De Mattei: Attack on the Priesthood, Attack on the Eucharist

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

June 21, 2018

The Holy Eucharist has always been the choice target of those who hate the Church. The Holy Eucharist, in fact, sums up the Church. As a Passionist theologian notes, the Eucharist “epitomizes all the revealed truths; it is the exclusive source of grace: it is the anticipation of bliss, the sum of all the wonders of the Almighty.” (Enrico Zoffoli, Eucarestia o nulla, [The Eucharist or Nothing] Edizioni Segno, Udine 1994, p. 70).

For the record: Vatican CDW head corrects Pope Francis on Communion for non-Catholics

Although we didn't even report on the matter of Pope Francis recently telling a Protestant she should ask Jesus whether she should receive Holy Communion with no intention of converting (forgive us, there's just too much of this nonsense to cover on a daily basis), Robert Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, has now corrected Francis, and forcefully. 

N.B.: While positive, please don't think that this has repercussions beyond setting the public record straight, and stopping the further (daily?) confusion and scandal of the Faithful. Communion for adulterers may just as well move forward, but God willing, Cardinal Sarah will only make his voice louder in opposition to the sacrilege of placing Christ on the tongues of the divorced and remarried. 

From LifeSiteNews:

The Vatican’s cardinal in charge of liturgy and the sacraments has strongly defended the Church’s tradition on reception of Communion in the wake of Pope Francis’ comments to a Lutheran woman suggesting she could choose in conscience to receive.

"A person cannot decide if he is able to receive Communion. He has to have the rule of the Church."

Speaking with Aleteia reporter Diane Montagna, Cardinal Robert Sarah said, “Intercommunion is not permitted between Catholics and non-Catholics. You must confess the Catholic Faith. A non-Catholic cannot receive Communion. That is very, very clear. It’s not a matter of following your conscience.”

Antonio Socci: "Dear Pope Francis, we adore God, not men"

Dear Pope Francis, we adore God, not men

Antonio Socci

April 28, 2015

In a message today, Pope Bergoglio said precisely the following:

“How much I would like us to kneel in veneration before the poor in church.”

The Glory of Eucharistic Theology

A Post in Honor of St. Thomas Aquinas on his Feastday

Saint Thomas has sometimes been portrayed, especially in the theological anarchy of the postconciliar period, as a hidebound medieval scholastic trapped in a rationalistic methodology, whose works lack a palpable spirituality that resonates in the hearts of modern people. As a lifelong student and teacher of Aquinas’s works, I have two reactions: first, this stance betrays a poor understanding of the enterprise of theology itself; and second, it is simply not true on the ground, if I may judge from countless experiences I have had over the past twenty-five years with students from many countries, whom I have the privilege to see coming alive in the joy of intellectual discovery and in a growing love for the Catholic faith, as they go more and more deeply into the wisdom found in Aquinas’s works.

With St. Thomas, we learn that the essential purpose of investigating a divinely revealed truth that is inaccessible to natural reason is to raise our minds to a more intense appreciation of the very mysteriousness of the mystery. In other words, we are helped to see it in all its “dark luminosity,” a mysterium tremendum et fascinans, opaque to our intellects but full of wonder and fascination. We see the mystery as mystery only when we apply our reason to the fullest extent to see the marvelousness of the miracle; more broadly, to see the supernatural, the super-rational, in its very beyondness.

Benson at 100: Paganism and Puritanism, Enemies of the Church's Immutable Standards of Moral Perfection

"The Church alone has the
secret of the sinner's cure."

Communion for "Remarried Divorcees": "Eucharist Not a Superstitious Rite – Outside State of Grace, Not Only Useless, But Sacrilegious."

Jules-Alexis Muenier
Catechism Lesson (1890)
Musée d'Orsay

"From the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother; and shall cleave to his wife. And they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." And in the house again his disciples asked him concerning the same thing.

And he saith to them: "Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if the wife shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery."

