St Jean-Marie Vianney on the Real Presence

Since surveys on religious belief routinely indicate that most Catholics do not know or understand what the Church teaches about the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, our bishops have instituted a program for a national Eucharistic revival. A very worthy endeavor, to be sure, and perhaps, if we heard more preaching like this, that would help to change things for the better. This excerpt is taken from the Little Catechism of St Jean-Marie Vianney, the Curé d’Ars, whose feast is kept today. (Pictured right: St Jean-Marie in a stained glass window in the church of St Germain, St Germain-les-Belles, France; image from Wikimedia Commons by Reinhardhauke, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Our Lord is hidden there, waiting for us to come and visit Him, and make our request to Him. See how good He is! He accommodates Himself to our weakness. In Heaven, where we shall be glorious and triumphant, we shall see him in all His glory. If He had presented Himself before us in that glory now, we should not have dared to approach Him; but He hides Himself, like a person in a prison, who might say to us, “You do not see me, but that is no matter; ask of me all you wish and I will grant it.” He is there in the Sacrament of His love, sighing and interceding incessantly with His Father for sinners. To what outrages does He not expose Himself, that He may remain in the midst of us! He is there to console us; and therefore we ought often to visit Him. How pleasing to Him is the short quarter of an hour that we steal from our occupations, from something of no use, to come and pray to Him, to visit Him, to console Him for all the outrages He receives! When He sees pure souls coming eagerly to Him, He smiles upon them. They come with that simplicity which pleases Him so much, to ask His pardon for all sinners, for the outrages of so many ungrateful men. What happiness do we not feel in the presence of God, when we find ourselves alone at His feet before the holy tabernacle! “Come, my soul, redouble your fervour; you are alone adoring your God. His eyes rest upon you alone.” This good Saviour is so full of love for us that He seeks us out everywhere.

Ah! if we had the eyes of angels with which to see Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is here present on this altar, and who is looking at us, how we should love Him! We should never more wish to part from Him. We should wish to remain always at His feet; it would be a foretaste of Heaven: all else would become insipid to us. But see, it is faith we lack. We are poor blind people; we have a mist before our eyes. Faith alone can dispel this mist. Soon, my children, when I shall hold Our Lord in my hands, when the good God blesses you, ask Him then to open the eyes of your heart; say to Him like the blind man of Jericho, “O Lord, make me see!” If you say to Him sincerely, “Make me see!” you will certainly obtain what you desire, because He wishes nothing but your happiness. He has His hands full of graces, seeking someone to distribute them to; Alas! and no one will have them. . . . Oh, indifference! Oh, ingratitude! My children, we are most unhappy that we do not understand these things! We shall understand them well one day; but it will then be too late!

Our Lord is there as a Victim; and a prayer that is very pleasing to God is to ask the Blessed Virgin to offer to the Eternal Father her Divine Son, all bleeding, all torn, for the conversion of sinners; it is the best prayer we can make, since, indeed, all prayers are made in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ. ...

From our first Corpus Christi photopost of this year; Benediction at Blackfriars, the Dominican house at Oxford Univ., during a station held as part of the procession from the Oxford Oratory.

When we are before the Blessed Sacrament, instead of looking about, let us shut our eyes and our mouth; let us open our heart: our good God will open His; we shall go to Him, He will come to us, the one to ask, the other to receive; it will be like a breath from one to the other. What sweetness do we not find in forgetting ourselves in order to seek God! The saints lost sight of themselves that they might see nothing but God, and labor for Him alone; they forgot all created objects in order to find Him alone. This is the way to reach Heaven.

Photopost Catch-up: August 2019

We are always glad to receive photos of your liturgies, even when we haven’t specifically asked for them for a major feast. Here are three sets from various events: Masses of Our Lady of Mt Carmel, a green Sunday celebrated in a Pugin church, and St John-Marie Vianney. We also have a few amices from our friends Fr Jeffery Keyes and the Marian Sisters of Santa Rosa.

