Thursday, November 29, 2012

plea for reverence

As some of them are still aware, I still check out what the Tumblr Catholics are up to every now and then.
So, a shout out to all of you; you're all, always, in my prayers.

Scrolling down Jess' tumblog, I cam across this post from a convert who is in the RCIA program; her name is Olivia. I've just copy-pasted the Original Post here. Since all my block quotes are italicised, I have changed what Olivia had in italics to this font instead.

Please, please, please heed what she's saying. Please. For the love of God. No, really, for the Love of God Incarnate, under the form of Bread.
I’ve been sitting here for a good 5 minutes trying to think of a good way to lead into what I want to talk about….I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no easy way to say this.
We, as a people, as a Catholic people, are irreverent towards the blessed Sacrament. We are irreverent towards JESUS. I know what you’re thinking. Olivia, you’re not even Catholic yet, what could you possibly know about the Eucharist. 
Well I will tell you what I know. I know that Jesus IS the Eucharist. I know that when I wake up on Sunday morning (or any morning I get to go to Mass) I’m going to a celebration. I’m going to experience the meeting of Heaven and Earth. I’m going to witness the most intimate of all encounters with Christ. I’m going to be in the presence of Jesus Christ, my friend, my savior, my love, my Father, my everything.
What is it that people don’t understand? It is physically painful for me at Mass to watch SO MANY people casually walk through the communion line, casually receive the Eucharist, casually consume it, and casually walk back to their seats. RECEIVING THE EUCHARIST IS NOT SOMETHING TO BE DONE CASUALLY. Do you realize that when you walk in that procession you are walking towards the living God? The creator of you, of the universe? You are walking towards He who suffered for you. He who weeped for your soul. He who gave his life so you could live more abundantly?!
Please, my dear friends, I am begging you, think about that next time you go to Mass. It is not your priest saying to you “body of Christ” it is Jesus offering his body to you just as he offered it to the disciples at the Last Supper.
I fear for the day we answer for our irreverence  Again I beg you, spend time contemplating the Real Presence. I pray that it is your prayer for the Eucharist to become as real to you as your priest standing before you. Realize my brothers and sisters that when you go into a Church you are in the literal presence of Jesus Christ.
Heavenly Father, who is an endless font of Mercy, look upon your people with compassion and love. Help all of us to become aware of the reality of the Eucharist and of your REAL PRESENCE. Help each one of us to grow in reverance towards your most Holy body and blood.
[original post, here]

Other Tumblr Catholics you should check out:

Saturday, November 17, 2012

For a War Memorial

The following poem is one I found in a Book of Poems by G K Chesterton in Penny Banister's Bookstore
Two things.
This poem is amazing.
And you should go and visit Penny.

The poem:


For a War Memorial
(Suggested Inscription probably not selected by the Committee.)

The hucksters haggle in the mart
The cars and carts go by;
Senates and schools go droning on;
For dead things cannot die. 


A storm stooped on the place of tombs
With bolts to blast and rive;
But these be names of many men
The lightning found alive. 


If usurers rule and rights decay
And visions view once more
Great Carthage like a golden shell
Gape hollow on the shore, 


Still to the last of crumbling time
Upon this stone be read
How many men of England died
To prove they were not dead.

Just read this over a few times. Slowly.
See how amazing Uncle Gilbert is? This is why he should be studied in classrooms and lecture halls alongside Dickens (Chesterton's biography of whom I have recently started,) Elliot, Pope, Lewis et c.

This has been a post.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Quotes of the Now

We are all called to be faithful mystical spouses of our Lord Jesus Christ. Every sin therefore is an adulteration against our Beloved who is always faithful and always loving; even when abandoned and cheated upon time and time again. O my Beloved, forgive me, embrace me!
Callum Martin
And it is surely unreasonable to attack the doctrine of the Trinity as a piece of bewildering mysticism, and then to ask men to worship a being who is ninety million persons in one God, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.
-GK Chesterton, Heretics
via
Niko's Nature
 

From America to Perth, via Rome

I like what Cardinal Dolan does. This address to his brother Bishops of the USCCB is all over the 'blogosphere.' Most people are commenting either on his call to return to the Sacrament of Penance or on his mention of the possible return of the US Church to abstinence from meat on all Fridays of the year.

