Celiac allergy & the Eucharist

Check out this link. A great article!

Here's a taste... pardon the pun.

The Eucharist, the source and summit of the Faith, is the greatest gift we can receive as Catholics. But some of the Faithful cannot receive that same gift, despite their desire to be one body with their fellow Catholics in Christ.

They are celiacs: individuals who cannot ingest wheat or gluten — including rye and barley – without a negative autoimmune reaction and serious intestinal damage.

According to a study by the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, almost one out of every 133 Americans suffers from celiac disease. That means that there may be one celiac, or more, in every Catholic parish with more than 100 members in the United States.

That celiac may even be the priest of the parish or the bishop of the diocese, like the co-adjutor Archbishop of Cincinnati, Dennis Schnurr.

Viable options exist for those who suffer from celiac disease to participate in the Eucharist, but much confusion and some ignorance still remains. What alternatives are there from receiving a traditional wheat host? And how can the Church, and her priests, serve parishioners with celiac better?

Archbishop Burke closes the issue on Communion for unfaithful politicians....

For cryin' out loud: give this man the cardinal's cap!!!

Vatican Official: Bishops Have no Choice But to Refuse Communion to Pro-Abort Politicians
By Hilary White

ROME, January 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Archbishop Raymond Burke, in an exclusive interview last week, told LifeSiteNews.com that the issue of pro-abortion politicians continuing to receive Holy Communion is still one of major concern and that it is the duty of bishops to ensure that they are refused.

He told LifeSiteNews.com, "I don’t understand the continual debate that goes on about it. There’s not a question that a Catholic who publicly, and after admonition, supports pro-abortion legislation is not to receive Holy Communion and is not to be given Holy Communion."

"The Church’s law is very clear," said Archbishop Burke, who was appointed last year by Pope Benedict XVI as the head of the Church’s highest court, the Apostolic Signatura. "The person who persists publicly in grave sin is to be denied Holy Communion, and it [Canon Law] doesn’t say that the bishop shall decide this. It’s an absolute."

Among the US bishops directly to address the issue, Archbishop Burke was one of around a dozen who vigorously supported a directive of the Vatican that said pro-abortion Catholic politicians "must be refused" Holy Communion if they attempt to receive at Mass. Others have refused to abide by the Vatican instruction and the Church’s own Code of Canon Law, saying they would rather focus on "education" of such politicians.

Archbishop Burke called "nonsense" the accusation, regularly made by some bishops, that refusing Holy Communion "makes the Communion rail a [political] battle ground". In fact, he said, the precise opposite is true. The politician who insists on being seen receiving Holy Communion, despite his opposition to the Church’s central teachings, is using that reception for political leverage.

Read the rest here.

picture of the day

A little one scatters flower petals before a procession of the Holy Eucharist- priceless.

New Year's Eve 2009 at the Vatican

Thanks to Father Z.

Some bullet points of the Roman Pontiff’s sermon pronounced in Italian:

* 1st Vespers of the Marian feast.
* O admirabile commercium, the antiphon for the first psalm. "Wondrous exchange". In the Te Deum we sing "Tu, ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, non horruisti Virginis uterum"
* Tonight we are invited to gaze at Mary who received Christ in her heart and brought Him to the light of the world.
* Theotokos. Mary is known as Mother of God from antiquity. The Church affirms this belief.
* Thanksgiving for the year placed in the hands of Mary. This is shared with those present, from city and ecclesiastical government and the faithful present.
* Ask forgiveness for our poor use of time.
* We must know how to give thanks every day, for only in Christ is the light of the mystery of man. (Gaudium et spes 22).
* Christ’s presence is a gift to be shared by all. Initiatives of charity. Educate people in hope.
* The uncertainty of our day. Mary leads us to Christ. Vocations of parents.
* Concern for the city of Rome, a hedonistic mentality. There is a growing need for evangelization.
* Young people: don’t be afraid! Don’t fear the task the Lord has entrusted to you. The Holy Spirit will help you bear witness to the joy of faith and the beauty of being Christian.
* "The world falls into ruin and everyone is thinking of himself."
* The maternal presence of Mary assures us that God will never abandon us.