São João Del Rei – Minas Gerais, Brazil

Solemn Mass of Our Lady of Carmel, celebrated by His Excellency José Eudes, bishop of São João Del Rei.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

St Jean-Marie Vianney on the Real Presence

A new survey on religious beliefs from the Pew Research Center indicates that only a quarter of Catholic under 40 in the United States believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Perhaps if they heard more preaching like this, that would change for the better; this is from the Little Catechism of St Jean-Marie Vianney, the Curé d’Ars, whose feast is kept today in the Extraordinary Form. (pictured right: St Jean-Marie in a stained glass window in the church of St Germain, St Germain-les-Belles, France; image from Wikimedia Commons by Reinhardhauke, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Our Lord is hidden there, waiting for us to come and visit Him, and make our request to Him. See how good He is! He accommodates Himself to our weakness. In Heaven, where we shall be glorious and triumphant, we shall see him in all His glory. If He had presented Himself before us in that glory now, we should not have dared to approach Him; but He hides Himself, like a person in a prison, who might say to us, “You do not see me, but that is no matter; ask of me all you wish and I will grant it.” He is there in the Sacrament of His love, sighing and interceding incessantly with His Father for sinners. To what outrages does He not expose Himself, that He may remain in the midst of us! He is there to console us; and therefore we ought often to visit Him. How pleasing to Him is the short quarter of an hour that we steal from our occupations, from something of no use, to come and pray to Him, to visit Him, to console Him for all the outrages He receives! When He sees pure souls coming eagerly to Him, He smiles upon them. They come with that simplicity which pleases Him so much, to ask His pardon for all sinners, for the outrages of so many ungrateful men. What happiness do we not feel in the presence of God, when we find ourselves alone at His feet before the holy tabernacle! “Come, my soul, redouble your fervour; you are alone adoring your God. His eyes rest upon you alone.” This good Saviour is so full of love for us that He seeks us out everywhere.

Ah! if we had the eyes of angels with which to see Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is here present on this altar, and who is looking at us, how we should love Him! We should never more wish to part from Him. We should wish to remain always at His feet; it would be a foretaste of Heaven: all else would become insipid to us. But see, it is faith we lack. We are poor blind people; we have a mist before our eyes. Faith alone can dispel this mist. Soon, my children, when I shall hold Our Lord in my hands, when the good God blesses you, ask Him then to open the eyes of your heart; say to Him like the blind man of Jericho, “O Lord, make me see!” If you say to Him sincerely, “Make me see!” you will certainly obtain what you desire, because He wishes nothing but your happiness. He has His hands full of graces, seeking someone to distribute them to; Alas! and no one will have them. . . . Oh, indifference! Oh, ingratitude! My children, we are most unhappy that we do not understand these things! We shall understand them well one day; but it will then be too late!

Our Lord is there as a Victim; and a prayer that is very pleasing to God is to ask the Blessed Virgin to offer to the Eternal Father her Divine Son, all bleeding, all torn, for the conversion of sinners; it is the best prayer we can make, since, indeed, all prayers are made in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ. ...

From our first Corpus Christi photopost of this year, the station during the Corpus Christi procession at the church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in La Londe les Maures France. (Courtesy of the Fraternity of St Joseph the Guardian.)

When we are before the Blessed Sacrament, instead of looking about, let us shut our eyes and our mouth; let us open our heart: our good God will open His; we shall go to Him, He will come to us, the one to ask, the other to receive; it will be like a breath from one to the other. What sweetness do we not find in forgetting ourselves in order to seek God! The saints lost sight of themselves that they might see nothing but God, and labor for Him alone; they forgot all created objects in order to find Him alone. This is the way to reach Heaven.

“The Holy Mass—Our Divine Treasure”: Bishop Athanasius Schneider

Today NLM is pleased to publish the sermon preached by Bishop Athanasius Schneider on May 30, 2018, at the Pontifical Low Mass offered in St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Winnipeg, Canada. We are grateful to His Excellency for the permission to share these inspiring words with our readers.

