- David Martin | The Daily Knight
How Ingratitude, Innovation have Destroyed the Awareness of Christ’s Real Presence
David Martin | The Daily Knight
While Thanksgiving is not an ecclesiastical feast day, the faithful can make good of it by living up to its name as loyal Catholics, but unfortunately, we see much the opposite these days. While the voices of “praise” and “thanksgiving” resound throughout the church we see the people casting aside rules and tradition and running after their own inventions.
This indeed has been the great tragedy of our time: that the Church has been ungrateful for the gift of Apostolic Tradition that Christ left us. Instead of showing thanks by keeping Christ’s ordinances the people roll their eyes at them while bowing to the invention of their own hands.
The Insidious Thanksgiving Mass Blessing of Bread and Wine
As an example of this mockery, it has become popular in recent years to have a special Thanksgiving Mass in which the people are invited to participate in the "blessing of bread and wine" so they can take it home with them.
This is not an act of thanksgiving but an act of mockery and defiance! This “blessing” of bread and wine in Church is forbidden because (1) God has not authorized or commissioned it (2), because it is an abuse of the House of God for whimsical novelties (3), and because it more than suggests that the Eucharist we receive in Church is no different than the bread and wine we consume at home. It suggests that the Eucharist is "blessed bread" and that the Mass is a "community meal." This is heresy.
To make things worse, lay people often assist in this “blessing” of bread and wine at the Thanksgiving Mass. They’re asked to come up and lay hands over them. What this insinuates is that the laity are a “common priesthood” that can bless their own bread and wine to take home so they don’t have to come to Church to get it. It is an insidious trick to get people to stay home from Church while poisoning their minds about the Holy Eucharist. It’s Protestant.
Mystery of Faith Undermined
Because of poor and erroneous instruction today from the pulpit, some 70% of the world’s Catholics no longer believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. They have forgotten that upon the elevation of the bread and wine during the Consecration of Mass, the substance of bread and wine ceases to exist. It is no longer bread and wine though the accidents or physical properties remain, i.e., touch, taste, smell, but the substance of bread and wine is transformed into the very substance of Christ's Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. The Eucharist is not blessed bread or the substance of Christ mingling with bread but is the substance of Christ only with no other substance mingling with it. Yea, it is the very object of our worship.
This teaching on the transubstantiation of the bread and wine at Mass is dogma, which must be believed by the faithful. No Catholic layman, priest, bishop, or pope has the moral right to teach otherwise, and priests should never suggest or insinuate that the Eucharist is a “blessed meal” by having lay people bring bread and wine to the altar for a blessing so they can take it home.
What this does is to warp our conception of the Eucharist and render us unworthy to receive it. The same is said of the many profanations and novelties being introduced to the Church today. The following are among the many bad habits and practices that have served to destroy the awareness of Christ’s supernatural presence in His Sanctuary.
· Talking and socializing in Church
· Immodest dress in Church
· The practice of receiving Communion in the hand
· The practice of standing to receive Communion
· Having laymen and women distribute Communion at Mass
· Raising the arms and holding hands during the Our Father
· The modern-day “handshake of peace”
· Having “youth Mass” in Church
· Having contemporary “guitar Mass” in Church
· The use of Churches for concerts
· The use of Churches for plays
· The use of Churches for rehearsals
· . The use of Churches for meetings
· The use of pop and secular music at Mass
· Preaching that the Mass by definition is a memorial
· Preaching that the Mass is a community meal
· Preaching that the Mass is a community gathering
· Preaching that the Eucharist ceases upon exiting the Church
If Catholics today no longer believe that the Eucharist is the Creator Himself in Person, it is because of these diabolical whims that have cheapened their religion and nurtured this apostate mentality. Such a mindset forbids one from receiving Communion at Mass.
The key prerequisite for receiving the Eucharist is that one must first believe it is the very substance of Jesus Christ. And too, they must remain free from any serious sin. All care must be taken to preserve in their hearts the dogma of the Holy Eucharist lest what St. Paul said of those who receive it unworthily apply to them:
"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.... For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord." (1 Cor. 11: 27-29)
In Christ Crucified and the Most Victorious Heart of Jesus.
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