Last night I was talking with a Priest. We Catholics believe in - TopicsExpress

Last night I was talking with a Priest. We Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. Every part of the Holy Eucharist, even the tiniest particle of It, we Catholics believe that It is the real Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Risen Lord. This is what the Church teaches and if we watch very carefully after the Priest has returned Our Lord to the Tabernacle, we will see him return to the Altar to pour water in the Chalice to drink anything that remains; but equally important is what he does before that. Before that we will see him take the Paten which is the small plate that the consecrated Host is put on and he will make sure any remaining pieces of the Holy Eucharist are swept into the Chalice so that they are also consumed. This is what we believe, and that is what we see when we go to Mass. A while back I stopped receiving Our Lord on my hand when I went to go receive Holy Communion. All my life I had just known that to be what we do but I did not know that was not the way it was before Vatican 2 cause I’m only 42 years old. So what I’m sharing with everyone here is not to start a debate about it, but rather to share my experience along with what the Priest last night told me. So by all means, regardless of any of our opinions which I’m sure will vary, the point here is that we Catholics believe that Our Lord is in EVERY particle of the Holy Eucharist and not just in some parts and not in others. It is clear that the Church in general now permits receiving Our Lord on the hand as we can clearly see that when we attend Mass, but that was not something in place prior to Vatican 2. So to diffuse any debates about whether or not people can receive Our Lord on the hand, let us recognize that is what we do see at the typical Roman Catholic Mass. So that is without debate and it is futile to spark commentaries about if we “can” receive Our Lord on the hand. The point here to what I am sharing is that we Catholics believe that Our Lord is in even the smallest piece of the Holy Eucharist, even those that may be too tiny to see. That is just a fact, without debate and as you will see why I’m sharing this story. Although I had stopped receiving Our Lord on my hand somewhere within the last two years, it didn’t dawn on me until much later that I needed to take it to confession. People can say “well the Church permits it so that is not something to confess” but we can also agree that we can all receive Our Lord improperly and offend Him. So when that came to my attention that I could have been offending the Lord in this way in which I was receiving Him, I wanted to be free from any sins that stood in between Him and I where I had received Him unworthily and not how I should have received Him. Now I’ve been to confession many times in my life, if anything probably not enough, and even sometimes coming out with tears in my eyes having been freed from some of the most terrible sins of my life. But I have to share here that when I went to go confess receiving Our Lord on the hand, that may have been the most powerful confession that I’ve ever had of my life. See prior to that confession, I had just recently talked with another Priest on the phone about this very topic and he had told me that this now is not how it was pre-Vatican 2. So when I went into the confessional on this occasion, my only focus was to make sure that I rectified myself with the Lord and was right with Him in His eyes regardless of what anyone else says or thinks. Surely I respect all Priests and listen to what they have to say, but we don’t go to confession to make them happy or reconcile our relationship with them. We go to do that for the Lord. So what makes this particular confession so memorable for me is that once I said that I wanted to be forgiven for all of the times that I have received the Lord on my hand, it was though my soul was IMMEDIATELY released from a weight that I did not know was there. Picture being in the basket of a hot air balloon and the rope holding you to the ground is immediately cut and you start ascending very quickly. Quite honestly going into the confessional, my focus was on the Lord and my relationship with Him and not what the Priest would have to say about it. A majority of the time, I don’t use the screen, whereas I would rather go face to face with the Priest so that he could get to know me and so that he can help me as best as he can. For some reason on this occasion I did use the screen which really helped me to focus more on Our Lord and my relationship with Him as opposed to being focused on the Priest’s facial responses to my confession. By all means, with every due respect to this Priest, he did start telling me that the Church does permit receiving the Lord on our hand now and none of us can debate that to be the case as clearly we can all see that taking place at the typical Catholic Mass these days. But there is something more here that just what the Church permits and why this was not permissible prior to Vatican 2. The point here is that we Catholics believe that we are receiving the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, and in that, Our Lord deserves and rightfully so, demands every respect due to Him, does He not? So I’m not here to tell people how to receive Our Lord. I can only tell you from my own personal experience that once I had confessed this in the confessional, it was almost like the Lord Himself pressed the mute button on what was said on the other side of the screen and I was with Him in Paradise in complete peace. With all respect to the Priest, I was not trying to tune him out, and assuredly I value what he has to say, but what I witnessed was an instant and sudden peace that only Our Lord could provide and it was nothing I did on my end, but rather the blanket of peace was wrapped around my entire soul. A PEACE THAT WAS DEAFENING, that by default tuned out the justification that my ears could only hear a whisper of. How is that possible? I assure you that it was like ten thousand Holy Angels could not break that peace, nor could it ever be something that man could create or muster up on his own. So now back to the conversation that I had with the Priest last night… Last night I told the Priest that two days ago I was at Mass and something dawned on me. Whereas I had not been receiving Our Lord on the hand for some time out of respect for the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, I had still been going