back; and walked no more with him. (Deserted /abandoned Him) [68] Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away? [69] And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. [70] And we have believed and have known, that thou art the Christ, the Son of God.”
QUESTION: Are YOU with the 12 or the masses?
Matthew 26: 26-28 “[26] And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to his disciples, and said: Take ye, and eat. This is my body. [27] And taking the chalice, he gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this. [28] For this is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins. [29] And I say to you, I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father. [30] And a hymn being said, they went out unto mount Olivet.
DOUAY CATHOLIC BIBLE EXPLANATIONS: [26] “This is my body”: He does not say, This is the figure of my body, but This is my body. (2 Council of Nice, Act. 6.) Neither does he say in this, or with this is my body; but absolutely, This is my body: which plainly implies transubstantiation.
[27] “Drink ye all of this”: This was spoken to the twelve apostles; who were the all then present; and they all drank of it, says St. Mark 14. 23. But it no ways follows from these words spoken to the apostles, that all the faithful are here commanded to drink of the chalice; any more than that all the faithful are commanded to consecrate, offer and administer this sacrament; because Christ upon this same occasion, and at the same time, bid the apostles do so; in these words, St. Luke 22. 19, Do this for a commemoration of me.
[28] “Blood of the new testament”: As the old testament was dedicated with the blood of victims, by Moses, in these words: This is the blood of the testament, etc., Heb. 9. 20; so here is the dedication and institution of the new testament, in the blood of Christ, here mystically shed by these words: This is the blood of the new testament, etc.
[29] “Fruit of the vine”: These words, by the account of St. Luke 26: 22. 18, were not spoken of the sacramental cup, but of the wine that was drunk with the paschal lamb. Though the sacramental cup might also be called the fruit of the vine, because it was consecrated from wine, and retains the likeness, and all the accidents or qualities of wine” End QUOTED
Paul: 1st. Corinthians11:23-30 [23] For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. [24] And giving thanks, broke, and said: Take ye, and eat: this is my body, which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration of me. [25] In like manner also the chalice, after he had supped, saying: This chalice is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as often as you shall drink, for the commemoration of me.
[26] For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come. [27] Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. [28] But let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. [29] For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. [30] Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep.” (“sleep” here means a Spiritual death; self- imposed Damnation) …
| [ DOUAY CATHOLIC BIBLE EXPLANATIONS 27] “Or drink”: Here erroneous translators corrupted the text, by putting “and drink” (contrary to the original) instead of “or drink”.
[27] “Guilty of the body”: not discerning the body. This demonstrates the real presence of the body and blood of Christ, even to the unworthy communicant; who otherwise could not be guilty of the body and blood of Christ, or justly condemned for not discerning the Lord’s body.
[28] “Drink of the chalice”: This is not said by way of command, but by way of allowance, viz., where and when it is agreeable to the practice and discipline of the church.
[31] But if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. [32] But whilst we are judged, we are chastised by the Lord, that we be not condemned with this world. [33] Wherefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. [34] If any man be hungry, let him eat at home; that you come not together unto judgment. And the rest I will set in order, when I come.” In reflecting on Paul’s (himself a CONVERT) beautiful instruction, we are to take special-NOTE in verses 26 and 27; that Paul proves the fallacy of Protestant thinking. How; HOW can eating “just ordinary bread, and having a drink of alcoholic wine BRING personal damnation to oneself? …. It’s really no more complex than asking and that answering THAT question. |
It is from the knowledge that Jesus is GOD (1), and God is Truly Present (1) and that 1 + 1 equal the 2 elements needed for the source of Grace to save ourselves, those we love, the Church and even the entire world.
Here then are the other three author’s testimony; 3 Apostles + 2 men who worked DIRECTLY for these Apostles, personal testimony…. Oh, to what extremes unbelievers have to go not to believe; which evidences the effectiveness of Satan selling of “Pride” to easily fill their egos at firehouse prices. … How TRULY said this reality is.
Matthew 26:26-29“[26] And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to his disciples, and said: Take ye, and eat. This is my body. [27] And taking the chalice, he gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this. [28] For this is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins. [29] And I say to you, I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father.
DOUAY CATHOLIC BIBLE EXPLANATION: [26] “This is my body“: He does not say, This is the figure of my body, but This is my body. (2 Council of Nice, Act. 6.) Neither does he say in this, or with this is my body; but absolutely, This is my body: which plainly implies transubstantiation.
DOUAY CATHOLIC BIBLE EXPLANATION [27] “Drink ye all of this”: This was spoken to the twelve apostles; who were the all then present; and they all drank of it, says St. Mark 14. 23. But it no ways follows from these words spoken to the apostles, that all the faithful are here commanded to drink of the chalice; any more than that all the faithful are commanded to consecrate, offer and administer this sacrament; because Christ upon this same occasion, and at the same time, bid the apostles do so; in these words, St. Luke 22. 19, Do this for a commemoration of me.
DOUAY CATHOLIC BIBLE EXPLANATION [28] “Blood of the new testament”: As the old testament was dedicated with the blood of victims, by Moses, in these words: This is the blood of the testament, etc., Heb. 9. 20; so here is the dedication and institution of the new testament, in the blood of Christ, here mystically shed by these words: This is the blood of the new testament, etc.
DOUAY CATHOLIC BIBLE EXPLANATION [29] “Fruit of the vine“: These words, by the account of St. Luke 26: 22. 18, were not spoken of the sacramental cup, but of the wine that was drunk with the paschal lamb. Though the sacramental cup might also be called the fruit of the vine, because it was consecrated from wine, and retains the likeness, and all the accidents or qualities of wine. End Quotes
Mark 8: ……. [17] do you not yet know nor understand? have you still your heart blinded? [18] Having eyes, see you not? and having ears, hear you not? neither do you remember. [19] When I broke the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took you up? They say to him, Twelve. (“12” represented at that time and place the 12 tribes of Israel; which in their mindset meant the entire known world; as the Jews considered only themselves “clean”; that is “thee-called people.” So any none Jew was thought to be grossly inferior, not even worthy of mention.) So by implication Jesus HAD Fed the “entire “known” world.) [20] When also the seven loaves (among four thousand, how many baskets of fragments took you up? And they say to him, Seven.” In Jewish Tradition numbers had a “story to tell; a Traditional-meaning of significance. The number “7” signified full, complete, or even perfect. So once again the implication is that Jesus again FED “the entire known world.” Or what we would understand today as being “EVERYONE”; at least BY desire and intent of God. …
Mark 22: [22] And whilst they were eating, Jesus took bread; and blessing, broke, and gave to them, and said: Take ye. This is my body. [23] And having taken the chalice, giving thanks, he gave it to them. And they all drank of it. [24] And he said to them: This is my blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for many.
Luke 22: [17] And having taken the chalice, he gave thanks, and said: Take, and divide it among you: [18] For I say to you, that I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, till the kingdom of God come. [19] And taking bread, he gave thanks, and brake; and gave to them, saying: This is my body, which is given for you. Do this for a commemoration of me. [20] In like manner the chalice also, after he had supped, saying: This is the chalice, the new testament in my blood, which shall be shed for you.
DOUAY CATHOLIC BIBLE EXPLANATION [19] “Do this for a commemoration of me”: This sacrifice and sacrament is to be continued in the church, to the end of the world, to shew forth the death of Christ, until he cometh. But this commemoration, or remembrance, is by no means inconsistent with the real presence of his body and blood, under these sacramental veils, which represent his death; on the contrary, it is the manner that he himself hath commanded, of commemorating and celebrating his death, by offering in sacrifice, and receiving in the sacrament, that body and blood by which we were redeemed.
