Posted on 08/03/2007 11:46:07 AM PDT by Antoninus
Six hundred boys were present one morning at the oratory for Mass with Don Bosco. Since the ciborium in the tabernacle only had about 20 hosts, the sexton prepared another ciborium for consecration. But at the last moment he forgot it in the sacristy. At communion time, Don Bosco uncovered the ciborium from the tabernacle and a look of distress came over his face. The altar boys observed that he lifted his eyes to heaven, quietly prayed, and then advanced to give communion. One row after another of boys came forth and at the end all were able to receive with as many hosts left over as when he had started. The news of the multiplication of the Bread of Life spread and the boys crowded around him after Mass: “Miracle! Miracle! Don Bosco is a saint!” Don Bosco said in all humility, “Are you sure?” Then he added, “When you think of it, boys, isn’t the Eucharist always a miracle?”
Always a miracle. Don Bosco said a boy was ready for his First Communion if he understood the difference between bread with a little “b” and Bread with a big “B”.
At 2 AM, in the wee hours of the night, with our tired bodies, we are in the presence of Bread with a big “B”. We call this special time Yawns for Christ. But why are we here, yawning for Christ? Without trumpets blaring, the King visits anyway. No red carpets are unrolled, but the entire empire is in the monstrance nonetheless. If God wrote on the clouds tomorrow that He would be making a visit to planet earth in a week, billions of people would spend every dollar they owned to make way to the site of His appearance. They would pay a fortune for the miracle. And yet, we ignore the simple privilege of what is available every day to any Catholic in the world. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Tonight we are in the presence of the God who made the sun...the sun on which every second 5 million tons of hydrogen fuse into helium. Camouflaged as bread, we have before us the God who made our sun as only one of the 100 billion stars in our Galaxy; the God who made our Galaxy so big that the sun takes 200 million years to go around it one time; the God who took our Galaxy and placed it in a universe with millions of other known galaxies and probably billions yet unknown. But this God comes to us not as a supernova in the evening sky or a king in the grandest palace, but as a poor Carpenter, disguised tonight, to paraphrase Mother Teresa, in the distressing disguise of Bread. Every star in this vast universe finds its origin tonight in this Monstrance. We are sitting in the presence of the architect of our identity. This is the best seat in the universe tonight. Let’s take out the telescope of human reason and do a little exploring.
What concerns our separated brothers, and too many Catholics, is that they can not see Christ in the Eucharist. Of course, neither can they see the thoughts that flow in their heads or the love that flows in their hearts, but this does not cause them to stop thinking or loving. God seems to them to be an elusive black hole, concealing His identity in the Eucharist. But if He did otherwise, would they really rush to the table? Since 700 A.D. He has appeared on the altar at Lanciano as flesh and blood – type AB to be exact -- and still they abstain. It is as much mercy as mystery that He conceals His identity in bread. I, for one, am quite content to consume an ordinary Host rather than the Host of Lanciano. What we have here in the miracle of the altar is an opportunity to partake in microscopic sanctification. Not microscopic in that if we had more powerful lenses we could discover Him; rather, microscopic in the sense that what appears to our senses as ordinary bread and wine conceals a hidden treasure of graces. The microscopic sanctification offered by the Eucharist should have us lined up every day for the Food that can transform us from the inside so that we can go forth to the outside, doing the will of God, bringing macroscopic sanctification to the whole world.
Article continued at: http://www.houseonthemoor.com/Extra/07-30-2007.html
Yet, for a long time only priests participated in the Eucharist in full (body AND blood). I find it quite troubling, which is why I brought it up.
What do you think about partaking when one is in a state of severe sin (or a severe state of sin)?
It would be another nail in the coffin. The church I grew up with has open communion, while the one that I'm taking catechism to join has closed communion, to protect the ignorant from taking it unworthily.
The ones we use are glass, so they get washed, not thrown away.
So in our church, the shot-glasses are all in the rectory bar where they belong.
Y'all use thimble sized shot-glasses? ;o)
When I was a kid (too young to take communion) our church tried a "modern" service. Rather than using the usual hosts & glasses, they passed around a loaf of bread & a big goblet. My mom & a neighbor came back to their place in the pew giggling. First, they'd torn off pieces of bread that were a bit too large. Then, one of them looked at the amount of wine left in the bottom of the goblet & thought is was almost gone, so figured she'd finish it off. The stem of the goblet was hollow, so that last little bit turned out to be more like a big guzzle.