Bishop Schneider in London

The Holy Mass — Our Divine Treasure

Sermon of H. E. Bishop Athanasius Schneider

St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, Winnipeg, Manitoba

May 30, 2018

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ! In these moments we participate in the most holy, in the most great, in the most wonderful and in the most divine work in all creation and in all eternity: the Holy Sacrifice of Mass. The Holy Mass is in substance the same as the Holy Sacrifice of Golgotha. We are present at the same work which Christ accomplished on the Cross and which Christ the Eternal High Priest is now and forever acting in Heaven in the presence of the Holy Trinity: the sacrifice of the eternal and everlasting Covenant.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen said: “There are certain things in life which are too beautiful to be forgotten, such as the love of a mother. Hence, we treasure her picture. The love of soldiers who sacrificed themselves for their country is likewise too beautiful to be forgotten; hence, we revere their memory on Memorial Day. But the greatest blessing which ever came to this earth was the visitation of the Son of God in the form and habit of man. His life, above all lives, is too beautiful to be forgotten; hence, we treasure the divinity of His words in Sacred Scripture, and the charity of His deeds in our daily actions. Unfortunately, this is all some souls remember, namely, His words and His deeds; important as these are, they are not the greatest characteristic of the divine Savior. The most sublime act in the history of Christ was His death. … If then death was the supreme moment for which Christ lived, it was therefore the one thing He wished to have remembered. He did not ask that men should write down His words into a scripture; He did not ask that His kindness to the poor should be recorded in history; but He did ask that men remember His death. And in order that its memory might not be any haphazard narrative on the part of men, He Himself instituted the precise way it should be recalled.”

Archbishop Sheen continues, saying: “Hence the Mass is to us the crowning act of Christian worship. A pulpit in which the words of our Lord are repeated does not unite us to Him; a choir in which sweet sentiments are sung brings us no closer to His Cross than to His garments. A temple without an altar of sacrifice is non-existent among primitive peoples, and is meaningless among Christians. And so in the Catholic Church the altar, and not the pulpit or the choir or the organ, is the center of worship, for there is re-enacted the memorial of His Passion. Its value does not depend on him who says it, or on him who hears it; it depends on Him who is the One High Priest and Victim, Jesus Christ our Lord. The Mass is the greatest event in the history of mankind; the only holy act which keeps the wrath of God from a sinful world, because it holds the Cross between heaven and earth.”

When we recognize and really believe in what each Holy Mass is, then every detail of the rite of the Holy Mass, every word, every gesture is important, is deeply meaningful and spiritual. Even from the moment we enter a church to participate in the Holy Mass, we have to try to lift up our mind and heart to Golgotha and to the heavenly liturgy. Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman wrote: “The Catholic Church alone is beautiful. The celebrant, deacon and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting — all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it is really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The choir singing out the Kyrie, and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the Confiteor. This is worship, and it is far above reason” (words of Mr. White in the novel Loss and Gain).

Saint John Mary Vianney explained the greatness of the Holy Mass: “All good works together are not of equal value with the sacrifice of the Mass, because they are the works of men, and the Holy Mass is the work of God. Martyrdom is nothing in comparison; it is the sacrifice that man makes of his life to God; the Mass is the sacrifice that God makes to man of His Body and of His Blood. Oh, how great is a priest! If he understood himself he would die. God obeys him; he speaks two words, and Our Lord comes down from Heaven at his voice, and shuts Himself up in a little Host. God looks upon the altar. ‘That is My well-beloved Son,’ He says, ‘in whom I am well-pleased.’ He can refuse nothing to the merits of the offering of this Victim. If someone said to us, ‘At such an hour a dead person is to be raised to life,’ we should run very quickly to see it. But is not the Consecration, which changes bread and wine into the Body and Blood of God, a much greater miracle than to raise a dead person to life? If we knew the value of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, or rather, if we had faith, we should be much more zealous to assist at it.”

Saint Peter Julian Eymard said: “Why has our Lord willed to establish so close a relation between the Sacrament of the Eucharist and His death? It was, in the first place, to remind us of the price His Sacrament cost Him. The Eucharist, in fact, is the fruit of the death of Jesus. The Eucharist is a testament, a legacy, which becomes valid only at the death of the testator. To give His testament legal force, Jesus had then to die. Every time we come into the presence of the Eucharist, we may therefore say: ‘This precious testament cost Jesus Christ His life; He thereby shows us His boundless love, for He Himself said there is no greater proof of love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. Jesus gave me the greatest proof of His love when He went to His death in order to make the Eucharist possible and give it to me. How many think of this price paid for the Eucharist? And yet Jesus is there to remind us of it. But like unnatural children we are bent only on using and enjoying our riches, without ever thinking of the One Who acquired them for us at the cost of His life” (The Real Presence. Eucharistic Meditations, ch. XIII).

Dear brothers and sisters, let us receive the Eucharistic Lord with love, with purity of heart, with a gesture of adoration kneeling down, with a gesture of humility and littleness opening our mouth and receiving the Holiest of Holies, the King of the universe, in the little sacred Host. O Lord, when we have You in the Eucharist, we have all things and we want for nothing. Amen.