And there YOU have “it.” In words Inspired of God and assured by GOD, and promised by Jesus; so clear and so precise is the carefully CRAFTED language that the extremes; the near total lack of Faith and thee TOTAL lack of right understanding is to US of grace and Faith, incomprehensible. Yet 67% of self-identified catholics; do not know, don’t seem to care to know; are too lazy to find out OR have been so poorly catechized in the POST Vatican II era, THAT it is NOT so much the lay folk; but the “PRAY-FOLKS”; our priest, BISHOPS, Catechist and Religious Teachers who OUGHT to know, are obligated to know; ARE so seriously obligated to know it, share it; teach it that are in such great need of OUR prayers and Our need to “BE Walking Bible Examples. Amen!
Then it is simple as 1,2, 3: … 1Tim. 2: 3 “[3] For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, [4] Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. [5] For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus”
What is in the Bible is THERE because GOD intends it to have MEANING, Learning, even to be the roadmap for us; for OUR POSSIBLE salvation. We can (BUT CAN WE REALLY?) even personally translate it; AFTER ALL Luther told Us to “Be Our OWN priest.”…..Oh, BTW, how did THAT work out? 500 years later and many, MANY thousands of churches; each with its OWN ideas of what the Bible (a book of single and singular TRUTHS) teaches. Hmmm. I wonder How God is with that?
End of this week’s Lesson
This Weeks Educational Catholic Reading (3)
Our very Faith; our Church, God’s TRUTH rest on knowing well the information of this weeks’ Lesson.
Substance and Accidents: A Beginner’s Guide to Defending the Eucharist
The Real Presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist is among the greatest mysteries of our faith. Indeed, the priest celebrating the traditional Roman Rite whispers in the midst of consecrating the Precious Blood, “Mysterium fidei.” Over the millennia, the Catholic Church has lovingly pondered this mystery, and her great theologians, while humbly acknowledging reason’s limits in probing what is divine and supernatural, have nevertheless been able to offer a reasoned defense of it against all objections that unbelief and heresy have hurled against it.
In the modern world, where materialism, scientism, and skepticism reign supreme, the mysterious change that the Church calls transubstantiation has its mockers and would-be debunkers — even conscientious or de facto dissenters within the ranks of the Church, such as the modernists who populate many a Catholic university, seminary, or chancery. As Catholics who seek to understand and live our faith more deeply, we need to take hold of the commonsense philosophy of reality that provides the Church with raw materials for dogmatic definitions. If we do this, we stand a better chance of achieving clear thinking about this wondrous work of God and thus of being in a position to speak of it to others.
It is for this reason that I offer to readers of OnePeterFive a beginner’s guide to transubstantiation. This is not going to be easy reading. The mysteries of the faith challenge our finite and feeble reason to breaking point — but without breaking it. Unlike a bodily muscle that gets tired or even damaged with use, our minds get stronger the more we exercise them, as Aristotle pointed out long ago. I mention Aristotle, the rational philosopher par excellence, not only because he’s my favorite Greek philosopher (everyone ought to have a favorite), but because, as a matter of fact, he bequeathed to St. Thomas Aquinas the conceptual tools for discussing transubstantiation. The mystery, while never ceasing to be a marvel and a miracle past all human thought, can be clarified to the mind so that it no longer seems a colossal contradiction or impossibility.
A Short Philosophical Primer
As the distinction between “substance” and “accident” is fundamental to the Church’s teaching on transubstantiation, anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the sacred mysteries will do well to spend a little time on what these terms refer to.
The distinction between substance and accident, in spite of the technical sound of the terms, is founded on everyday experience. While modern usage often restricts the meaning of “substance” to elements or chemicals and “accident” to an unintended and usually harmful event, their philosophical meaning is much wider. The word “substance” refers to any individual being, anything that exists in and of itself — e.g., a man, a horse, a plant, a stone — having its own proper nature (in contrast to a bench, for example, which, though it has a definition, does not have its own proper nature, but is the result of art putting together different natural substances). The term “substance” derives from its function: it is “that which stands under” (Lt. substantia, Gk. hypostasis), in contrast to the “accidental” (Lt. accidens, Gk. katasymbebekos), “that which befalls, happens to, belongs to” substance. A substance exists in itself as opposed to what exists in a substance. Color, shape, weight, knowledge, virtue, fatherhood, sonship are examples of things that exist in a substance and not in themselves. Color, shape, and weight truly exist, but they exist as belonging to something that is colored, shaped, or weighted. We never see whiteness, but rather a white horse or a white chair; we never see justice, but rather a just man or a just law [i]. When we say someone is six feet tall, we mean that his size is a quantity of his substance; he is six feet tall. Fatherhood is not something that exists apart from someone who is a father; “being a father” belongs to one person in relation to another. Knowledge has existence only in the mind of him who possesses it; it is an accident inhering in his soul.
There are two kinds of accidents: accidents generally so called (non-proper accidents) and proper accidents, also known as properties. Non-proper accidents can come to be and pass away in the same substance, as a pale man can become dark by tanning, or an unmusical man can become musical and through lack of practice can lose that habit. A proper accident, on the other hand, is rooted in and flows from the nature of a substance so that it is always present when the substance is present — e.g., the ability to laugh or the ability to speak, which flow from man’s rational nature. These are called accidents because they exist only in a substance, but they are called properties because they are proper to a certain kind of substance and always accompany it. It would be wrong, therefore, to define “accident” as that which can either be or not be; some accidents are permanent, others mutable. The important notion in defining “accident” is that it exists in, or inheres in, an underlying subject. (The sole exception is the mystery of the Eucharist, where, by divine power, the accidents of bread and wine exist without an underlying subject, as we shall discuss below.) Accidents are thus always distinct from substance, which is their source of being. If there were no rational animal, there would be no foundation for the properties of speech and laughter or the accidents of tall, brave, musical, etc. [ii].
Because we gain our knowledge of reality through our senses, we can directly perceive only the accidental features of things. Nevertheless, the existence of substance is readily inferred from our experience of individual beings (this man, this horse) and from the impossibility of an abstract quality (whiteness, musicality, justice, six-footedness) existing apart from a subject or individual modified by it. The accidents we perceive point to a more fundamental level of being that enables them to exist. A person can change color or height, can acquire or lose virtue, without ceasing to be the same person; substance is the permanent principle underlying all other characteristics.
This leads us to a broader meaning of substance: that which truly is, the essential foundation, as opposed to what is mutable or derivative. In this sense, the nature or essence of a thing is sometimes called its substance, because the nature or essence is that which makes a thing to be what it is — and by extension, the being of a thing can be called substance. When “substance” is used in these extended senses, it no longer signifies a counterpart to or foundation of accidents; hence, when God is called a substance, or the Persons of the Trinity are referred to as hypostases, or when we speak of the hypostatic union of the human and divine natures in Jesus Christ, we do not imply that there are corresponding accidents inhering in the being of God or the Word. Things that are accidents in the soul of a rational creature (such as its knowledge and virtues) are, in God, identical with His being.
The term “substance” entered into Christian theology very early on, in controversies surrounding the Incarnation and the Blessed Trinity. The Council of Nicaea (325), defending the divinity of Christ, speaks of the Son as homoousian (Lt. consubstantialis) — that is, of the same substance, the same divine essence — against the Arians, who called Him homoiousian, “of a like substance” [iii]. In the Middle Ages, when the mystery of the Eucharist as the real Body and Blood of Christ was challenged by Berengarius of Tours, the vocabulary of substance and accident was employed to formulate the orthodox teaching.