Which is more important for Catholics: Word or Eucharist?

An answer nicely laid out by Zenit's staff writer, Fr. McNamara.

Eucharist vs. the Word
And More on Forms of Absolution

ROME, NOV. 11, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

Q: Could you succinctly state the relationship between the importance of the Eucharist versus the Word of God in the liturgy of the Mass? I was on a Eucharistic retreat with a group of Catholics, when the leader of our group said that we as Catholics believe that the Word of God is as important as the Eucharist. I have always been taught that the Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith, but after she said this I did some research into adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and the Word of God, and it seemed that there was more than a little validity to her statement since the "Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us" ... and God speaks to us though his inspired Word, etc. Please clarify this. -- N.C., Cleveland, Ohio

A: I would like to begin this answer by recalling a conversation I had during my seminary years with an elderly Catholic layman while on vacation in upstate New York. This wise gentleman, of Lithuanian descent, rented canoes in the Adirondacks and often dealt with evangelical Christians who tried to win him over by saying they had the Good Book. He replied that as a Catholic he not only had the Book but moreover frequently met the Author.

Although one might discuss the theological precision of the anecdote, it does reflect a fundamental truth with respect to the different forms in which Christ is present to us. God certainly speaks to us through his inspired Word, and the Church teaches that he is present when the Scriptures are read. This presence, however, as Pope Paul VI teaches in his encyclical "Mysterium Fidei" is a real but transitory presence enduring while the liturgical reading lasts. It is, therefore, not of the same class as the substantial real presence found in the Eucharist.

From another angle we can also consider how Scripture is fulfilled in Eucharistic worship.

"The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us" this is the foundation of our faith. However, the same Word who took flesh in Mary's womb, who died, rose and ascended, is the same one who said, "This is my body … this is my blood," and is thus present body, soul and divinity under the species of bread and wine. In every Eucharistic celebration the entire mystery of Christ from the incarnation to the ascension is truly made present anew, albeit under the veil of sign and symbol.

From this perspective the Eucharist is thus "more important" than Scripture because Scripture's ultimate goal is to lead us to union with Christ through full participation in the Mass. The Mass is a sharing in the worship which the Incarnate Word offers to the Father in the Holy Spirit.

Yet, from a different perspective and precisely in the context of the Mass, the question as to the relative importance of Scripture vis-[-vis the Eucharist is relatively meaningless.

In every Mass we are like the disciples going to Emmaus, except we already know that Christ is present among us. Like them, our hearts should burn as we listen to Moses, the prophets and the New Covenant as they speak about Christ. At the same time we are aware that in the end we will recognize him only in the breaking of bread.

Therefore it is not a question of the superiority of one over the other but of an inseparable interrelationship and ordering of one toward the other. Precisely because Scripture is ordered toward Eucharistic worship, the celebration's external form necessarily follows the road to Emmaus. All the historical evidence available shows us that the celebration of the Word and the Eucharist have always formed a single act of worship. Likewise, Scripture is so intimately intertwined within the fabric of every single prayer that we can say that without Scripture there could be no Catholic liturgy.

Conversely, and from a historical perspective it is also partially true that without liturgy there would be no Scripture, for one of the major criteria for determining which books eventually made it into the biblical canon was whether the book was read in the liturgical assembly.

Therefore the contraposition of Word and Eucharist does not correspond to an authentically Catholic vision of their intimate relationship.

