Monday Musings - Let Us Be Real About Eucharistic Revival - Part II

"In last week's post, which explored the dishonor accorded the sacredness of the Mass, I asked: "How can we expect the current efforts toward Eucharistic Revival to bear fruit when we have not addressed the real and obvious reasons why so few Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament?

This week I invite you to read the following post on lack of reverent silence and sacredness within our Churches. Are there any specific Revival efforts planned to catechize and instruct souls as to how they should conduct themselves while in the Presence of God? 

Without Reverent Silence Nothing Else We Do Will Be of Any Value

A Forgotten Truth:  "The Blessed Sacrament is that Presence which makes a Catholic Church different from every other place in the world; which makes it, as no other place can be, holy." - St. John Henry Cardinal Newman:

A Catholic Church must be unlike any other building in the world because God resides there. A Catholic Church is holy ground. All who enter must conduct themselves in a manner consistent with being in the Presence of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We must enter, remain and exit it in reverent and total silence. God deserves nothing less.

In far too many of our Catholic parishes we have lost the sense of the sacred and an appreciation for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that are both essential for fostering and maintaining a belief in the Real Presence. We have forgotten how to pray. We have forgotten how to act while we are in Church and no one teaches or corrects us. Many ignore He Who is Love to engage in inane chatter on topics more appropriately discussed at social and sporting events. The actions and demeanor of so many souls are inconsistent with one who professes to believe that Jesus Christ is really and truly present on the altar and in their hands.

You can read this post in its entirety here.

Eucharistic Reflection - Console and Glorify Our Lord

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"When you come into My presence to adore Me, and prefer Me to the other things that solicit your attention and make claims upon your time, I am consoled and glorified.

The proof of friendship is the choice of one's friend over all else. I want you to prefer Me, to give Me time that could be given to other persons and things. In so doing, you will show Me your love and offer Me the consolation of a true friendship.

I would ask this preferential love of all My priests. Friendship, if it is to thrive, must be practiced. This is as true of friendship with Me as it is of human friendships. I wait for the companionship of My priests."

(In Sinu Iesu - When Heart Speaks to Heart -  The Journal of a Priest)

Monday Musings - Let Us Be Real About Eucharistic Revival

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How can we expect the current efforts toward Eucharistic Revival to bear fruit when we have not addressed the real and obvious reasons why so few Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament? 

Over the next several weeks, God willing, I will highlight those reasons, one by one. These issues have been raised for decades and have been ignored. Those who raise them are dismissed and cast aside as if they were lepers.

Let's begin by pondering these words written by Father Donald Haggerty more than five years ago. How are our Bishops and the current Revival efforts addressing the concerns Father [and countless other souls] have raised? 

"When we realize after a serious conversion the true holiness of the Eucharist, the presence of God Himself in the Host, there is bound to be a spiritual discomfort and unease in seeing at times the dishonor accorded the sacredness of the Mass. Fervent prayer at Mass can be an arduous task when challenged by casual priestly gestures, slapdash improvisations, banal comments.

With the rapid words and quick movements of some priests, it can be difficult to realize that an enormous event takes place with every consecration at Mass. The external displays are often hard to distinguish from an indifference to the transcendent mystery. The clerical disregard for the sacredness of the Mass, moreover, cannot be unlinked with the diminished faith in the real presence of the Eucharist among many Catholics. The almost universal reception of Holy Communion at weekend Masses raises precisely a question of real belief in the truth of the Eucharist. The phenomenon is a symptom of the privatization of faith in our time.

Relations with God, including the reception the Eucharist, have become for many people a matter of private determination, without reference to a wider body of shared Catholic discipline and belief. The likely prevalence of sacrilegious Communion, with perhaps no comparable precedent in history, surely contributes in turn to a slow bleeding within the Body of the Church during the current era. The uncertain, vague sense of the Eucharist is aligned inevitably with a reduced awareness of the person of Jesus Christ as true God and man.

A soul recently converted and drawn to the Eucharist will be sensitive to these signs of the times.”

(From Conversion: Spiritual Insights Into An Essential Encounter with God by Father Donald Haggerty)

Pondering Tidbits of Truth - December 29, 2022

 

Pondering Tidbits of Truth is my simple and inadequate way of providing nuggets of spiritual wisdom for you to chew on from time to time.

 

 

 

David Torkington

 “ ‘Prayer’, he [Cardinal Hume] said, ‘is trying to raise the heart and mind to God.’…

The quality of our prayer is ultimately determined by the quality of our endeavor. It was for this reason that the great Mystic and mother Saint Angela of Foligno said that prayer is the School of Divine Love. In other words, it is the place where we learn how to love God by trying daily to raise our hearts and minds to him. I intend to introduce you to the different means and methods that tradition is given us to help us keep trying to turn and open our minds and hearts to God in this book but first let me say this. There are no perfect means to help us keep trying to raise the heart and mind to God, just different means. What helps you at the beginning, may not help you later. What helps you in the morning, may not help you in the evening. What helps me might not help you. Remember the famous words of Dom John Chapman, ‘Pray as you can and not as you can't.’ The acid test is does this means of prayer help me to keep trying to raise my heart and mind to God?”

(From The Primacy of Loving the Spirituality of the Heart)

 

Venerable Fulton J. Sheen   “The man who thinks only of himself says only prayers of petition; he who thinks of his neighbor says prayers of intercession; he who thinks only of loving and serving God, says prayers of abandonment to God’s will, and this is the prayer of the saints.”

(From Go to Heaven)

 

Father Donald Haggerty

"Work for God is too easily considered by a standard of achievement in the world. But there are no real successes in any spiritual work that are equivalent to an accomplishment in the world. Certain patterns, however, begin to show after a time. A work desired by God seems always to include some measure of frustration and failed exertion. At the same time, failure in a work undertaken for God often conceals fruits whose delay in manifesting themselves is only temporary. It is hard to accept these patterns until they are observed over a certain length of time in our lives. Nothing significant is ever done for God and for souls without some taste of crucifixion and the offering it requires from us."

(From The Contemplative Hunger)