The Miracle of Transubstantiation
As the central mystery of our faith, “the font and apex of the Christian life,” the Holy Eucharist is the object of the Church’s most profound adoration and most rigorous vigilance [iv]. To understand why the Church uses the term “transubstantiation” for the miracle that occurs at the moment of consecration, two truths are presupposed: first, that the Eucharist really is the Body and Blood of Christ, and second, as a necessary counterpart, that bread and wine really change into the Body and Blood.
Both truths are taught in Scripture [v] and unequivocally attested to by the Eastern and Western Fathers of the Church. Greek authors refer to the change that takes place in the gifts as a metousiosis or change of one being (ousia) into another; to this day, Eastern Orthodox theologians who remain faithful to the Patristic heritage are fundamentally in agreement with Catholic dogma, even if they use a different and less precise terminology [vi]. The Latin term transubstantiatio appeared in the late eleventh century and was set forth authoritatively at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). Opposing the Eucharistic heresies of the self-styled Reformers, the Council of Trent (1545–1563) solemnly restated the doctrine, noting that its meaning, if not the special term, has been the common faith of the Church always and everywhere.
The substance of a thing is what it most fundamentally is as a certain kind of thing (e.g., bread is a product of baked flour, oil, salt, etc.), as distinguished from its various accidents or characteristics (color, taste, smell, shape, size, location, and the like) [vii]. Normally, the accidents of a thing indicate its substance; the color and taste of bread lead us to make the unsurprising inference that it is bread. Transubstantiation is rightly called miraculous in the strongest sense — that is, altogether outside the ordinary course of nature — because in this mysterious conversion, the accidents or characteristics of bread and wine remain while the inner substance, the essential reality, comes to be entirely different. As the Council of Trent teaches, at the moment of consecration, in virtue of the efficacious words of our Lord uttered by His minister, the entire substance of bread is changed into the entire substance of the Body of Christ and the entire substance of wine is changed into the entire substance of the Blood of Christ. Bread and wine as such cease to exist, and the full reality of Christ comes to be present under their appearances, which, by remaining, permit us to consume the divine gifts. The accidents of bread and wine thus remain without any substance in which they inhere, and the substance of Jesus Christ becomes present without His accidents or characteristics being sensible to us.
One must marvel at the beautiful fittingness of the means chosen by our Lord: bread and wine are evident sources of nourishment for the body, thus perfectly symbolizing the spiritual nourishment the soul receives in Holy Communion, and the lingering accidents of these foods permit the communicant to receive the true flesh and blood of the Lord, and thus His soul and divinity, unbloodily, in a manner well suited to us and our powers. When we receive Holy Communion, the Lord of Heaven and Earth comes to dwell within us in the most intimate way, blessing our souls and bodies with the holiness of His divinized humanity. While the human body transforms ordinary food into its own substance, in receiving Christ worthily it is we who, bathed in His grace, are transformed by degrees into His image and likeness.
Because through the words of consecration the Body and Blood of Our Lord come to be present in all their truth, as the living flesh and blood of the risen Lord in Heaven, the consecrated host necessarily also contains — “by concomitance,” to use the language of Saint Thomas and the Council of Trent — His Blood, Soul, and Divinity, for the latter are inseparable from the former [viii]. They always accompany the Body (the verb concomitare simply meaning to attend, accompany, go along with). The same is true in regard to the wine, which is made the Blood of Christ by virtue of the words of consecration, but in which are present, by concomitance, the Savior’s Body, Soul, and Divinity. This is the reason why reception under one species, whether that of bread or that of wine, does not in any way lessen one’s reception of the whole Christ, the Word made flesh, even if the signification or sign-value of the sacrament is more complete in reception under both species, which the Catholic Church has seen fit to limit to the priest who offers the sacrifice [ix].
Objections and Replies
Some have objected that the use of “substance and accident” in defining the mystery of the Eucharist makes an illegitimate use of pagan philosophical categories that are not revealed in Scripture or found explicitly prior to the scholastic thinkers of the Middle Ages. In her efforts to defend this holiest of mysteries, the Church, so it is said, tied herself to debatable human distinctions instead of remaining content with a simple act of faith in the presence of Christ.
One might initially reply that the terms “Incarnation” and “Trinity” are also not mentioned in Scripture but are no less true on that account. But more to the point, this objection fails to see that the distinction between substance and accident derives from common experience and the structure of reality. The Church uses philosophical terminology whenever it captures some undeniable truth about the world we live in or the faith we profess. In his 1965 encyclical Mysterium Fidei, Pope Paul VI explained that the Church has found a universal language with which she can successfully present and defend her teachings:
These formulas [of Trent] — like the others that the Church used to propose the dogmas of faith — express concepts that are not tied to a certain specific form of human culture, or to a certain level of scientific progress, or to one or another theological school. Instead they set forth what the human mind grasps of reality through necessary and universal experience and what it expresses in apt and exact words, whether it be in ordinary or more refined language. For this reason, these formulas are adapted to all men of all times and all places.
Even if the Church does not enjoin Aristotelian physics per se, she perceives that the mystery of the Eucharist can be correctly defined in terms originally introduced by Aristotle. She has solemnly defined that the wondrous and singular change occurring at the moment of consecration is most appropriately and correctly called transubstantiation. Responding to the Synod of Pistoia (1786), which held that the theory of transubstantiation is a “purely scholastic question,” Pope Pius VI reaffirmed to the contrary that all of the faithful should be instructed in it.
Paul VI’s Mysterium Fidei issued a stern warning against devaluing or replacing the term “transubstantiation,” condemning in particular two innovations, “transfinalization” (namely, that the words of consecration change the finality or purpose of the bread and wine, which then serve the function of stimulating faith in Christ’s love) and “transignification” (that the words of consecration change the meaning of the bread and wine, which thus acquire a symbolic significance lacking in ordinary human food). Such theories hearken back to the errors of Protestant Reformers who either denied
the actual conversion of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ and consequently rejected the Real Presence or denied the total conversion of the gifts, insisting that after consecration, the bread and wine continue to remain, together with or alongside of the newly present Body and Blood (a theory known as consubstantiation). It was precisely such heresies that the Council of Trent anathematized in order to safeguard the profoundest mystery of divine love. When she rejects consubstantiation, moreover, the Church is in fact upholding reason, for to say that the very same thing is both the entire substance of Christ and the entire substance of bread is a contradiction in terms, a metaphysical impossibility.
Another objection runs as follows: isn’t God “deceiving” us if Jesus Christ is truly present but cannot be perceived in any way as present? Why would the Savior choose to give Himself to us under different and misleading appearances?
The practical answer is that, granting our Lord’s intention to nourish us with Himself, we could not eat His Body and drink His Blood in a dignified way unless it were made available after the manner of ordinary food and drink. But the deeper answer is that the Eucharist, as the supreme mystery of faith, beckons us to place our entire trust in the inerrant Word of God, the God of mercy who condescended to enter the world as a helpless infant whose divinity could not be recognized by human senses (Jn. 1:9–13, Mt. 16:17). The hidden presence of Christ upon the altar is at once the greatest mercy to sinners (Mt. 26:28) and the greatest challenge to disciples, who must discern Christ in the breaking of the bread (Lk. 24:35) or they shall find Him nowhere, even were He to appear and walk alongside them. If we must exercise the supernatural virtue of faith to accept all the mysteries of our holy religion — the Trinity, the Incarnation, the virgin birth, the resurrection — we must exercise this virtue above all when worshiping and approaching the God hidden under the humble appearances of the consecrated gifts. Our Lord said to Thomas: “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe” that I am truly risen from the dead (Jn. 20:29); to us at every Mass He says: “Blessed are you who do not see and yet believe” that I am truly here, in your midst, fulfilling my promise to be “with you always even to the end of time” (Mt. 28:20).