It is true that, historically, Catholics have not been assiduous Bible readers. During the greatest part of the Church's existence books were a luxury few could read and fewer could afford. The lack of direct Bible reading did not mean that there was total biblical illiteracy. Most Christians were imbued with biblical salvation history through church decorations in painting, sculpture and stained glass. The huge reredos enshrining the high altars of many cathedrals harmoniously wove in the stories of Genesis, kings, prophets, Jesus' ancestry and the principal events of the New Testament, while centering everything on the sacrifice of the altar. In this way they provided a visible scriptural background to Catholic worship.

In today's changed circumstances the Church actively encourages all Catholics to possess, read and meditate on the Good Book, while not forgetting to make frequent visits to the Author.

Great news out of the English (Catholic, of course) Church

The Extraordinary Form at the Pantheon, or St. Mary & the Martyrs, in Roma.

From Holy Smoke, aka: Damian Thompson... and with bonus comments from Fr. Z.

From The Sunday Times
August 10, 2008
Let us pray in Latin: priests take on Catholics’ magic circle
[I am happy to be corrected, but I think this refers to the iron grip the progressivist side has on the hierarchy of the UK.]
Damian Thompson sniffs the incense of a revolution among Britain’s parish priests

For a moment it looks as if a fire has broken out in the chapel. A cloud of smoke is billowing from the back and rolling down the aisle – and it is fiercely pungent. This is grade A incense, pure enough to guarantee an instantaneous spiritual high. [Remember this?]

A young man walks through the door swinging a thurible on a gold chain. He passes it to a priest, deacon and subdeacon – all in gold vestments – who take turns wafting it at each other. Finally, the subdeacon turns round and, bowing low, shoots plumes of smoke diagonally across the choir stalls with the accuracy of a mid-fielder taking a difficult corner.

We are witnessing an unusual sight: [Increasingly more common, happily.] a Roman Catholic solemn mass, celebrated according to an ancient Latin rite effectively outlawed 40 years ago. And it’s taking place in the 13th-century chapel of Merton college, Oxford, which has been Anglican for 400 years. [Now that’s more uncommon!]

Just for a week, however, it has gone back to being Catholic – but this is not Catholicism as most people know it. I’m at the summer school of the Latin Mass Society which – to the delight of the conservative Pope Benedict XVI and the dismay of trendy British bishops – is teaching priests how to say the Tridentine mass.

The last time Merton chapel regularly witnessed this sort of complex liturgy was in the 1540s, before the Protestant reformers pulled out much of the stained glass and toppled the statues of saints. The organi-sers of the summer school are reformers, too, but their aim is precisely the opposite: to restore Latin services and rich furnishings to their own Catholic parish churches, many of which were stripped bare by modernisers after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

What makes this summer school rather controversial is that most of the bishops of England and Wales disapprove of the return of the Latin mass, regarding its sonorous Latin prayers and intricate gestures as a relic of the Middle Ages. Until recently, the Tridentine mass could be celebrated only with a bishop’s permission, usually granted grudgingly for special occasions. Then, in July last year, Pope Benedict XVI swept away the right of bishops to ban the old services. Most of them were horrified.

So these are tense times. But the 60 priests who have gathered at Merton college – to brush up their skills or to learn the Tridentine mass from scratch – are careful to avoid talk of civil war in the church. All are aware that this autumn, Pope Benedict is expected to announce a successor to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, who presides over a liberal “magic circle” of bishops unsympathetic to the Pope’s reforms. [It seems I was right about that term.] Will Benedict break the circle that has run the English church for 40 years?

Whoever gets the job, however, nobody expects a sudden return to the Tridentine mass in parishes all over the country. The seminaries do not teach priests how to say it and teaching yourself is difficult. A glance at the manual explains why: “Bring the thumb of each hand over the upper front edge of the paten [communion plate], tilting it to let the host slide off onto the crease of the front-centre fold of the corporal [linen cloth]. Place your left hand on the altar and with your right hand set the paten halfway under the right edge of the corporal.” And all the while saying: “. . . pro innumerabilibus peccatis, et offensionibus, et negligentiis meis, et pro omnibus circumstantibus . . .” [But… you know… it isn’t that hard.]

