Lost Lambs

I have been gone for quite some time, but now I return to you with much more time on my hands now, so maybe there will be an influx of good posts coming your way from me.

To ease back into the world of blogging I want to share with you this prayer after Communion.

This is a Three part series of posts that will Deal with the Meaning of life

We are called to Know Him, to Love him, and Serve him in this world and spend eternity with him in the next.

This is the meaning of life, plain and simple. It is through living our vocation and persevering through the struggles and tribulations of daily life that we praise and honor God. This post will consider ways that we can better serve our Lord.

Firefighter, Pilot, Solider,Homemaker,Lawyer - You get the Idea we all have a role to play, the path that we choose to follow may vary but we all hope to be heading to the same destination that is the Beatific Vision. No road heading in this direction is easy, this road is one of great difficulty, if we are so lucky. It is in the times of greatest struggle that we really may have a chance to get to really know and serve the Lord.

While the acts of our day may often seem mundane, we must remove our initial reaction and perception. It is quite easy to get frustrated or angry at a screaming toddler, the gut reaction is usually one of haste and immediate gratification to silence the child. Instead of these instances of frustration we should learn to treat the child and his tantrum with total love and calmness, if the issue can not be resolved with tenderness and compassion the issue must not be resolved with the opposite emotions of anger and frustration. It is in acts of love toward the most unappealing situations that we can serve God.

Whether its a toddler, working late in the office, In the line of fire - this the Cross God has asked us to carry. God never gives us more than we can handle, in thinking we know what we can or can not handle we only do injustice to God, as he knows us better than anyone. Is life Fair? NO! Some have what we perceive to be no large yolk around their neck, we then sin by envying the light load of others. Whatever we are called we can serve better when we embrace our Cross like Jesus and continue along our way.

The rocky road of our life can be endured much more easily, and we can serve much more effectively when we live in an abundance of Grace. Grace from God overflows in the Sacraments, all of them bestow great amounts of grace. Since only two of the seven can be given continually, participating in the Eucharist and Confessing our sins regularly we can affirm all the total grace that has been given.

I leave you with the response we should all have when we are called to serve God even in the most dire circumstance:

And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.

Luke 1:38

While attending the mass at Conception Mo. (See the previous post) the Archpriest of the ceremony stood at the ambo and gave a short speech. He wanted to emphasize the real presence of our Lord in communion, he wanted to remind people that it was only 1-Catholics, 2-that had observed the Eucharistic Fast, 3-and were living without MORTAL sin- as we are all absolved from venial sin during the mass- were allowed to come forth and receive communion,

To those that met the requirements set forth by that Church He said come forward and get the Most Holy Communion you have ever received come Kneel down, the priest will bless you with the Blessed Sacrament and then you must receive on your tongue, he said dont reply anything, just realize what you received and meditate on the fact that you received Jesus Christ, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity!

So I have been thinking, why do so many Catholics today either a) Not Believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, or b) are totally ignorant of this fact - even in all Novus Ordo parish’s when you go to receive Jesus, you are told, and in a way almost asked to confirm ” THE BODY OF CHRIST”, then you respond “AMEN”, Amen means YES!, so if a Catholic that chooses not to believe in the real presence of Christ goes to communion why do they respond AMEN? Why would the priest say “THE BODY OF CHRIST” if it was not so.

Why has catechesis of the true presence of Christ declined? I don’t have the answer for you, I can only think of a few factors that may perpetuate the issue, one possibly being the continuation of the indult of Communion in the Hand, maybe priests are not preaching enough of how Jesus is present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, he wanted to let us know that we are all called to be saints and that certain saints only received communion maybe a total of 5 times in their life, if 5 times was enough for them to be saints then we must adhere to the churches instructions.

Once we have everyone believing in the truth of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist then the next problem I foresee is stopping the outrageous amount of sacrilege, Catholics whom use birth control, and that are not validly married seem to be the most common offender of this sacrilege, not to mention the scores of people that only attend confession once or twice a year when they are constantly living in a state of mortal sin. I am not here to judge, but I do feel called to protect Jesus in Most Holy Communion.

The wife and I are very close to completing our convalidation in the church, we have not been receiving communion for quite sometime, it has been somewhat of a penitential time preparing to re-enter a state of sanctifying grace, As I have been making my spiritual communion each week at Mass and as the time comes to re-enter this state of grace, after the convalidation is finalized and after a good heart felt confession, I truly feel as if I will be making my First Holy Communion for a second time. I’m not sure if I will be able to hold back the tears of joy.

A Catholic man has written into a Catholic online forum, he had an amazing “day dream” during communion the other day about how, “whereby Christ in the Flesh walked into the Church. Everyone filing up to Communion stopped dead in their tracks, turned around towards Him and began pressing back to reach Him. I, however, remained sadly rejected in place.” he continues, “At that moment, someone in the crowd grabbed my arm and said, “C’mon! It’s the Lord“! I explained that I couldn’t go to Him because I was in sin. At that, many of the people who were pushing their way back to Him, had overheard me and began explaining that it’s for the worst sinners that He came, and that He didn’t want anyone kept from touching His garment. No one held me back from receiving Jesus. I was urged to go right up to Him and touch his garment, to be nourished, to be cleansed.“

This man brings up a good question….
But Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P. provides a better answer:

“The Church doesn’t hold the worst sinners at arms distance, the sinners themselves do. The Church isn’t forcing them to sin. They are doing that quite on their own.

The Church does not withhold the Lord’s compassion any more than He did. But He was only compassionate with those who were repentant and then He warned them not to engage in such activity again.

Actually when you were waiting for an annulment, you could have received Holy Communion if you were not having marital relations with someone with whom you were not validly married. Perhaps you didn’t know that to do so is a mortal sin. One cannot profess one’s unconditional love for the Lord while at the same time engaging in sinful activity. THIS is where it can’t be both!

The Church wasn’t politely holding your arm. You could have gone to Confession and determined to live celibately until you were validly married—and then received Holy Communion. Many do. Unfortunately, often priests fail to tell people this.”

Quotes Taken From:
SOURCE: Do we really want unity among the faithful?