Because partaking in the host is taking in Christ in whole. Why bother having any wine at all?
What about the use of sugar and butter in the matter? Is that ok?
Jesus turned the water into Juice. It was his first recorded miracle.
Thanks for the article. Keep them coming!
ping to you, dingus.
Can. 926 According to the ancient tradition of the Latin Church, the priest is to use unleavened bread in the eucharistic celebration whenever he offers it.
10-4
I wrote this big, old, chatty, humorous reply — complete with anecdote about how drunk a high church episcopal priest can get at Midnight Mass when he learns that the custom at the church where he is substituting is to throw the wine on the flower bed so he ends up drinking, well, right much ....and then my connection crashed and it went into Nirvana.
I think the thing about wine was entirely practical. Communicating 600+ people in both kinds is tough.
For the “then why use wine at all?” question the answer would be that the inability to see one’s way to perfection does n ot mean one shouldn’t try to do one’s best.
So why have Catholics downplayed the blood of Christ? It’s been awhile since I’ve been to a Catholic Mass & I’ve heard they’ve changed the practice where only the Priest partakes of the wine/blood, but I think the official teaching is that the Eucharist is “bloodless” perpetual sacrifice...
...it annoys me no end when I attend a Mass where that happens...the Blood of Christ should always be made available to the faithful...as for the Protestant communion, my only experience was as a kid in the Presbyterian church and we’d pass around trays every six weeks or so with bread cubes and shot glasses filled with grape juice, not even so much as getting out of our seats, which practice of course highlights the symbolic rather than the actual presence of Our Lord...not the most reverential of moments, but that is merely my opinion and is not intended to pass judgment on those whose belief it is....
it annoys me no end when I attend a Mass where that happens...the Blood of Christ should always be made available to the faithful...
...though I must reply to myself that I understand that in some parishes, the issues of finances and numbers play into Eucharistic practices...I really should learn to temper my more petulant moments...
I always hate when that sort of thing happens. I've gotten into the habit of writing stuff that's starting to get lengthy in a notebook file that's saved on my desktop. My fingers are in the habit of hitting [alt] [f] [s] whenever I pause to ponder something. I lost a lot of stuff to power glitches, computer lock ups & bad connections, before I developed the habit.
Return it to the dust or cycling it through the priest... Your mention of Midnight Mass, Piskies never carry any over from one Mass to the next?
I think the thing about wine was entirely practical. Communicating 600+ people in both kinds is tough.
::sigh:: Take & drink, unless logistics make it too troublesome? I think one of the greatest sins of our times is impatience. Things take as long as they take & those who would stay away, because everything takes too long to suit them have missed the whole point anyway.
I have been to Mass in several different parishes, none of them with an attendance nearing anything close to 600 & none of them offered wine to the laity. Things may have changed in the last decade & since I've been to a Mass, but I had begun to think that the host had to have been dipped in the wine when people started saying they were given both elements.
I think Eastern Orthodox offer a combination of the elements with some kind of a spoon, which might take a few seconds longer than just a host for each person.
Reading through resources from elsewhere (I somehow managed to lose the link), the argument against giving wine to the laity had to do with concern about the laity screwing up & spilling some of the Blood.
For the “then why use wine at all?” question the answer would be that the inability to see one’s way to perfection does n ot mean one shouldn’t try to do one’s best.
I've tried to look at the practices of others with generosity (checks log in eye, in the hope that it has managed to dislodge itself), but I can't help but see failure to offer both elements to the laity as something that creates upper & under classes within the body. If the Blood was just a small drop, given with an eyedropper, it would be better than the scandal of not offering it at all, IMHO. Blood = Life
I have never been to a Mass where the Blood was offered to the laity. Searching my memory, I don't think anyone knelt to receive the Eucharist at one of the parishes I went to occasionally, though it might be just a memory misfire. Saturday nights in jeans or shorts... nothing in those Mass' seemed in the least bit reverent to me & going seemed to be all about fulfilling the weekly obligation, nothing more.
as for the Protestant communion, my only experience was as a kid in the Presbyterian church and we’d pass around trays every six weeks or so with bread cubes and shot glasses filled with grape juice, not even so much as getting out of our seats, which practice of course highlights the symbolic rather than the actual presence of Our Lord...not the most reverential of moments, but that is merely my opinion and is not intended to pass judgment on those whose belief it is....