Interestingly, the most traditionalist priests here are also the youngest – and I spot four in the choir stalls who are popular bloggers on the internet. Walking down the high street later, I encounter two clergy wearing the old-fashioned soup-plate hats beloved of Italian village padres. One of them has long knotted tassels dangling from the brim, “so I can tie them round my neck when I ride my horse through the parish”. [And I know just who that was! o{]:¬) ]

A priest who looks barely out of his teens explains what he does when unsolicited copies of The Tablet – a liberal Catholic magazine that opposes the Latin revival – arrive at his church: “I painstakingly remove the staples and feed it into the shredder. It’s time-consuming, but God’s work.” [ROFL!]

Most of the other priests at the summer school are less extreme: they have come because they are curious about the Latin mass and they can scent change in the air. “We’re not trying to turn them into traditionalists,” says Father Andrew Wadsworth, an authority on the old rite who is conducting classes. “We want to show priests how the underlying principles of the traditional liturgy can deepen their understanding of their priesthood.” [Yes yes and yes. This is really the point. As WDTPRS has been repeating for a long time now, when priests learn the older form of Mass is changes who they are as priests and changes how they say any Mass. Summorum Pontificum was above all a gift to priests. It is one of those rarest of documents which emphasis the rights of priests, rather than of bishops, and it arms them with what they need to speed the revitalization of Catholic identity for which Pope Benedict has been working.]

Father John Boyle, [blogger] a parish priest in Ashford, Kent, recently taught himself to say the Tridentine mass by watching a DVD. “It’s made a profound difference to the way I celebrate the new mass in English,” he says. [See? See?] “There’s greater reverence now. I’m more of a celebrant and less of a compere.”

I sense a huge contrast with the atmosphere at the first Merton summer school in August 2007. Then, I was allowed to poke my head round the door of a training session. Now, Wadsworth lets me watch him take a priest right through the opening sequence of a Latin mass in a student’s room, using a reversed bookcase as an altar.

The priest, Canon Michael McCreadie, is in his fifties – yet today is the first time in his life that he has acted out the ancient gestures. He removes an invisible biretta (it’s a pretend mass). “Now, father, keep your hands joined,” Wadsworth reminds him. “Go to the centre of the altar, not touching it . . . left hand flat on the page. No, you should be over here,” and he gently turns his pupil towards the window.

After half an hour, we are still only five minutes into the order of service, but McCreadie is elated: “I wasn’t looking forward to saying the old mass, but after today I most certainly am.”

It’s only now I discover that he is dean of Leeds Cathedral. A year ago there were no senior main-stream clerics at the summer school. Later in the day, even more significantly, the Rev Malcolm McMahon, the Bishop of Nottingham, celebrates old rite pontifical vespers wearing a jewelled mitre and an embroidered cope that even Cardinal Wolsey might have considered over the top.

McMahon, a Dominican, is left-wing in his politics and certainly not part of a traditionalist faction – but nor does he belong to the politically correct, back-slapping magic circle. At dinner later, he effectively breaks ranks with his fellow bishops by unambiguously endorsing Pope Benedict’s vision of a church in which the old and new rites coexist. The traditionalists give him a standing ovation and a verse of God Bless our Pope.

He also tells Father Tim Finigan, [His Hermeneuticalness] author of the Hermeneutic of Continuity, the most influential of all the conservative blogs, to keep writing. Which is interesting, given that the Bishops’ Conference would dearly like to stop that particular blog.

Afterwards, Finigan writes: “Bishop McMahon has certainly won the hearts of the priests . . . All of a sudden, there is someone that many priests loyal to Pope Benedict will be watching closely . . . ecce sacerdos magnus!”

That’s Latin for “behold the great priest”. Those words will be read carefully in the Vatican, where Pope Benedict has been informed that the magic circle is desperate to install one of its own as the next cardinal. He isn’t pleased. Watch this space.