up to receive Our Lord in the Chalice. What all of a sudden dawned on me the other day at Mass was that all of the people proceeding me to the Chalice have more than likely been taking Holy Communion on the hand. The mental picture that I got was as though we were all in line to receive Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. And if you can picture a person going up with their hand out and the Priest taking a bucket with blood in it and using a brush to coat everyone’s hand with it, and then those people go up to each hold the Chalice, how could I possibly go up to the Chalice and avoid getting that blood on my hand? In all seriousness, if we are to believe in the Real Presence of Our Lord, then likewise we believe that He is present in every particle of the Holy Eucharist, even the specs that we may not see on our hand. Some of us have seen that youtube video where the gentleman takes an unconsecrated host, places it on his other hand which has a black glove on it, removes it and then zooms in to show that there are very tiny pieces of the host still on the glove and matter of fact there is NO WAY NOT TO HAVE REMNANTS of the host on our hand unless we only receive on the tongue. Any of us could test this with an unconsecrated host and see the same thing happen for ourselves, and is the Lord not in the tiniest particle of the Consecrated Host? So what had dawned on me was that by taking the Chalice I was not free from touching Our Lord in His Real Presence. What I didn’t expect to hear last night when I told this to the Priest was that he indicated that pre-Vatican 2 lay people didn’t have access to the Chalice that that was only a recent development. He said that the Chalice was meant for the Priest, not for the lay people. Regardless of our position on that, the most important reflection here is for those that only receive Our Lord on the tongue, that by taking the Chalice we are holding the same cup that those who come before us who may have also received Our Lord on the hand and by default that could transfer on to ours. Then I made the observation yesterday, even if I was the first person in line, I noticed that typically the altar servers do not receive Our Lord on the tongue but rather the hand as well. So in light of what the Priest told me last night, I will not be receiving the Chalice any more as we Catholics do believe that the Holy Eucharist is indeed the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord and thereby as the Priest last night reemphasized, we are still receiving everything we need in the Holy Eucharist, even the Precious Blood. So praise be to God that I was able to receive confession last night as well. Whereas last night’s confession was not as profound by my senses as the previous confession, I do hold a tremendous weight to it because surely that coincides with my previous confession. Often our eyes and minds are blind to spiritual truths. In this case my mind knows very well that there is a spiritual truth that took place last night. These reflections often remind me of Uzzah in the Old Testament. As some may recall, Uzzah was the man who when the Ark of the Covenant was beginning to fall, he went to try to prevent it from falling and when his hand touched the Ark, he was consumed by a fire from the Lord. 1 Chronicles 13:10 – “The LORDs anger burned against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he had put his hand on the ark. So he died there before God.” So this begs the question; is not the Real Presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord more important than the Ark of the Covenant? Without Jesus, there would not be an Ark of the Covenant. So if the Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah for putting his hand on the ark, then what significance does that hold for those of us who receive Our Lord on the hand? Because prior to Vatican 2, that did not take place, so justification can never outweigh the facts. Growing up, I would witness that when my father would go back to his seat after receiving Holy Communion, he would inspect his hand and make sure to lick anything off of it that may potentially be Our Lord. How many people do we see doing that? Or do we see anyone brushing “crumbs” off on to their pants? Or what do we see? Do we believe in the Real Presence and that even broken in two, each piece still remains the Real Presence? And so therefore breaking it down and down and down into the littlest spec, is that not still the Real Presence of Our Lord? So what are we doing going back to our seat with the Lord still present on our hands? Or do we just ASSUME that little magical fairies come to take the little specs of Our Lord away so It is not desecrated? Desecration can clearly occur to the Holy Eucharist. So what are we individually doing to prevent that? Clearly people will have differing points of view about this topic. So it is futile to debate upon people’s different points of view or what the Church permits. Each one of us can clearly see people at Mass receiving the Lord on their hand and this post here is not to degrade or judge anyone for doing so. The point to this post is about the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist and reflecting on what each of us does to uphold and honor the Real Presence that we receive. Surely if Uzzah is burnt up by the Lord for touching the Ark of the Covenant, then each of us who receives Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist needs to do so with the utmost respect and reverence to Our Lord in the Holy Host. In closing, I want to reflect on that which we cannot see. We Catholics believe (even though our eyes cannot tell the difference) that through the Act of Transubstantiation the host is transformed into His Real Presence, is that not correct? So if we can’t see this transformation taking place but yet we know that it truly exists based on our Faith and what the Holy Roman Catholic Church teaches, then what makes us think that the Lord is not still Present in the tiny particles that remain on our hands after receiving Him that we can’t even see? Most certainly without doubt, the tiniest particle of the Holy Eucharist is indeed the Real Presence as I’m sure we would all agree as the Holy Roman Catholic Church teaches. So the question here is, is it possible that 100% of those who receive Our Lord on the hand are actually going back to their seat with Our Lord still on their hand? God bless and protect all of us and help us all to honor, uphold and show reverence always to the Holy Eucharist.