A philosophically minded person could object that a substance cannot change without its accidents or appearances also changing; thus, if bread and wine cease to be, their appearance must also cease, and if Jesus comes to be present, His appearance must also come to be present.
St. Thomas replies: God is the first and absolute cause of all being — the being of substances as well as of their accidents — and whatever is the first and absolute cause of a composite is also the cause of its aspects or components taken one by one. Thus, He is able, in His omnipotence, to cause a substance to exist by itself without its usual sensible characteristics, and to sustain accidents in being apart from their customary subject,. The Creator who causes both iron and its accidents (shiny surface, hardness, durability) to exist and remain in existence can, if He chooses, cause the characteristics of iron to remain while withdrawing the substance underlying them. That He can do so should not be difficult to accept when we consider that God, in creating the world, the angels, and each human soul, brings forth being out of nothing (ex nihilo) — an act that surpasses every miracle. The objection is valid only so far as our common experience goes, for the Eucharist is an absolute exception, about which we have to be instructed by Our Lord and His apostles. With all other beings, it is true that substance and accidents always go together, but in the mystery of the Blessed Sacrament, God has willed that they remain separate by an act of His indomitable power.
Related to this objection is another: how can the Body of Christ be in more than one place at a time? Would not Christ be impossibly multiplied in the many hosts?
In response: Only the accidents of bread and wine are divided up and distributed, and only the accidents can perish with time, as they do in the stomach of the recipient; the glorified Savior in Heaven, without suffering division or change, makes Himself wholly present in the Eucharist, which is truly one because its substance is truly one. St. Paul’s teaching — “The bread which we break, is it not a sharing in the Body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor. 10:16–17) — shows that one and the same Bread of Life, Jesus Himself (Jn. 6:35), is received by Christians under the appearances of that physical bread that can be broken up and given out. Though the comparison limps, even a mere man can be present at the same time in different places according to different modes: on a telephone conference call, a person is present to himself in one way and present to the others in another way, without ceasing to be the same man. In the Holy Eucharist, our Lord is present in a sacramental mode that permits of multipresence or multilocation.
Finally, some people think that the doctrine of transubstantiation is made untenable by “modern science.” The empirical sciences of recent centuries, however, have done no more than provide a vast amount of detailed information about the same world in which the ancients and medievals lived, the same world all of us live in and experience. There can never be any reasonable dispute about the normal sequence of events and the ordinary constitution of substances in the natural world. Just as the believer who eats the host tastes bread but knows by faith that he receives Jesus Christ, chemical analysis performed on a consecrated host (God forbid) would obviously indicate the accidental features of bread — just as the believer has always known. Neither the five senses of man nor the most advanced instruments of empirical science can reach into the inward substance of things; all they can know and register are the accidents, the appearances, the qualities and quantities, which, in the Eucharist, remain what they were before transubstantiation. The hostility that a modern empiricist might aim at the Eucharist is rooted in a prior axiomatic rejection of the existence of God or of the very possibility of miracles — i.e., events outside the ordinary “law-abiding” course of nature. These are errors to be engaged on a larger battlefield. Once the existence of God and the infinite perfections of His nature are demonstrated, it becomes impossible to deny the possibility of miracles, since the God who creates and sustains all things can do as He wishes with them, and because Jesus Christ is true God, it immediately follows that He can perform the miracle of transubstantiation by the infinite power of His divinity, a power to which the priest is given special access through his sacramental conformity to Christ the High Priest.
The recent Pew Research indicating a massive collapse among Catholics of faith in the Real Presence, which has been greeted either with crickets or with impressive denials from mainstream spokesmen (as when Bishop Barron flatly denied that the Novus Ordo has anything to do with it), surely tells us at least two things: first, the way in which most Catholics are worshiping is not helping them to perceive the dogmatic truths that the Church confesses, and second, all Catholics — regardless of how well or poorly our liturgies portray the mysteries of the faith — need to do more than go to church once a week if we want to know, love, and live our holy religion. Study is a part of this, and St. Thomas Aquinas is our trustworthy guide.
[i] An idiom like “Will we ever see justice?” means: Will we see the just thing done in this situation?
[ii] There are also two levels of substance. Primary substance is what we have been speaking of, the individual existing thing, this particular man or horse or tree. Secondary substance refers to the genus or species of an individual. “Animal” or “plant” may be called substance, but since there are only individual animals and plants in the world, substance most properly refers to actually existing things rather than things’ species or genera.
[iii] The expression “It doesn’t matter one iota” is a rationalist snub against the theological precision of our forefathers. One iota makes all the difference between Christianity and the dressed-up paganism of Arius.
[iv] See Lumen Gentium 11, Catechism of the Catholic Church 1324. That this adoration and vigilance have often been lacking, especially in recent decades, can hardly be blamed on official teaching. It results more from the decay in authority, the lack of effective discipline, and the gradual loss of a sense of Tradition among the faithful, as documented in Romano Amerio’s Iota Unum.
[v] See, inter alia, Jn. 6:48–60; Mt. 26:26–28, Mk. 14:22–24, Lk. 22:19–20; 1 Cor. 10:16–17, 11:23–29.
[vi] They see their linguistic reserve as a great virtue, of course, but this is no place to enter into a debate about why they are mistaken.
[vii] While bread is not a substance produced by nature, but rather a mixture of natural ingredients brought together by man and subjected to heating, the end result is not a mere conglomeration of ingredients, unless the baking has been quite unsuccessful; it is a consistently recognizable something to which we have no difficulty assigning a single name.
[viii] Inseparable now that Christ is risen and death holds no dominion over Him. The humanity we receive in the Eucharist is risen, glorified, whole, and imperishable. When Jesus first celebrated the Eucharist on Holy Thursday, the humanity received by the disciples was passible (able to suffer). St. Thomas goes so far as to say that if the Eucharist had been offered during the interval between Christ’s death and resurrection, the host would have contained the Body with the Divinity but without the Blood or the Soul, and the chalice would have contained the Blood with the Divinity but without the Body or the Soul. All this is simply the rigorous application of the principle that the Eucharist contains the substance of Christ as He is.
[ix] Since the Council, the aberration of Communion under both kinds has spread widely in the Latin Church. It goes beyond the scope of this article to defend the tradition and to critique this piece of antiquarianism.
Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, Thomistic theologian, liturgical scholar, and choral composer, is a graduate of Thomas Aquinas College and The Catholic University of America. He has taught at the International Theological Institute in Austria, the Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Austria Program, and Wyoming Catholic College, which he helped establish in 2006. He writes regularly for Catholic blogs and has published seven books, the most recent being Tradition and Sanity (Angelico, 2018). For more information, visit www.peterkwasniewski.com.
4 Ways to make your life Eucharistic even if you can’t make it to daily Mass
The saints offer us some quick and easy tools to bring the liturgy into our day.
Do you wish you could get to daily Mass but just can’t?
It can be tough to find the time, particularly for busy employees, shift workers, and moms with young kids. Even if you have the time, there aren’t always Masses available during the week, whether because they’re too far away or they’re all scheduled at the same inconvenient time.
But even if we can’t get to daily Mass, we can still live a Eucharistic life every day. The Eucharist is the “source and summit” of the Christian life, and living in and with Jesus in the Eucharist can transform our spiritual lives.
MORNING OFFERING
Sometimes I think the Morning Offering is the hardest prayer of the day. Not because it’s long – the one I use definitely isn’t! — but because it’s the first one.
The traditional Morning Offering is deeply Eucharistic. The Mass is a sacrifice and in the Morning Offering, we unite the offering of our day to the divine offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice.
O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer You my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of Your Sacred Heart, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, in reparation for my sins, for the intentions of all my family and friends, and in particular for the intentions of the Holy Father.