Damian Thompson is editor-in-chief of the Catholic Herald

Desecration of the Eucharist

Atheist professor desecrates stolen Host
By Anna Arco
1 August 2008

Priests at the London Oratory have called for prayers of reparation after a consecrated Host was allegedly stolen during High Mass and desecrated by an atheist professor in America.

Several priests have celebrated Masses of reparation this week responding to a video posted on the internet of a young man taking the Host and later placing it next to a condom, claiming he was holding it "hostage" inside the prophylactic until the Pope changed his policy on contraception in light of Africa’s Aids epidemic.

An evening of reparation with Mass and Adoration with prayers, litanies and silent meditation is planned for next Wednesday. Oratorians have also called on the faithful to make personal acts of reparation this week and next "for all the outrages against the Blessed Sacrament around the world".

"Close observation of the film and of the facts seems to suggest that this is not an elaborate hoax, but depicts something that really occurred," said the e-mail asking people to make acts of reparation. It also asked people to pray for "the conversion of the culprits, that they will answer God’s call to repentance and open their hearts to receive His forgiveness".

The incident took place during the Oratory’s High Mass on July 13 and was posted on the internet soon after. It said: "The Catholic Church forfeits all rights to respect for its ludicrous beliefs, including ‘transubstantiation’, while its anti-condom campaign in Africa results in tens of thousands of deaths."

It further said: "Just because you believe that the cracker has some special significance doesn’t mean that I have to respect that ridiculous belief. I think the moral cost of disrespecting a cracker is a lot less than the moral cost of disrespecting human life; a concept that should be more important to you people."

A follow-up link to the video claimed that the young man had sent the host to Paul Myers, an atheist professor at the University of Minnesota who is thought to have further desecrated the Host by piercing it with a rusty nail and throwing it in the bin. In a post on his blog, dated July 24, Prof Myers wrote: "I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffee grounds and a banana peel. My apologies to those who hoped for more, but the worst I can do is show my unconcerned contempt."

Prof Myers caused controversy earlier in July when he called a "Eucharist challenge" in which he incited people to steal consecrated Hosts from Catholic churches and send them to him so that he can desecrate them.

He wrote: "Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There’s no way I can personally get them – my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I’m sure – but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won’t be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the Pope in the—-s, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart."

His words followed a theft of a Host in Florida earlier this year which had American Catholics up in arms.

As a result of July’s alleged theft and desecration of the Eucharist, priests at the London Oratory are urging worshipers to be vigilant at Mass and to receive Communion on the tongue. Communion plates have started being used at certain Masses again.

Father Z. has some good reflections:

First, it occurs to me that more and more incidents of disrespect are being shown by non-believers toward the Catholic Eucharist. Off the top of my head I can think of not only this awful business with the prof at the U of Minn, and also the theft from the Brompton Oratory, but also the theft of the Host in Florida, the reception of Communion by weirdly dressed people in San Francisco, during the Pope’s visit Catholic pro-abortion politicians receiving, and a non-believing journalist receiving at Tim Russert’s funeral Mass.

Who goes forward for Communion is often hard to control

But there is something simple we can control.

No more Communion in the hand.

Not a fool-proof (and never was that term better applied) safeguard, but one that greatly reduces risk of profanation.

"Let's celebrate diversity! (the 'hermeneutic of continuity' way)" Pope says old-rite Latin Mass should be on offer in every Catholic parish

You gotta admit, the Trid mass (pictured below) looks way cooler and more mysterious (it's all about the Sacred Mysteries!), and far more reverent to actually be the Holy Sacrifice of the mass. However, we need to remember, that the Novus Ordo should look the same if actually done faithfully to the Council's wishes.