That would bother me, but it would seem the rarity of the offering would splain why I've never seen it, despite having attended several Presbyterian services. I really don't get the grape juice, cuz all of the Presbyterians that I know drink alcohol, at least occasionally & they're not secretive about it. Sure, my brother's bride tried to throw a party without any beer after their wedding, but when my father put a quick end to that plan, most of the bride's family drank beer with the rest of us. We figured the dry wedding had to do with the county it was in, not the denomination.
I believe in the Real Presence, so symbolic & lack of reverence isn't necessarily a Protestant thing.
I think the decision to withhold that chalice doesn't fall under "modern" condemnation. In any event, it is not withheld anymore in any place where I've gone to Mass as a catholic. We do communicate a la the cattle-dipping method instead of kneeling at a rail. Our Parish Church which isn't all that old was built with many of the worst of Post Vatican II architectural notions. So no rail. Heck, we just got kneelers about 2 years ago!
But where you live at? I'm really quite surprised about not offering in both kinds so recently as 10 years ago. I'm wracking my alleged brain, and I guess I just haven't been to too many masses up until I converted, but I can say that certainly in 1991 the default in VA was communion in both kinds.
but I can't help but see failure to offer both elements to the laity as something that creates upper & under classes within the body.
Here's something I've noticed about myself as a convert. Symbolism is more important to me than to many Catholics. For them, it's simple, this IS sacramentally the body blood sould and divinity of Christ -- all in each part. So, yeah, the symbolism stinks, but that's not as important as the reality.
My emotions, my thinking as a former liturgist is definitely with you.
Here's another hting. The Pisky rubrics strongly prefer ONE chalice and, if that can't hold enough wine, a decent flagon on the altar. Then before the distribution one could pour from the flagon into many chalices if that were necessary.
For The RC Church, my understanding is the ONLY kind of vessel that can be used for the Sacred Blood is a cup. So if you need more than what one cup can hold, you put another cup up there, you put as many as you need up there.
For the piskies, the symbolism of one cup was important. For the RCs the need (which I don't quite get-- but I'd guess related to the words of Institution) for the Blood to be in a cup trumps the mere LOOK of one cup. It IS one body, so we're not going to sweat about it's looking like one body. So, mutatis mutandis, the laity ARE receiving all that they need to receive, so they are (or were) not going to sweat what it looked like.
Not defending, just explaining, or trying to.
I'm beginning to think there are some of those among the clergy of every tradition. I'm baffled by the path they've chosen for their lives. Do they start out as believers & become jaded later or are they sociopaths who "play church", cuz the role is one where there is general trust?
I think the decision to withhold that chalice doesn't fall under "modern" condemnation.
I read that withholding the chalice started some time in the middle ages, but don't quote me, cuz I don't know if I I got the idea from a reliable source.
In any event, it is not withheld anymore in any place where I've gone to Mass as a catholic. We do communicate a la the cattle-dipping method instead of kneeling at a rail.
Cattle-dipping method? lol I wondered if it was a figment of my imagination. I think they were still using a Latin Mass at the time & y'all know that had to have been quite some time ago. That church always reminded me of a warehouse & it was built before Vatican II.
Our Parish Church which isn't all that old was built with many of the worst of Post Vatican II architectural notions. So no rail. Heck, we just got kneelers about 2 years ago!
I doubt it's any worse than the warehouse.
But where you live at?
Milwaukee area.
I'm really quite surprised about not offering in both kinds so recently as 10 years ago. I'm wracking my alleged brain, and I guess I just haven't been to too many masses up until I converted, but I can say that certainly in 1991 the default in VA was communion in both kinds.
Bet you didn't have anyone like Rembrant Weakland in charge of things out your way. The last Mass that I remember going to was in '96. If they offered both kinds I may not have noticed, but I think I would have, since it would have been different & so unexpected.
Here's something I've noticed about myself as a convert. Symbolism is more important to me than to many Catholics. For them, it's simple, this IS sacramentally the body blood sould and divinity of Christ -- all in each part. So, yeah, the symbolism stinks, but that's not as important as the reality.