St. John Vianney's Preaching on Unworthy Communions

Two Miracles of the Host (tapestry, French?, between 1505 and 1518)

In my article last week, I spoke about one of the most glaring lacunae of the modern Roman Liturgy, namely, its deliberate suppression (in the Mass, in the Lectionary, and in the Liturgy of the Hours) of 1 Corinthians 11:27-29 — verses that contain a warning particularly important to hear in an age of laxity, indifferentism, and horizontal humanism in worship.

Our forebears in the Faith thought it was crucial to reinforce St. Paul's warning. The early 16th-century tapestry above, hanging in one of the innumerable galleries of the Louvre,[1] depicts two miracles — not miracles of healing or salvation, but miracles of dire punishment of unworthy communicants. The left panel tells the story of a man who received the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin, and it burned a hole through his neck. The right panel tells the story of a priest who was celebrating Mass in a state of mortal sin, and his hands burst into flames.

A modern Christian may smile at such "medieval fantasies" and reassure himself that God does not act so harshly. Perhaps we have forgotten the story of Ananias and Sapphira in the Acts of the Apostles (5:1-11), where God strikes two Christians dead for telling lies about their donation of wealth.[2] St. Paul tells us, in 1 Corinthians 11:30, that due to unworthy communions some have become sick and others have died. Is that a superstitious view, or did St. Paul know something we have forgotten?

It is true, nevertheless, that in the ordinary course of His Providence, God does not punish sinners immediately; we know this from Scripture, from history, and from experience. The vast majority of unworthy communicants or celebrants do not erupt into flames. This does not, however, mean that their communions are not unworthy; it means that the Lord has refrained from punishing them on the spot, in view of their possible repentance, conversion, and restoration to His divine friendship by the gift of sanctifying grace. All the same, each and every Catholic is under a serious obligation to examine his or her conscience prior to approaching the sacred banquet, in order to avoid offending God and incurring further guilt.

In our tradition we find great preachers who took seriously their obligation to prepare the faithful for Holy Communion by, on the one hand, extolling the joy, peace, and glory that come to us through grace-filled communions, and, on the other hand, by warning, in no uncertain terms, of the destruction of soul that results from a wicked communion. An exemplary preacher in both of these respects is the Curé of Ars, St. John Vianney, whose meditations on the Holy Eucharist are magnificent and worthy of much study by today's clergy.

Since the positive side of the message is just about the only thing one hears nowadays, as if the negative side did not even exist, it will be more beneficial in our present situation to have some excerpts from his "Sermon on Unworthy Communion," in tome IV of his Sermons inédits.