By praying the Morning Offering, we can be sure that all of our day — however it turns out! — is united to Jesus and offered up in the Mass.
DAILY MASS READINGS
The Mass isn’t just about the moment of Holy Communion. It’s also about hearing God’s voice through the Liturgy of the Word.
When we hear Scripture read at Mass, we are hearing the voice of Christ, who speaks to us both individually and as a Church. The Bible readings help to prepare our hearts to receive the Word of God, Jesus Himself, in the host and chalice.
One way to live Eucharistically every day, whether or not you can get to Mass, is to read and meditate on the Bible readings of the Mass. They are easy to find online and in missals. You can read all the readings or just the Gospel of the day.
The beauty of this is that you will be praying with the same Scriptures that Catholics all around the world are hearing.
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SPIRITUAL COMMUNION
What if I told you could receive the graces of the Eucharist whenever and wherever you want?
A Spiritual Communion is a powerful and under-used prayer. We might not be able to get to Mass, or be able to receive Our Lord at Mass (if we need to go to Confession, or haven’t completed the time of fasting, or other causes). Nevertheless, we can always ask God for the graces of the sacrament.
A Spiritual Communion can take any form, but St. Alphonsus Liguori’s version is popular for good reason:
My Jesus, I believe that You are present in the Most Holy Sacrament. I love You above all things, and I desire to receive You into my soul. Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You. Amen.
St Jean-Baptiste Vianney once said, “when we feel the love of God growing cold, let us instantly make a Spiritual Communion. When we cannot go to the church, let us turn towards the tabernacle; no wall can shut us out from the good God.” ( have prayed this daily for years now)
GRATITUDE
Finally, gratitude. The Greek word Eucharist means thanksgiving. One of the best ways to live Eucharistically is to do it literally.
To live a Eucharistic life is to live a thankful life.
Secular psychologists and self-help gurus are adamant about the power of gratitude to reduce stress, keep positive, and even alleviate mental illnesses. But living gratefully is not just about positive benefits for us. We want to live with gratitude because, as the Mass says, “it is right and just” to thank God for all His gifts.
There are lots of practical ways to practice gratitude, but some of my favorites include:
- Saying “thank you” for small things
- Praying grace before meals
- Writing down three things you’re grateful for at the end of each day
- Thinking of your hardest struggles and finding a reason to be thankful for some aspect of them
In his meditation on the Eucharist, spiritual writer Henri Nouwen wrote that “to live a Eucharistic life has everything to do with gratitude. Living Eucharistically is living life as a gift, a gift for which one is grateful.”
Whether or not we can get to Mass during the week, we are all called to live out the graces of the Eucharist in our daily lives.
Every day, we can unite ourselves to Jesus in the Eucharist, be open to receive His grace, and live with thankfulness and joy — the gratitude that comes from knowing we are loved. End Quoted
The Real Presence: Knowing What We Are Doing
Mass is celebrated at the Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver.
COMMENTARY: Now is the time for bishops, priests, deacons, catechists, parents, godparents, writers and all those with the responsibility to pass on the faith to articulate with clarity and conviction the Church’s Eucharistic faith.
Father Roger J. Landry
On Sept. 6, I had the privilege to offer Mass for the 10,000th time as a priest. It’s a great source of thanksgiving for me.
Sometimes people are surprised when other priests or I mention exactly how many Masses we have celebrated, as if, on the positive side, we might have the world’s greatest memory or, on the negative side, we might be neurotically obsessed about details.
But there’s a practical reason we know. When priests are ordained, most of us get a book to record the Masses people ask us to pray for their intentions. One part of the book has the Mass requests to which we’ve committed, and the other records the Masses we’ve actually fulfilled. This is so if we die suddenly, another priest, finding the book, can celebrate the Masses we were not able to, fulfilling our duty to those who gave the stipends.
There’s a spiritual reason, however, why this is a good practice. Priests are called to celebrate each Mass as if it were their first, their last and their only. Each Mass is meant to be cherished, because in each we engage in what our faith teaches us is the most important event that happens that day in the world, when the Son of God miraculously becomes incarnate on the altar.
Such an approach toward Jesus’ self-giving in the Eucharist is not just for priests. When I prepare young people for their first Holy Communion, I emphasize that the most important aspect of the experience is not the “first” but the “Communion.” I tell them that the “second” is just as important, as is every subsequent Communion.
Once in a while one of them will come to me some time later and say something moving like, “Father, today is my 100th Holy Communion!” Such a comment reveals the type of eagerness and appreciation for the Gift and the Giver that all believers should have when approaching Holy Communion. Whether or not they keep track, it shows how precious each Mass is.
The recent Pew Research Center study about U.S. Catholics demonstrated that we have much work to do to ensure that priests and the faithful have this awareness and appreciation. Only 50% of U.S. Catholics said that they knew the Church’s teaching that after the consecration, the bread and wine are totally changed into Jesus’ body and blood.
Even among that 50% of those who were aware of the Church’s teaching, a third said that they still regarded the Eucharist as a symbol, leaving only 31% who actually believe the Church’s teaching that the Eucharist actually is Jesus.
Everything begins with knowing clearly what we profess to be doing during Mass. At his ordination, a priest kneels before the bishop who says, as he places a paten and chalice in the baby priest’s hands, “Accept from the holy People of God the gifts to be offered to him. Know what you are doing and imitate the mystery you celebrate.”
It is key for priests to recognize the supernaturally profound reality of what they are doing in the celebration of the Mass and to help the People of God recognize it, too. The Pew Research Center’s study shows that we cannot take knowledge for granted. Without this basic knowledge, we cannot imitate the mystery of the Mass and “do this” in Jesus’ memory. Without it we won’t grasp who it is we receive and how he wishes in the Holy Eucharist to transform us — and, through us, the world.
Therefore, now is the time for bishops, priests, deacons, catechists, parents, godparents, writers and all those with the responsibility to pass on the faith to articulate with clarity and conviction the Church’s Eucharistic faith.
We do not have to reinvent the wheel. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in Paragraphs 1374-80, presents succinctly what we believe about the Eucharist. It underlines:
“In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist, the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really and substantially contained. This presence is called ‘real’ … because it is presence in the fullest sense: That is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.”
The Eucharist is not a symbol, but truly Jesus.
The Catechism defines transubstantiation — a term that many of the Catholics surveyed couldn’t define — as the “conversion of the bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood. … It has always been the conviction of the Church … that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.”
This term was first used in the 12th century by the future Pope Alexander III to describe how, after the consecration, the whole substance of the bread and wine are changed into Jesus while the appearances of bread and wine — their size, extent, weight, shape, color, taste, smell — are preserved miraculously by God.
“The Eucharistic presence of Christ,” the Catechism continues, “endures as long as the Eucharistic [appearances] subsist,” and for that reason it is fitting that we adore and love him, bring him to the sick and pray before him in the tabernacle.
The Catechism then turns from the “that” of the Eucharist to the “why.”
“It is highly fitting,” it says, “that Christ should have wanted to remain present to his Church in this unique way. Since Christ was about to take his departure from his own in his visible form, he wanted to give us his sacramental presence … the memorial of the love with which he loved us ‘to the end,’ even to the giving of his life. In his Eucharistic presence he remains mysteriously in our midst … under signs that express and communicate this love.” What Jesus ultimately wants is an encounter: “Jesus,” it emphasizes, “awaits us in this sacrament of love.”
In teaching about Jesus’ real presence, I have always found it helpful to ponder his words in Capernaum (John 6:22-69). There, he identified himself as the “Real Manna” and the “Bread of Life” and underlined, “My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink: Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains and me and I in him.”