The Gospel according to Saint Mark, x

The 750th Corpus Christi

Well, not exactly. As is known by many, following its establishment by Pope Urban IV with the bull Transiturus, of August 11, 1264, Corpus Christi, the first "new" papally-established feast for the Church universal, was only irregularly celebrated until its reaffirmation by Pope John XXII over half a century later, when the first recorded public papal procession of the Most Holy Sacrament in Corpus Christi took place in Avignon. It is unknown if it was even celebrated in the Papal Court itself throughout the intervening years.

Nevertheless, it is true - for all formal purposes, this is the 750th Corpus, and we thank the Lord for this gift He gave the Church: the Sacrament, His Presence, the light given to successive papacies, saints, theologians and the faithful Catholic people that allowed for the development of this great notion of the Adoration of the reserved Sacrament, public Procession, and Benediction of the Most Holy Sacrament. We thank the Lord for the devotion of Saint Juliana of Liège and for the sweet words of the Angelic Doctor.

The bull Transiturus had original versions which were slightly different one from the other; we present below the translation provided by Fr. James T. O'Connor:

Urban Bishop,

 servant of the servants of God, to the venerable brothers, Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, and other prelates of the Church, health and the apostolic blessing.

About to pass from this world to the Father, our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ, since the time of his Passion was at hand, instituted the great and wonderful Sacrament of his Body and Blood, bestowing his Body as food and his Blood as drink. For, as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we announce the death of the Lord. Indeed, at the institution of this Sacrament, he himself said to the Apostles: Do this in memory of me: so that for us the special and outstanding memorial of his love would be this venerable Sacrament; a memorial in which we attain the corporeal Presence of the Saviour himself.

Other things which we remember we embrace spiritually and mentally: we do not thereby obtain their real presence. However, in this sacramental commemoration, Jesus Christ is present with us in his proper substance, although under another form. As he was about to ascend into heaven, he said to the Apostles and their helpers, I will be with you all days even unto the consummation of the world. He comforted them with a gracious promise that he would remain and would be with them even by his corporeal presence. Therefore he gave himself as nourishment, so that, since man fell by means of the food of the death-giving tree; man is raised up by means of the food of the life-giving tree. Eating wounded us, and eating healed us. Thus the Saviour says, My Flesh is real food. This bread is taken but truly not consumed, because it is not transformed into the eater. Rather, if it is worthily received, the recipient is conformed to it.

We should celebrate continuously the memory of this memorial, because the more frequently his gift and favour are looked upon, so much the more firmly are they kept in memory. Therefore, although this memorial Sacrament is frequented in the daily solemnities of the Mass, we nevertheless think suitable and worthy that, at least once a year – especially to confound the lack of faith and the infamy of heretics – a more solemn and honourable memory of this Sacrament be held. This is so because on Holy Thursday, the day on which the Lord himself instituted this Sacrament, the universal Church, occupied with the reconciliation of penitents, blessing the chrism, fulfilling the Commandments about the washing of the feet and many other such things, is not sufficiently free to celebrate so great a Sacrament.

Moreover we know that, while we were constituted in a lesser office, it was divinely revealed to certain Catholics that a feast of this kind should be celebrated generally throughout the Church. Therefore, to strengthen and exalt the Catholic Faith, we decree that, besides the daily memory that the Church makes of this Sacrament, there be celebrated a more solemn and special annual memorial. Then let the hearts and mouths of all break forth in hymns of saving joy; then let faith sing, hope dance, charity exult, devotion applaud, the choir be jubilant, and purity delight. Then let each one with willing spirit and prompt will come together, laudably fulfilling his duties, celebrating the Solemnity of so great a Feast.

[Translation: James T. O’Connor (1988) from The Hidden Manna. Online Source: Vultus Christi. Image: Luigi Passini, Corpus Domini in Venice, 1873-74 - Online Source: Schola Sainte-Cécile, Fr. Meissonnier, FSSP]

This is our 6,000th post: thank you for your faithful readership.