I, however, would like to mention this:
But I stand before you this morning to say simply: first things first. We gather as disciples of, as friends of, as believers in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, "the Way, the Truth and the Life," who exhorted us to "seek first the Kingdom of God."
We cannot engage culture unless we let Him first engage us; we cannot dialogue with others unless we first dialogue with Him; we cannot challenge unless we first let Him challenge us.
The Venerable Servant of God, Fulton J. Sheen, once commented, "The first word of Jesus in the Gospel was 'come'; the last word of Jesus was 'go'."
You can listen to the whole thing here, thanks to Fr Z.

It reminds me a lot of a document - also from the USA - recently released by the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious. An extract here for you, emphases added:
The Eucharist and the New Evangelization are intimately intertwined, since the New Evangelization has Christ at its center and the Eucharist is Christ. Further, the Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life.” Christian life is lived in the Church, and “the Church exists in order to evangelize.” Therefore, the Eucharist is also “the source and the summit of all evangelization…” The truth of this statement is summarized by Blessed John Paul II’s statement, “…the Eucharist is at the center of the process of the Church’s growth.” One sees, then, a reciprocal relationship between the Eucharist and evangelization: the Eucharist nourishes evangelization, while evangelization leads to the Eucharist. Presbyterorum Ordinis accentuates this truth, explaining that “…all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it” and “No Christian community can be built up which does not grow from and hinge on the celebration of the most holy Eucharist.”
                The Eucharist is the source of evangelization, because the encounter with Christ leads one to proclaim Him to others. This is seen in a simple way in the Gospel pericope recounting the journey to Emmaus of the disciples who are unsuspectingly joined by the risen Christ. The two disciples have spent the whole day journeying towards their destination, seeking to unpack the events of the preceding days. Undoubtedly their own fatigue and the unusual attractiveness of their enigmatic companion inspire the compassion with which they invite the hidden Lord Jesus, “stay with us, for it is growing dark.” However, all sentiments of weariness melt away and are supplanted by evangelical zeal when “their eyes were opened and they recognized Him” in the breaking of the bread. They immediately undo the day’s journey, hastening to proclaim their encounter with the risen Christ to the Apostles in Jerusalem.
 My own Archbishop - Arch+ Timothy Costelloe SDB - addressed [also here] the recent Synod on New Evangelisation thus:
In Christifidelis laici Pope John Paul II spoke of the need to "remake the fabric of the ecclesial community" if we are to remake the fabric of the society in which we live. To do this we must recover the ecclesiology of the Church as the Body of Christ, with Christ as its life-giving head.
The first chapter of the Instrumentum laboris stresses this by focusing our attention on Christ and reminding us that the goal of all evangelisation is to foster an encounter between the person and Christ.

The time has come for us as bishops to place Christ at the heart of our preaching and teaching, and encourage our priests and deacons to do the same. We must help people to be captured by the fascination which the Jesus of the gospels exerts on hearts and minds.

To paraphrase the Rector Major of the Salesians of Don Bosco who made a similar remark about contemporary religious life: The greatest challenge facing the Church today is to return the Church to Christ and to return Christ to the Church - not to become other than we are but to become more fully who and what we are.
 Let me paraphrase the paraphrase.
The greatest challenge facing the Church today is to return the Church to the Eucharist and to return the Eucharist to the Church - not to become other than we are, but to become more fully who and what we are.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

All Saints 2012

From our blog Canis Meus Id Comedit, I bring you pictures of this year's All Saint's Party:

Baby Jesus in Anthony's Arm; Bernadette; Dorothy

Baby Jesus in Anthony's Arm; Joan of Arc

Bernadette & Dorothy with  Jean Vianney's Wig

Anthony with Jesus and Joan

Old Man Rasta Baby Jesus

Old Man Rasta Baby Jesus

Monday, November 5, 2012

Exam Study

And The Angel Said Unto Her...
http://www.catholicmemes.com

The Church of the Meek

Hat Tip: The Catholic Breadbox
It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek … The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution – when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain … But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.


And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.

--Pope Benedict XVI, predicting our current situation back in 1969