Unworthy Communions are frequent. How many have the temerity to approach the holy table with sins hidden and disguised in confession! How many have not that sorrow which the good God wants from them, and preserve a secret willingness to fall back into sin, and do not put forth all their exertions to amend! How many do not avoid the occasions of sin when they can, or preserve enmity in their hearts even at the holy table! If you have ever been in these dispositions in approaching Holy Communion, you have committed a sacrilege — that horrible crime, on the malice of which we are going to meditate.
          1. It outrages God more than all other mortal sins. It attacks the Person of Jesus Christ himself, instead of scorning only his commandments, like other mortal sins.
          2. Whoever communicates unworthily crucifies Jesus Christ in his heart. He submits him to a death more ignominious and humiliating than that of the Cross. On the Cross, indeed, Jesus Christ died voluntarily and for our redemption: but here it is no longer so: he dies in spite of himself, and his death, far from being to our advantage, as it was the first time, turns to our woe by bringing upon us all kinds of chastisements both in this world and the next. The death of Jesus Christ on Calvary was violent and painful, but at least all nature seemed to bear witness to his pain. The least sensible of creatures appeared to be affected by it, and thus wishful to share the Saviour’s sufferings. Here there is nothing of this: Jesus is insulted, outraged by a vile nothingness, and all keeps silence; everything appears insensible to his humiliations. May not this God of goodness justly complain, as on the tree of the Cross, that he is forsaken? My God, how can a Christian have the heart to go to the holy table with sin in his soul, there to put Jesus Christ to death?
          3. Unworthy Communion is a more criminal profanation than that of the holy places. A pagan emperor, in hatred of Jesus Christ, placed infamous idols on Calvary and the holy sepulchre, and he believed that in doing this he could not carry further his fury against Jesus Christ. Ah! great God! Was that anything to be compared with the unworthy communicant? No, no! It is no longer among dumb and senseless idols that he sets his God, but in the midst, alas!, of infamous living passions, which are so many executioners who crucify his Saviour. Alas! What shall I say? That poor wretch unites the Holy of Holies to a prostitute soul, and sells him to iniquity. Yes, that poor wretch plunges his God into a raging hell. Is it possible to conceive anything more dreadful?
          4. Unworthy Communion is in certain respects a greater crime than the deicide of the Jews. St. Paul tells us that if the Jews had known Jesus Christ as the Saviour they would never have put him to suffering or death; but can you, my friend, be ignorant of him whom you are going to receive? If you do not bear it in mind, listen to the priest who cries aloud to you: “Behold the Lamb of God; behold him that taketh away the sins of the world.” He is holy and pure. If you are guilty, unhappy man, do not draw near; or else tremble, lest the thunders of heaven be hurled upon your criminal head to punish you and cast your soul into hell.
          5. Unworthy Communion imitates and renews the crime of Judas. The traitor, by a kiss of peace, delivered Jesus Christ to his enemies, but the unworthy communicant carries his cruel duplicity yet further. Having lied to the Holy Ghost in the tribunal of penance by hiding or disguising some sin, he dares, this wretch, to go with a hypocritical reverence on his face, and place himself among the faithful destined to eat this Bread. Ah! no, nothing stops this monster of ingratitude; he comes forward and is about to consummate his reprobation. In vain that tender Saviour, seeing that he is coming to him, cries from his tabernacle, as to the perfidious Judas: “Friend, whereto art thou come? What, thou art about to betray thy God and Saviour by a sign of peace? Stop, stop, my son; I pray thee spare me!” Neither the remorse of his conscience nor the tender reproaches made him by his God can stop his criminal steps. He steps forward. He is going to stab his God and Saviour. O heavens! what a horror! Can you indeed behold this wretched murderer of your Creator without trembling?[3]

Thus St. John Vianney, who, like St. John Chrysostom, did not flinch when it came to calling out evils and urging their amendment. Now, if someone were to ask: Why am I posting such sobering, fear-inspiring reflections?, here is how I would answer:

1. In communion with the Catholic Church of all times and places, I accept the reality of hell and, following Scripture and Tradition, and contrary to the dubious speculations of Hans Urs von Balthasar, accept that many unrepentant sinners have already gone and will continue to go there to join the devil and his angels in eternal fire.[4]
2. In keeping with Christian charity, I do not want to see any soul end up there by dying in a state of unrepented mortal sin — or, what is worse, by compounding that state with still further sins of “eating and drinking condemnation upon oneself,” as St. Paul says (1 Cor 11:29), referring precisely to this problem that the Curé of Ars preached against.
3. The Church and her faithful people always have many needs; but undoubtedly one of those needs today is identifying sin and turning away from it with disgust, rather than compromising with it, condoning it, hiding it, or being afraid to call it by name. We need preachers like St. John Vianney to combat the indifferentism, relativism, universalism, and hedonism in which modern Christians are submerged. Such is the exhortation we receive from Saints Peter and Paul, whose inspired letters proclaim the unadulterated Gospel.

NOTES

[1] Deux Miracles de l'Hostie de la tenture L'Histoire du saint Sacrement, aux armes d'Isabelle de La Jaille, abbesse de 1505 à 1518 de l'abbaye du Ronceray, près d'Angers. France (?), between 1505 and 1518. Tapestry, linen.

[2] Acts 5:1-11 is found neither in the old lectionary nor in the new. The difference, of course, is that the old lectionary includes very little of Acts, whereas the new includes vast swathes of it, which makes the skipping of these verses more interesting.

[3] Quoted in Eucharistic Meditations: Extracts from the Writings and Instructions of St. John Vianney, by Abbé H. Convert, trans. Sr. Mary Benvenuta (Wheathampstead: Anthony Clarke Books, 1923, repr. 1964), 92–96.

[4] We find the healthy Catholic attitude in a short story by Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson, where a priest is getting ready his holy oils and pyx for a sick call to a Catholic woman who was a public sinner and who had not set foot in a church for over a decade: “I know very well she is out of grace, and I know what will be the end of her if I do not come.” The Supernatural Stories of Monsignor Robert H. Benson (Landisville, PA: Coachwhip Publications, 2010), 207.