I know what you're saying & I'm fighting with myself about being bothered by it, but Jesus Christ said *drink*, not here is my body including my blood & by the way, you might wanna have some of what's in this cup too.
My emotions, my thinking as a former liturgist is definitely with you.
Guess it's a good thing they changed their practice for ya, eh? ;o)
Here's another hting. The Pisky rubrics strongly prefer ONE chalice and, if that can't hold enough wine, a decent flagon on the altar. Then before the distribution one could pour from the flagon into many chalices if that were necessary.
I guess I can understand why you'd see serving 600 as some kind of real logistical problem. How big do they make them there flagons? If the Priest is one of those frail little guys, can he get some big guy outta the pews to help lift a particularly large flagon on to the alter?
For The RC Church, my understanding is the ONLY kind of vessel that can be used for the Sacred Blood is a cup. So if you need more than what one cup can hold, you put another cup up there, you put as many as you need up there.
I'll have to watch for that. I'm tempted to go to a Mass at a church in another town, just to see the way they're doing things now days.
My ex-husband's girlfriend recently gave me a bottle of holy water from a shrine in my area. My initial reaction, "I didn't know she's Catholic". She's not. lol So I have this bottle of holy water & I've been wondering what I should do with it. Think they'll take it back?
For the piskies, the symbolism of one cup was important. For the RCs the need (which I don't quite get-- but I'd guess related to the words of Institution) for the Blood to be in a cup trumps the mere LOOK of one cup. It IS one body, so we're not going to sweat about it's looking like one body. So, mutatis mutandis, the laity ARE receiving all that they need to receive, so they are (or were) not going to sweat what it looked like.
Makes me almost wonder if there are little fill lines (with like serves 10) inside of their cups.
Not defending, just explaining, or trying to.
I do get it.
I'm thinking that these are people who need our prayers because they are in grave peril. But having said that pious thing, yeah, I'm with you. How do you get up in front of all those people and God and everybody and make all these solemn promises, surrounded with ceremonial and all, and not mean a word, except the implied "I promise not to be too much of a grouch when they call me at 0230 over some issue that could well have waited until noon." This guy didn't think intercessory prayer was in anyway efficacious. I guess he was Pisky because he liked the retirement plan. I really don't get it.
I also have a notion that withholding the chalice was a middle ages thing. I BELIEVE it was an issue in the Reformation.
"Cattle dipping method" was a line of a friend of Eudora Welty's. The friend was the daughter of the former and late dean of St. Andrews' Cathedral in Jackson MS where I had the pleasure to serve for a couple of years. She was a VERY funny woman, and, like Eudora, as ugly as a turtle, but after the initial shock you didn't really notice because she was so fun. After church we attempted air-kisses at each other, but I moved my head to starboard and she hers to port so we ended up smooching on the lips -- and she said,"Oh MY. You kiss GOOD!" while I turned beet red.
Re: Warehouse -- We always called the cathedral in Jackson the "Cattle hall". It had a sloping floor like a movie theatre! Rarely a kid would drop the coin she was going to put in the colleciton plate and it would roll down under the pews making a remarkable racket.
Our St. Thomas Aquinas Church is not too bad for a modren chorch (South Carolina pronunciation) Octagonal with the altar on an apron projecting out of one side of the octagon. The Tabernacle is over on the port side and a Stachoo of our Lady of Fatima on the starboard side, and little by little we are getting idols and pitchers. We've got a decent Icon of + Dominic (whose day it is today, so let the dancing in the streets begin) and a very fine Christ in the tomb. We also have a very chaste "lady Chapel" which is relentlessly modren but still very nice. The "East Window is a rendering in glass of "Our Lady of Perpetual Help" - q.v. and the jewels in the crowns on our Lord and our Lady catch the morning sun wonderfully.
The redeeming character of modren RC architecture is the scarcity of kitsch - a notable absence of lividly pink-cheeked plaster statchoos.
You can communicate 600 people with less than 2 quarts of wine. At our big services I think there are maybe 4 chalices - not everyone receives wine. When I got a needle stick from searching some foolish lady's handbag at Juvenile and Domestic relations court, I didn't receive wine (or give blood) for a year. Had to make sure I didn't have Hep or HIV. The life of a deputy has its adventures. I think they're about to ask me to come back, and now that I see so many Border Patrol guys in the slammer for doing their jobs I'm kinds of thinking maybe not.