Many disciples — not strangers, but those who already believed in him — responded, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” and many of them left. They were probably disgusted, thinking that Jesus was speaking like a cannibal. Jesus then turned to his closest followers, the apostles, and asked whether they too would leave. Peter spoke up and gave the fundamental principle of Eucharistic faith: “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”
He had no better idea of how Jesus would give his flesh and blood to consume than the departing disciples did, but because he believed in Jesus, he believed in what he said. The Church’s Eucharistic faith is based directly on our trust in Jesus.
Jesus’ words about how we would eat his flesh and drink his blood would finally make better sense a year later, when, during the Last Supper, Jesus would take bread and wine, change it into his body and blood, and say, “Take and eat.” “Take and drink.” He kept the appearances of bread and wine, it seems, so that we would not be nauseated eating something that looked like human body parts rather than reminiscent of normal food. They knew, however, that he who had changed water into wine in Cana was certainly capable of changing wine into blood. They would then become ministers of that miracle.
On Sept. 6, I had the awesome privilege of being Christ’s instrument to bring about that wondrous transubstantiation for the 10,000th time — and I continue to strive to know what I’m doing and imitate what I’m celebrating.
Father Roger Landry is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts. End QUOTED
In This Week’s “Catholic News”
Prince Charles to attend Cardinal Newman’s Oct. 13 canonization in Rome…
Posted:
Prince Charles will attend the canonization of Cardinal John Henry Newman next month. The heir to the British throne will travel to Rome to witness the canonization Mass of the first non-martyr English saint since the Reformation. After the Mass in St. Peter’s Square Oct. 13, the Prince of Wales will attend a reception at the Pontifical Urban College
Dear friends I know this is a lengthy lesson. Even more so than usual; BUT I am obligated to share what I think is important for each of us to know (and yes I read it all too.)
This Vigano article is something we should all read IMO.
Viganò Speaks: the “Infiltration” Is Real
Jonah began his journey through the city, and when he had gone only a single day’s walk announcing, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. (Jonah 3:4-6)
A year after his bombshell testimony on the cover-up for Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò remains a prophet in exile, exposing the filth in a Church that needs to be burned clean. As Inside the Vatican’s Robert Moynihan notes, the Italian prelate is an unlikely hero. He’s a “small man with intelligent eyes, exquisite manners, studious, hardworking.” But this 78-year-old with thin-rimmed glasses bears in his bones the burden of prophetic speech. He bears the weight of being (as Moynihan puts it) a kind of modern-day Jonah, called to preach to Nineveh before the potential destruction comes.
These days, Archbishop Viganò is warning of an invidious campaign to infiltrate the Catholic Church. In a bombshell interview with Moynihan published last week, Archbishop Viganò tells of a “project” that “goes back centuries”—“in particular, to the creation in the middle of the 1700s of Freemasonry.” This “very deceptive” plot against the Church included some of her own senior members.
“This is described in the book Infiltration by Dr. Taylor Marshall, so you may find some indication of this process there,” says the Archbishop. He is referring to the bestselling book which argues that, “for over a century, the organizers of Freemasonry, Liberalism, and Modernism infiltrated the Catholic Church in order to change her doctrine, her liturgy, and her mission from something supernatural to something secular.”
Viganò believes that this process of infiltration “became strikingly evident in modern times,” and that we are now witnessing the “triumph of a 60-year-old plan” to revolutionize the Church with “a Jesuit on the See of Peter.” As Viganò recalls, many key Vatican II revolutionaries were Jesuits who maneuvered to replace the council’s prepared schemas with ones they had drawn up. Most prominent among them was Fr. Karl Rahner, S.J., frequently touted as the council’s most important ideologue.
“This was the beginning of an opening… in the process of creating a new Church,” says Archbishop Viganò.
He isn’t the only one speaking of a “new,” Jesuit-fashioned Church. In La Nuova Chiesa di Karl Rahner (“The New Church of Karl Rahner”), Stefano Fontana soberingly traces the genealogy of Pope Francis’s “open Church” back to Rahner, the towering radical suspected of heterodoxy under Pope Pius XII. As Fontana shows, Rahner negotiated a “surrender to the world” which is being registered in this pontificate’s signature agendas—from Communion for adulterers and the ordination of married men to the enthronement of “conscience” and the rapid abandonment of evangelization.
Historian Roberto de Mattei likewise calls Rahner the Pope’s “grandfather,” arguing that the two Jesuits are linked through a third—Carlo Cardinal Martini, leader of the St. Gallen mafia and Pope Francis’s “father.” “The agenda of Cardinal Martini, which is the same as Rahner’s, offers us the key to understanding the papacy of Pope Francis,” says de Mattei, pointing to the Cardinal’s fiery last interview calling for the autonomy of conscience and Communion for adulterers.
Today, St. Gallen don Walter Cardinal Kasper and others are euphemizing Pope Francis’s ruptures with the past as a glittery “paradigm shift.” But Archbishop Viganò says the “exotic,” “sophisticated” slogans are just being used “to mislead, to deceive.”
He explains that, in the past, a “huge machine of media propaganda” applied a hermeneutic of rupture to Vatican II. Today, he says, a slick “media machinery, including photos of Pope Francis with Emeritus Pope Benedict, and so forth, has been used to argue that the ‘new paradigm’ of Pope Francis is in continuity with the teaching of his predecessors.”
“But it is not so,” he warns. “It is a ‘new church’.”
Benedict XVI “said this would be a catastrophe,” says Archbishop Viganò of the project to make a new Church. He’s referring to the Pope Emeritus’s letter this year on the sexual abuse crisis. To borrow Michael Brendan Dougherty’s summary of the “explosive, acid” text:
Benedict charges that a revolutionary spirit from the world entered the Church in the 1960s. Possessed by that spirit, arrogant theologians determined on creating “another Church” destroyed the traditional moral theology of the Faith, leading to a complete breakdown of moral discipline in the clergy and even a generalized spirit of blasphemy, which Benedict intimately and unforgettably connects with the phenomenon of child abuse.
https://www.crisismagazine.com/2019/vigano-speaks-the-infiltration-is-real
Pope Francis invites religious, political leaders to sign ‘Global Pact’ for ‘new humanism’
Cdl. Marx defies Vatican: German ‘synod’ will go ahead despite plan being called ‘not…valid’ (I Personally suspect that this IS Rome backdoor approved…Pjm)
By Claire Chretien
Pro-contraception priest hired to teach ethics at new John Paul II Institute in Rome
By Diane Montagna
Three questions for Catholic opponents of capital punishment
When one reads Pope Francis’s statements about the death penalty carefully, it turns out to be difficult to interpret them in a way that would make assent to them binding on Catholics
Does Pope Francis’s teaching on capital punishment amount to a doctrinal change or merely a prudential judgment?
There are two possible interpretations of Pope Francis’s teaching on the death penalty. Either he intends to revise the relevant doctrinal principles, or he intends merely to make a prudential judgment about how best to apply existing doctrinal principles to current circumstances. But on neither interpretation can Catholics be obligated to assent to his position (as opposed to merely giving it respectful consideration).
Here’s why. Consider first the suggestion that Pope Francis means to revise the relevant doctrinal principles. Now, the Church teaches that there are limits to what any pope can do by way of such revision. For example, the First Vatican Council taught:
- 2. Do you agree with Pope Francis that life sentences should be abolished?
The standard positon of Catholic opponents of capital punishment has for decades now been that the practice is unnecessary, insofar as dangerous offenders can be incarcerated for life instead. Hence the U.S. Catholic bishops have said that “one alternative to the death penalty is life without the possibility of parole for those who continue to pose a deadly threat to society.”
