Eucharistic Reverence

The title of this podcast might have you wondering, particularly if you have looked at the readings for this Sunday's Holy Mass. If you listen you will see how the necessary reverence shown to the Blessed Sacrament fits within the question that Our Lord poses at the end of this Sunday's gospel.

If you would like to contact me to provide feedback, suggestions or to ask questions you can do this via email:

frpchandler@armidale.catholic.org.au

Also if you would like to support me in this work, please send me an email and I will provide details for how you can make a donation.

Music by Samuel F. Johannson and by Tomomi Kato from Pixabay

Transcript

But when the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?

That’s the question our Lord finishes today’s gospel reading with. What sort of a question is it? Is it a rhetorical question that requires the answer yes or no? Is it a question posing as an exhortation or an encouragement? I think it could be both.

When we read the lines above that question, we understand that Jesus is encouraging us to persevere in prayer with great trust in God who is kind and compassionate, and will see justice done, more so than the judge was to the widow. So, we must persevere in prayer and we must persevere in many holy other things as well.

But when we try to answer the question that Jesus asks with a simple yes or a simple no, it becomes a little more difficult. There are times when I answer the question, “Yes of course He will find faith on earth because there are so many faithful and devoted followers of His”. But at other times, times of despondency, I find myself tentatively saying no.

Let me explain: we know that those Catholics who come to Mass are now very few; in our diocese 7.8% of Catholics come to Mass. There are some dioceses in Australia where the Mass attendance  is lower than that and there are somewhere where it is higher. But no where does it get much above 10%. 

This is not our fault in the sense that we did not cause it. There has been a whole damaging firestorm of things happening in the world and in culture over the past 80 years since the end of the Second World War, and those have their roots back in the 19th century with Marxism; even back to the 18th century with the so-called Enlightenment and the French Revolution. 

Today we find ourselves in a culture and a world that is dominated by opinions and ideas like 

• there is no such thing as objective truth; truth doesn’t exist.
• there are no comprehensive interpretations of the human life in the world. Those who say there  are only out to control you.
• Knowledge and convictions are nothing more than individual subjective opinions. 
• It’s impossible for anyone with one view to judge the views of others who are different. 
• Coherence is overrated. Contradictions are fine. 

I could go on with many others but when we look at the Mass attendance, at the ideas that are being promoted in our society, about the human person, about how we are to be governed, about history. It is certainly a cause for despondency and distress.

Our sad hearts at the state of the world and the Church must rekindle our prayer for the conversion of hearts and minds. Persistent, continual, and confident prayer is what Jesus encourages. So that there is some faith when he returns, because we do not know the hour when he will come.

Like the Israelites and the widow in today’s Gospel, we face opposition and injustice—at times from godless and pitiless adversaries.

Should we try to win people back to Christ and bring them back to Mass? Yes of course. But solving the problems and dispelling the issues and ideas that are current in our culture is something that no individual person can do and no individual Parish can do. I think this is where the purpose of the parable that Jesus told comes forward. The best thing, not the only, we can do is to persevere in prayer.

It’s good to remember that prayer is many things. It is adoration. It is thanksgiving. It is petition. Often we go straight to the third one, petition. But asking God to change people’s hearts and minds, to pray for their conversion, also requires adoration and thanksgiving. Then it is complete; the necessary and fullest prayer that pleases God.

It also requires that we remain absolutely faithful to Holy Mass. And we should offer Holy Mass for the conversion of those we know, who don’t come to Mass; for the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the world, so that all the evils of the world, not just war, but those false and anti-Christian ideologies that abound in the world will be shattered. 

The offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass always makes present the infinite merits of Christ, but according to the measure of the receptivity of those who assist at the Mass, as well as the general holiness of the Church in the moment that the Mass is offered.

I mentioned adoration just before and I'd like to remind you that there are three times a week of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament  available in our parish. The practice of adoration fell into disuse in the 1960s and 70s. But the last three popes have been encouraging a revival of adoration. 

Adoration is an act of love towards Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament. It is a powerhouse of prayer, that reaches into the hearts and souls of those who come, but also into the world that needs the presence and grace of Christ so much.

We must be mindful and careful to practice those moments of adoration that occur at Holy Mass. The most obvious of these is our reception of Holy Communion.

Last Sunday at the 9 am Mass there were two occasions when the sacred host was dropped to the ground. I am sure this was unintentional, but even the unintentional must be avoided at all costs.

The same Jesus who walked the face of the earth two thousand years ago is now alive and present before us at this time. When carelessness or inattentiveness creeps in, the objective actions can look like that His own sacred Eucharistic body is being treated like a dead object to be consumed, or an ordinary object. But it is His risen and glorified body and person which we receive.

For 1300 years there was only one way to receive Holy Communion, that is, on the tongue and kneeling. This was a safeguard against the sacred host falling to the ground.

If you do choose to receive holy communion on your hands, I want to remind you of the safeguards that you must practice to do it this way.

• Don't use one hand. 
• Use two hands cupped together. 
• If you can't use two hands then bring your hand to your mouth and receive on the tongue that way. 
• Don't break the sacred host before you put it into your mouth
• Stand still until you have received the body of Christ into your mouth. 
• Do not, do not place the sacred host in your mouth on your way back to your seat.

I would finish by saying the safest way to avoid the sacred host being dropped is to receive it on the tongue.

To conclude, we must keep to what we have been taught and know to be true, so that when the Son of Man comes again in kingly power, He will indeed find faith on earth.