Uh, what were we talking about?
heh heh heh.
“She was a VERY funny woman, and, like Eudora, as ugly as a turtle, but after the initial shock you didn’t really notice because she was so fun.”
I am thinking that reference to appearance is not telling the story . The ladies are looking like image of God.
Thanking you
I agree. Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do...
But having said that pious thing, yeah, I'm with you. How do you get up in front of all those people and God and everybody and make all these solemn promises, surrounded with ceremonial and all, and not mean a word, except the implied "I promise not to be too much of a grouch when they call me at 0230 over some issue that could well have waited until noon." This guy didn't think intercessory prayer was in anyway efficacious. I guess he was Pisky because he liked the retirement plan. I really don't get it.
I'm most bothered by their enablers, those who support their rise to positions more elevated than many who are true believers.
I also have a notion that withholding the chalice was a middle ages thing. I BELIEVE it was an issue in the Reformation.
You might be right, but I haven't found anything to back it up *yet* & yeah, I've been looking.
"Cattle dipping method" was a line of a friend of Eudora Welty's. The friend was the daughter of the former and late dean of St. Andrews' Cathedral in Jackson MS where I had the pleasure to serve for a couple of years. She was a VERY funny woman, and, like Eudora, as ugly as a turtle, but after the initial shock you didn't really notice because she was so fun. After church we attempted air-kisses at each other, but I moved my head to starboard and she hers to port so we ended up smooching on the lips -- and she said,"Oh MY. You kiss GOOD!" while I turned beet red.
LOL
Re: Warehouse -- We always called the cathedral in Jackson the "Cattle hall". It had a sloping floor like a movie theatre! Rarely a kid would drop the coin she was going to put in the colleciton plate and it would roll down under the pews making a remarkable racket.
Don't need a sloped floor to have that happen, though once the coin got on a roll, the slope might prolong tings.
Our St. Thomas Aquinas Church is not too bad for a modren chorch (South Carolina pronunciation) Octagonal with the altar on an apron projecting out of one side of the octagon. The Tabernacle is over on the port side and a Stachoo of our Lady of Fatima on the starboard side, and little by little we are getting idols and pitchers. We've got a decent Icon of + Dominic (whose day it is today, so let the dancing in the streets begin) and a very fine Christ in the tomb. We also have a very chaste "lady Chapel" which is relentlessly modren but still very nice. The "East Window is a rendering in glass of "Our Lady of Perpetual Help" - q.v. and the jewels in the crowns on our Lord and our Lady catch the morning sun wonderfully.
I remember marveling at the size of the trees that would have been needed for the ceiling beams in the church of my yout & though the church is modern, I wouldn't say the interior is painfully modern. Three paned glass windows were installed during my tenure there, but the only one that I remember is the one Of Christ's baptism.
The redeeming character of modren RC architecture is the scarcity of kitsch - a notable absence of lividly pink-cheeked plaster statchoos.
I'll tell ya, those lividly pink-cheeked plaster statchoos are eye catchers for little kids. I spent more time looking at them when I was in my cousins' church than I did paying attention to the Mass.
You can communicate 600 people with less than 2 quarts of wine. At our big services I think there are maybe 4 chalices - not everyone receives wine.
Those 2 quarts are one of the reasons I can't buy a "lack of resources" argument, specially since it's not like anyone expects to be served real high end wine.
When I got a needle stick from searching some foolish lady's handbag at Juvenile and Domestic relations court, I didn't receive wine (or give blood) for a year. Had to make sure I didn't have Hep or HIV.
When we went out to see my uncle for the last time before he died, one of his close friends (an RN) made a point of drinking out of his glass in front of us, to open up dialog about the nature of HIV. HIV is infectious instead of contagious & there's a very, very low count in saliva. I'm not sure about Hep tho.
The life of a deputy has its adventures.
I'm sure it does!
I think they're about to ask me to come back, and now that I see so many Border Patrol guys in the slammer for doing their jobs I'm kinds of thinking maybe not.
The treatment of our border agents is an outrage! Meanwhile, it took two trials to put away a cop that beat the living crap out of a guy during a party that had a lot of off duty officers.
Uh, what were we talking about? heh heh heh.
LOL
I don't think what I said contradicts that.
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