Lost Lambs

The Eucharist- The word literally means “Thanksgiving”

I can not imagine a better way to celebrate the secular Holiday of Thanksgiving than participating in the Eucharist.

The true presence of Christ under the appearance of bread and wine is something truly amazing, and something too many people seem to be so nonchalant about.

Clergy, and layman - even I catch myself from time to time not staying in the correct state of mind when I meet Jesus in Holy Communion. I can even think back to the few times as a teenager where my mom would seem like “FORCE” me to go to mass on Sunday after I had missed for many months, and I would just receive the Eucharist like everyone else, stick my hand out and eat it, not going to confession, not living in a state of grace, probably committing mortal sins once I got home. For Shame

With my reversion though that I have been striving more and more to encourage everyone that I come into contact with to go and participate in the Eucharist, and If they are Catholic to be in a state of grace to receive our Lord, sure this seems like elementary, First communion information here but we as sinners must be reminded of exactly how prepared our souls must be to accept the Body and Blood of Jesus.

Speaking with a fellow Catholic at work, we went out to lunch together one day and we started discussing our faith, I was impressed with his vigor for our common faith and even though he was a cradle Catholic, he would speak of the Eucharist as a fresh convert. This really stayed with me, and I pray that all of us may have that passion and vigor for Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.

Happy Thanksgiving May Yours be Safe, and Blessed

I have found some additional information regarding the Solemn High Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite that will be televised on December 15th at 8:00 am EST from the FSSP website here is the LINK and here is the info:

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.