FROM THE PRESIDENT'S KITCHEN TABLE
Dear Readers,
It’s hopeless! It’s over! We’re in chaos. The country
is going down. Get used to it. If murdering babies and euthanizing the
sick and elderly don’t finish us, elevating sodomy to a sacrament
will. The end is near. As a nation and a culture we’re history!
Hang it up!
From a human standpoint every single word you just read is true. There
is no turning back. The United States is on the brink of the abyss. No
culture in history after sinking to this level of depravity has survived
to tell the tale. No power on earth – no president, no government,
no program – can save us.
That’s the bad news.
But, thanks be to God, it’s not the whole story.
As part of my Lenten spirituality I’ve been listening to Fr. John
Hardon’s series on the Eucharist. Father reminds us that Jesus IS
on earth today and wants to works miracles as He did 2000 years ago –
miracles of physical healing and miracles of conversion. But just as He
could work no miracles where there was no faith, Jesus requires faith
to work miracles today. The world without believing Catholic Christians
dedicated to the Eucharist is a corpse. We are, Father teaches, the
anima mundi, the soul of the world. And it is our three-fold devotion
to the Eucharist as 1) presence sacrament, 2) Communion sacrament, and
3) sacrifice sacrament that increases our faith and brings an outpouring
of grace to work miracles and change the world.
Father laments the loss of devotions like 40 Hours that emphasized Jesus
present in the Blessed Sacrament, as present and real as when He
walked the earth. “Never say Jesus WAS on earth,” Father admonishes.
“That’s heresy.” “Jesus IS on earth today.”
In my own meditation I think of those who most closely image Christ present
in the Eucharist. When I look at Jesus in the monstrance disguised in
the Host, I think of the tiny little persons hidden in single-celled fertilized
ova. They don’t look human anymore than the Host looks like the
man Jesus, but they are the image of the Incarnate Word! We believe the
first by science, the second by faith.
When I look at the tabernacle, I know Jesus is there behind the locked
door, a prisoner for love. I see Him imaged in the sick and helpless,
especially those described as “vegetative.” They don’t
speak, but they are there waiting, perhaps suffering, because no one comes
— like Jesus, alone in the empty church. In the presence sacrament
of the Eucharist Jesus invites us to be present to Him, disciples at His
feet.
In the Communion Sacrament we receive Jesus – Body, Blood, Soul,
and Divinity, carrying Him within our bodies like Mary did for nine months.
Communion, worthily received, makes us resemble Christ more and more if
we have the proper disposition. Father Hardon describes the concern of
our Holy Father that most U.S. Catholics attending Mass on Sundays receive
Communion; yet so few go to Confession. The Eucharist cannot restore grace
to a soul dead in mortal sin; the sacrament of Penance does. To receive
Jesus in mortal sin is blasphemy! Father condemns the common use of general
absolution (GA) in some dioceses which violates Church teaching. GA may
ONLY be used during a genuine emergency – soldiers going into battle,
a time of epidemic, etc. The penitent who receives GA must intend
to confess mortal sins in an individual Confession as soon as possible
for absolution to be granted. A large number of penitents does not
constitute an emergency. Father stresses how essential it is to receive
Jesus frequently, daily if possible, to survive the diabolical assaults
of our modern world. For the first time in history the Church encourages
us to go to Communion twice in one day provided the second Communion is
received at Mass.
The Sacrifice Sacrament of the Eucharist recalls Christ’s
atonement for our sins through His passion, death, and resurrection. Jesus
became man so He could have a human will and use it to offer Himself as
a living sacrifice for our salvation. Jesus died once, for all, and through
His death merited the graces necessary for salvation. He instituted the
Mass at the Last Supper to confer those graces on us. While the sacrifice
on calvary was Jesus’ alone, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass it
becomes our sacrifice too as we unite our sufferings to His. Fr. Hardon
says that’s what St. Paul meant when he wrote that we make up what
is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. The Mass invites us to sacrifice
by conforming our wills to God’s especially when our wills scream
to do it our own way. Graces conferred by the Mass give us strength and
courage to die to self every day. The early martyrs were able to perform
heroic acts of virtue through the graces received at Mass.
Read about the Mass, study the Mass, understand what you believe Father
urges. But he warns – “Be sure the sources you read and the
persons you listen to are authentically Catholic.” He wrote The
Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan to give us a reliable bibliography
of truly Catholic thinkers of the past 2000 years. God calls us to be
apostles of the Eucharist, but we will evangelize effectively only to
the degree we understand our faith and its central teaching on the Eucharist.
I urge every Catholic family to buy and listen to these lectures . Give
them to your children and godchildren. Father speaks with the authority
that comes from a life lived in union with the Master. Order on-line at
www.lifeeternal.org.