- Do you agree with Pope Francis that executing a murderer is worse than what the murderer himself did?
Though it might be hard to believe, Pope Francis has said things that are even stranger than his remarks about life imprisonment. In the 2015 public letter quoted above, he wrote:
For a constitutional state the death penalty represents a failure, because it obliges the State to kill in the name of justice. Dostoyevsky wrote: “To kill a murderer is a punishment incomparably worse than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by a criminal”. Justice is never reached by killing a human being.
Now, the most startling words here are the ones the pope attributes to Dostoyevsky. But he quotes them approvingly, and he does so in a formal letter that he had time to think through rather than in impromptu remarks. The quoted sentences are also followed by a sentence of the pope’s own that flatly states that justice is “never” achieved by capital punishment, and the letter also contains other remarks that seem to imply that capital punishment is intrinsically wrong. Nor does the pope say anything to qualify or correct the view he attributes to Dostoyevsky. So it is hardly unreasonable to think that the pope might agree with that view.
Here’s the rest of THIS story: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2019/09/15/three-questions-for-catholic-opponents-of-capital-punishment/
Legal Pot Sends Highway Deaths Soaring – Lunch Alert!
By DICK MORRIS
| Trump says he has increased sanctions on Iran |
| President Trump said Wednesday that he has instructed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to “substantially” increase economic sanctions on Iran. |
| IRAN Top advisers to President Trump say he is hesitant to initiate military action against Iran because of his campaign promise to reduce foreign entanglements. “Do I want war? I don’t want war with anybody. I’m somebody that would like not to have war.” READ |
BACKLASH OVER KAVANAUGH CNN political analyst Harry Enten said the re-emergence of attacks on Kavanaugh could hurt Democrats’ chances of winning the Senate in 2020. “Relitigating Kavanaugh may be good politics for a Democratic presidential primary where Kavanaugh is hated. It may even be a wash for Democrats in a presidential general election. It’s likely bad politics for Democrats when trying to take back the Senate,” he said. READ
BUDGET SHOWDOWN Congress needs to pass a budget by the end of the month to avoid a government shutdown. Senate Democrats tried twice last week to insert pro-abortion measures into appropriations bills. Pro-life activists are calling on lawmakers to reject these pro-abortion maneuvers and to pass a short-term funding bill that keeps key pro-life policies in place. READ
YOUTH FOR TRUMP Newsweek magazine profiles young people who publicly support President Trump: “They don’t consider Trump racist and reject that label for themselves as well. They’re sick of ‘cancel culture’—when critics on social media call for a boycott of someone who has said or done something deemed offensive—and political correctness… They don’t share the attraction to socialism that seems to be felt by many in their cohort. And Trump’s unfiltered personality delights them.” READ
SILENCE Organizations that support abortion were noticeably silent as 2,246 unborn babes were found in abortionist Ulrich Klopfer’s home. One young woman remarked: “My whole body went numb from shock. That shock turned into lying in bed sobbing at the thought of my baby being on his property.” READ
The case for Viganò’s case against the Vatican
What emerges from Marco Tossatti’s pages is the image of an archbishop concerned above all else with the supernatural purpose of the Church, with the good of souls, with his standing before God, with what is due to God.
One of the greatest difficulties facing those who wish to reveal hidden corruption is that of providing irrefutable proof to verify their allegations, allegations often rest on a mix of personal observations, claims of anonymous sources and circumstantial evidence—all easily fabricated and, for that reason, easily impugned. Of course there are factors which can help us evaluate credibility: Do allegations accord with indubitable facts, or at least with what can plausibly be surmised from them? Have investigations tended to prove a whistleblower more or less correct? Was the whistleblower in a position to know the fact and does he have a character which can be trusted?
It is on this last point that Marco Tosatti builds his case in Viganò vs. The Vatican: The Uncensored Testimony of the Italian Journalist Who Helped Break the Story, a book which includes complete copies of the public statements made by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò from August to November of 2018, together with Tossatti’s account of how and why the archbishop chose to make such information public.
What emerges from Tossatti’s pages is the image of an archbishop concerned above all else with the supernatural purpose of the Church, with the good of souls, with his standing before God, with what is due to God. The regularity of this emphasis in Viganò’s statements is a welcome contrast to the emphasis on such issues as psychological harm done and the creation of mistrust found in the statements of even many orthodox clergymen committed to rooting out sexual abuse. Far from being the disgruntled careerist depicted by his adversaries, he is a man who puts the good of the Church over power and influence. On one occasion he turned down an offer from Pope Benedict XVI to be made prefect of the Congregation for Economic affairs (which would have brought an elevation to cardinal) because he believed that acceptance would put an end to his efforts to implement much needed reforms in the governance of Vatican City.
In contrast to this Viganò’s critics are shown to be responsible for a series of obfuscations and cover-ups, with Tossatti calling attention to many instances in which there is documentation which strengthens Viganò’s side of the case.
Does this mean that we should take all Viganò says at the final word? Obviously not. Human memories are notoriously imperfect. Even the most reasonable presuppositions can distort how even the most objective and honest of us interpret what we see and here. Unfortunately both Viganò’s sympathizers and his critics often link their assessment of him with the question of whether his allegations meet the standard of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” necessary for a criminal conviction. End of PARTS Quoted: Here is the REST of the Story
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2019/09/17/the-case-for-viganos-case-against-the-vatican/
White House endorses investigation of abortionist who kept bodies of over 2,000 murdered babies
By Calvin Freiburger
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End of PART QUOTED; see the rest of the story here:
https://mail.yahoo.com/d/folders/1/messages/17820
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ADD IT TO THE LIST: Fading Bernie Unveils His $2.5 TRILLION ‘Housing for All’ Plan, Calls for Tax Hikes
Fading Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders unveiled his “Housing for All” plan Wednesday; calling for $2.5 trillion in new spending to expand government programs for low-income Americans.
