A Leaven In The World… Defenseless Europe A Lesson For Defending Faith
By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
While recently on retreat in New York, you might say I celebrated the Church’s year of consecrated life as I prayed daily Mass for the sisters who kindly hosted me. I invited them to kneel at the Communion rail to receive our Lord as I do at every Mass at my home parish. They all accepted my invitation except one elderly sister who was unable to do so.
Perhaps it will be the beginning of a more robust daily expression of Catholic faith for them, employing as it does our love for God through the use of our strength as well as that of our mind, heart, and soul. Faith, as with anything else in this world, must be defended or it can be lost. But what is not first treasured will not be defended.
While the world mourns more civilian deaths at the hands of Islamic homicidal maniacs after multiple coordinated attacks in Paris this month, many are reacting by offering advice. Social media erupted with expressions of sympathy and the cardinal of Paris offered Mass at Notre Dame. Some condemned the weakness which led to the unprecedented violation while others continued with the tired line that these things just happen and warned everyone not to confuse immigrants or refugees with terrorists.
The episode offers an important lesson for the Church and for pastors. If national security deserves to occupy so much energy and resources, how much more should we leave no stone unturned to defend our faith, without which we will not arrive at the ultimate security of God’s eternal love in Heaven.
Many in the aftermath of the unprecedented attack upon France are bemoaning the lack of defense in a society that denies citizens the simple means to ordinary self-defense through personal weapons.
Regardless of the debate pro and con about Europe’s disarmament and its consequences, we must never forget that there is a battle for a security of far greater value than the physical body: the eternal fate of the soul. The case has already been well established by others that our faith is under attack as never before; no need for that here. When we in the Church are defending the faith with all our strength, we may then have some advice to offer those who may not currently be doing enough to defend themselves physically.
At a recent rectory dinner hosted by a Catholic pastor, I asked the group gathered why pastors don’t take the immediate remedial action to offer Communion within Mass at the altar rail; both pastors present ignored my question. A follower on Twitter reacted to mention of this dinner conversation by saying he thinks that they probably fear blowback by uncatechized parishioners. Perhaps that or complacency. It is difficult for any human person to suffer the consequences of being disliked.
What I do know is that I must constantly remind visitors from neighboring parishes that it is necessary to do more than stand ramrod straight as I place the Host on their palms, in order to witness to the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Saying that you believe Christ is Present in the Sacrament means nothing if you won’t act as if you do among friends and fellow believers at Catholic Mass. If you lack the will for even this minor sign of reverent faith within the protective company of fellow worshipers, what will happen the minute you step out into an unbelieving world once again? The grace of the Eucharist is dead on arrival for those whose lives are no different after receiving than before.
Some priests of my acquaintance have said for years with no follow-up that they intend to learn the Traditional liturgy. A perpetually delayed desire to offer the immemorial worship of the Church has absolutely no effect on the laity for the good. Meanwhile, the refusal to re-sacralize the Vatican II liturgies that they do offer further deepens the widening chasm of rupture in the lives of many Catholics, divorcing them from the ever-flowing stream of fruitful graces in the handing on of tradition.
Pastors can immediately bolster faith by introducing Communion side by side at the rail; the only instruction on reverence needed will be how to bow for those who continue to stand. Many always choose to kneel unbidden.
The immediate effect of offering Communion side by side at the altar rail at the typical parish Mass will be profound: a rejection of Protestant compromise in eucharistic practice which has had the effect, not of welcoming more Protestants into the Church, but of turning more members of the Church into Protestants. As well, the hurried and perfunctory nature of Communion reception with two lines will lessen given the fact that each communicant will pause before rising rather than immediately moving to open a place for the recipient following.
The disastrous post-Vatican II diktat that everything is now optional except an absolute minimal intellectual assent to the doctrines of the faith is at the root of this crisis. Religious minimalism in the name of easier belief and hope for increased company in the pews has led to exactly the opposite. Pastors everywhere are now left begging Catholics to return to the fail-safe traditional means of proclaiming, witnessing, and defending the faith that were once simply demanded of all who would call themselves Catholic.
The typical priest unsatisfied with the status quo is left with nothing more than a personally improvised sales pitch, as if he is selling simply one option among many, like a seller of used cars rather than the time-tested secure means of salvation.
The saints defended the faith with all that God gave them, including their bodies; hence so many also became martyrs as a consequence of their personal holiness. The sisters for whom I ministered while on my New York retreat live out this bodily consecration to faith by poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Daily bodily self-denial, community life, and the perpetual continence of religious men and women for the sake of the Kingdom are the living counsels of perfection in our midst. How greatly we would benefit if we followed their example. We can do so simply by physically exerting ourselves for a consistent practice of adoration in kneeling to receive Him for whom we also kneel at the moment of His coming among us for the purpose of being received.
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(Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever. Follow me on Facebook at Reverendo Padre-Kevin Michael Cusick and on Twitter @MCITLFrAphorism. I blog occasionally at mcitl.blogspot.com and APriestLife.blogspot.com.)