The Vatican is writing to seminaries to request all student priests are trained in how to say the Tridentine Mass, a liturgy abandoned for Mass in the vernacular in the 1960s.

by Bess Twiston Davies

Pope Benedict XVI wants every parish in the West to offer believers the Mass in the Tridentine or Gregorian Rite, the Latin-language liturgy used until the 1960s by every Catholic church in the world.

The Vatican is now writing to seminaries to ask that student priests be required to learn the rite, which, in widescale liturgical changes following the modernising church council Vatican II (1962-5), was largely replaced by Mass in the vernacular.

The Pope wishes every parish to offer both rites for Sunday Mass, an eminent Vatican Cardinal announced in London on Saturday. Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, said: “The Holy Father is willing to offer to all the people this possibility, not only for the few groups who demand it but so that everybody knows this way of celebrating the Eucharist in the Catholic Church.”

It was a “gift” and a “treasure,” Castrillon Hoyos said, hours before celebrating a Tridentine liturgy attended by some 1,500 worshippers at Westminster Cathedral on June 14. “This kind of worship is so noble, so beautiful – the deepest theologians’ way to express our faith. The worship, the music, the architecture, the painting, makes a whole that is a treasure.”

[snip]

Used worldwide in Catholic parishes from 1570 until the 1960s, the Tridentine Rite also differs in key aspects from the modern Catholic liturgy. In the modern Mass, a priest will face the congregants, in the Tridentine Rite, he will pray facing the altar, traditionally placed facing East, towards Jerusalem, and thus the direction of the place from which Christ is believed to have ascended to heaven.

In July 2007. Benedict XVI announced that every priest who wished to do so might celebrate Mass in the Tridentine Rite – without requiring, as had previously been the case, permission from their local bishop.

Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos added: “Today for many bishops it is difficult because they don’t have priests who don’t know Latin.Many seminaries give very few hours to Latin – not enough to give the necessary preparation to celebrate in a good way the Extraordinary Form.”

Read full article.

St. Augustine on today's Gospel (Sat., June 28th)

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 8,5-17.

When he entered Capernaum, a centurion approached him and appealed to him, saying, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully." He said to him, "I will come and cure him." The centurion said in reply, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a person subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me. And I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come here,' and he comes; and to my slave, 'Do this,' and he does it." When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, "Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith. I say to you, many will come from the east and the west, and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the banquet in the kingdom of heaven, but the children of the kingdom will be driven out into the outer darkness, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth." And Jesus said to the centurion, "You may go; as you have believed, let it be done for you." And at that very hour (his) servant was healed. Jesus entered the house of Peter, and saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand, the fever left her, and she rose and waited on him. When it was evening, they brought him many who were possessed by demons, and he drove out the spirits by a word and cured all the sick, to fulfill what had been said by Isaiah the prophet: "He took away our infirmities and bore our diseases."

Commentary of the day :

Saint Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church
Sermon 231

"Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof"

When he came here from another country, Christ found nothing here but what there is in abundance: afflictions, sorrows and death. That is what you have here; that is what there is here in abundance. He has eaten with you what is to be found in abundance in the poor house of your misfortune. He has drunk vinegar, he has tasted gall (Jn 19,29): this is what he has found in your poor house.

Yet he has invited you to his splendid table, his table in heaven, to the table of angels where he himself is the bread (Jn 6,35). Coming down to be with you and finding misfortune in your poor house, he was not too proud to be seated at your table, such as it was, and promised you his own... He has taken away your misfortune; he will give you his own happiness. Yes indeed, he will give it you: he has promised us his life.

And what he has accomplished is yet more unbelievable: he has given us his own death in pledge. As if he were to say to us: «I am inviting you into my life, to the place where none dies, where true happiness is to be found, where the food never stales, where it revives, where it never lacks but satisfies all. See, this is where I am inviting you: to the land of angels, to friendship with the Father and Holy Spirit, to the meal of eternity, to my brotherly friendship. In sum, I invite you to myself, to my own life. Are you unwilling to believe that I will give you my life? Take my death as your witness.