“In the richest country in the history of the world, every American must have a safe, decent, accessible, and affordable home as a fundamental right,” writes Sanders.…
ABORTION A new study by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute estimated that 862,000 abortions were committed in the United States in 2017. The rate of 13.5 abortions per 1,000 women of “reproductive age” marks a 50% drop in the abortion rate since 1980. READ
ANALYSIS The Guttmacher Institute tried to downplay the role of state pro-life laws enacted from 2011 to 2017 in reducing the abortion rate, writes researcher Michael J. New. He noted that the pro-life movement has been hard at work for decades: “There has been a durable, long term increase in the percentage of unintended pregnancies that are carried to term since the early 1980s. This fact reveals the success that the pro-life movement has had in working to shift public opinion, to better assist pregnant women and their families, and to pass protective laws.” READ
GUN CONTROL The Trump administration met with GOP lawmakers to discuss a gun control proposal which would expand background checks on all commercially-advertised gun sales between two parties. The plan would not affect sales between family or friends, provided the firearms were not first advertised for sale elsewhere. The White House said President Trump has not endorsed any proposals. “Not even close,” said Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley. READ
2,246 South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg broke his silence on the 2,246 unborn children found in the home of the late abortionist Ulrich Klopfer, who worked for decades in the mayor’s hometown. Buttigieg said he found the news “extremely disturbing” and that the case should be “fully investigated.” But Buttigieg, who is running for president, added: “I also hope it doesn’t get caught up in politics at a time when women need access to healthcare.” READ
HUMAN RIGHTS The Senate confirmed prominent Catholic law professor Robert Destro as the next Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Toufic Baaklini, president of In Defense of Christians, said Destro is “a critical leader in the fight for genocide recognition for victims of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.” READ
BISHOP SPEAKS OUT Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria issued a teaching document titled “The Real Presence” to implore Catholics to better understand the Most Holy Eucharist: “I… ask that this year and in coming years, at parish councils, religious houses, faculty meetings, chaplain meetings, RCIA and catechetical meetings, that our entire Local Church look for ways to reinforce our teaching and witness regarding the Blessed Sacrament.” READ
| FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20 |
| ATTACKING CATHOLIC HOSPITALS A California court has ruled that a Catholic hospital can be sued for refusing a hysterectomy on a transgender person. “Catholic hospitals do not perform sterilizing procedures such as hysterectomies for any patient regardless of their gender identity, unless there is a serious threat to the life or health of the patient,” Dignity Health said in a statement. READ |
SMEARING SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES House Democrats said 60 organizations, including socially conservative groups like the American Family Association and the Family Research Council, should be stripped of their tax-exempt status because of their “hate.” READ
PRESIDENTIAL APPROVAL President Trump’s approval rating has bounced back and now sits at 44.3% in the Real Clear Politics average. That’s slightly higher than the 43.9% average that Barack Obama had on September 18, 2011 – the same point in his presidency. READ
CONFUSION Fr. James Martin’s message causes confusion about Church teaching, says Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia. “Due to the confusion caused by his statements and activities regarding same-sex related (LGBT) issues, I find it necessary to emphasize that Father Martin does not speak with authority on behalf of the Church, and to caution the faithful about some of his claims,” said Chaput. READ
SCHISM? WHO? The threat of schism doesn’t come from the United States, says Fr. Raymond de Souza. “It is far more likely from Germany.” READ
| Trump approves troop deployment in response to attacks on Saudi oil sites |
| President Trump on Friday approved the deployment of U.S. troops and missile defense equipment to Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates in response to an attack on the country’s oil facilities that the Trump administration has blamed on Iran, Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced at the Pentagon |
The Courage of Bishop Schneider
Bad bishops are hardly a novelty in the history of the Church. Historians estimate that, when the Arian heresy rocked Christendom in the fourth century, four out of five bishoprics succumbed to apostasy. When Henry VIII ordered England’s bishops to swear the oath of succession, all of them complied—all, save one. For his refusal to abandon his allegiance to the Pope, Bishop John Fisher of Rochester was martyred by Henry in 1535 and canonized by Pius XI four centuries later, almost to the day.
No doubt the majority of bishops in our own age retain the orthodox Faith in their hearts. But would even 20 percent of them speak out in its defense? Orthodox prelates aren’t rare but orthodox prelates with courage are. At least we know of one: Athanasius Schneider, O.R.C., auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan. His recent interview proves him worthy of his namesake, the sainted Bishop of Alexandria who defended the doctrine of the Trinity against defeated the Arian heresy 1,000 years before St. John Fisher’s birth.
Schneider’s words are a pleasure to read because he’s so clear and free of the “weaponized ambiguity” of the modern, professionalized prelates who twist and turn with the winds. ….End of Quoted Part; Here is the REST OF THE STORY
https://www.crisismagazine.com/2019/the-courage-of-bishop-schneider
End of Part Quoted
Pope Francis: Through Sin and Scandal, God’s Church Remains, Sustained by the Holy Spirit
The Holy Father said Sept. 18 that what is of God will last, while human projects may first succeed but then become ‘shipwrecked.’
Hannah Brockhaus/CNA
VATICAN CITY — Because of sinfulness, human projects will always fail, but the Church remains steadfast, even in times of scandal, because she is sustained by the Holy Spirit, Pope Francis said Wednesday.
“Let us think of the history of Christians, including the history of the Church, with so many sins, with so many scandals, with so many bad things in these two millennia. And why did it not collapse? Because God is there,” the Pope said Sept. 18.
“We are sinners, and so often we even give scandal. But God is with us,” he added. “But the Lord always saves. Strength is ‘God with us.’” ….End QUOTED Part
Cincinnati Archbishop ‘Anticipating’ Vatican Investigation Into Handling of Abuse Case (My Bishop!) FROM (NCR)
Archbishop Dennis Schnurr submitted a report to Rome on archdiocese’s handling of allegations against Father Geoff Drew.
Ed Condon/CNA
CINCINNATI — Archbishop Dennis Schnurr of Cincinnati has submitted a report to Rome, following criticism of the archdiocese’s handling of allegations of sexual abuse against a local priest.
Archdiocesan officials told CNA Sept. 17 that a complete file on the case of Father Geoff Drew has been sent to the apostolic nuncio in Washington, D.C., for transmission to the relevant Curial departments, which are expected to include the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. End Quoted
Nominated to Amazon Synod
They were the only US bishops named as synod fathers for the upcoming Oct. 6-17 Synod for the Pan-Amazonian Region, according to the official list of participants published today.
Hannah Brockhaus/CNA
VATICAN CITY — Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, and Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego are among those chosen by Pope Francis as synod fathers in next month’s Amazon Synod.
A full list of the 185 participantsin the Special Assembly for the Pan-Amazonian Region was published by the Vatican Sept. 21. The synod is set to take place Oct. 6-27.
Among those taking part are 33 bishops nominated by Pope Francis, including Cardinal O’Malley and Bishop McElroy, the only two U.S. bishops to be synod fathers in the Amazon Synod.
The three president delegates of the synod are Cardinal Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo, apostolic administrator of Caracas and archbishop of Merida in Venezuela; Cardinal Pedro Ricardo Barreto Jimeno, archbishop of Huancayo in Peru and vice president of the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network (REPAM); and Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
Cardinal Claudio Hummes, archbishop emeritus of Sao Paulo in Brazil and president of REPAM, is relator general.
The special secretaries are Cardinal-elect Michael Czerny, under-secretary of the Migrant and Refugees section of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and Bishop David Martinez De Aguirre Guinea, apostolic vicar of Puerto Maldonado in Peru END PARTS QUOTED
“Faith and Reason are like two wings of the human spirit by which is soars to the truth.”
― Pope John Paul II
Beloved:
Teach and urge these things.
Whoever teaches something different
and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ
and the religious teaching
is conceited, understanding nothing,
and has a morbid disposition for arguments and verbal disputes.
From these come envy, rivalry, insults, evil suspicions,
and mutual friction among people with corrupted minds,
who are deprived of the truth,
supposing religion to be a means of gain.
Indeed, religion with contentment is a great gain.
For we brought nothing into the world,
just as we shall not be able to take anything out of it.
If we have food and clothing, we shall be content with that.
Those who want to be rich are falling into temptation and into a trap
and into many foolish and harmful desires,
which plunge them into ruin and destruction.
For the love of money is the root of all evils,
and some people in their desire for it have strayed from the faith
and have pierced themselves with many pains.
But you, man of God, avoid all this.
Instead, pursue righteousness, devotion,
faith, love, patience, and gentleness.
Compete well for the faith.
Lay hold of eternal life,
to which you were called when you made the noble confession
in the presence of many witnesses. End Quotes
This my third attempt to compose my final thoughts for this week. Satan is doing crazy things with my computer.
Another weekends and a new one begins.
This week’s Lesson is critically needed; its message is the very FOUNDATION of Catholic Christianity; and oh so sadly some 67% of self- professed catholics, either have not been properly catechized or for whatever reason ARE literally denying GOD. We, You and Me must do whatever we can by our thoughts, words and deeds (actions) to jump into the chasm that BEGS our help, our involvement. PLEASE do get involved in every possible way to teach by word and example. The Real Presence IS Our Faith alive in action today and everyday wherever Mass is Said. We too deny Christ by not doing our part to heal these “sick” souls in at present sickly weakened Church.
Know that you and yours are in my daily thoughts and prayers.
To Jesus THROUGH Mary,
Patrick
On God's Payroll 