COMMUNION ON THE TONGUE 'SACRED VIOLENCE': FR GRAYLAND

To comment, please open your gmail account. Otherwise email juliedufresne@xtra.co.nz or use Facebook, Messenger or Twitter. Scroll down for other comments.

"In the Church, some have demanded communion on the tongue because their piety demands it without consideration that their saliva, on the fingers of the priest, may endanger the next person in the communion procession."

' ... communion on the tongue'. Note the lower case (small 'c') for Holy Communion with our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Yes, you guessed it, this is the innovative Fr Joe Grayland at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit Palmerston North, Our Lady of Lourdes and Foxton, offering parishioners his reflections 'on the journey of 2020 as a year of Grace'. 

'Reflections' are always popular in Novus Ordo circles. But a child of God lives in the present moment, abandoned to the Divine Will. Father Grayland is reputed to be very well-read. I wonder if he's tried Fr Jean-Pierre de Caussade's classic Self-Abandonment to Divine Providence, which elevates the present moment to the status of 'Sacrament'? The only reflections (navel-gazing) which will direct us to the union with God which is His design for every single one of us are the reflections we make before Confession, in examining our conscience - which in turn are based on our nightly reflections of the day just gone, and what 'bad choices' (to revert to NO language) we might have made, i.e. what sins we have committed, or what imperfections?

What's going on here, at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit?

What's going on here, is false ecumenism

"2020", says Father Grayland,  was an unusual year because we could not fully celebrate Lent and could not celebrate Easter and Eastertide at all" ... 

Father, there was no real reason why we didn't celebrate Lent and Easter. We certainly could have done so. It was the NZ Bishops' Conference who ruined Lent and Eastertide by complying with the Labour Coalition's unjust lockdown laws when they should have insisted on our right to religious freedom.

... "It is a sober reflection" ...

and a waste of time, when instead we could be praying 

..."to look beyond the safety of our borders'...

our borders are built-in, designed by God Himself; they are the shores of these islands, far, far away from what Fr Grayland calls   

"the pandemic world beyond, where many still suffer from the effects of Covid-19."

No, Father, they are suffering - and New Zealand is suffering - not from the effects of Covid-19 but from the unsafe, unwise, unjust measures of leaders like Jacinda Ardern.

The latest from the pen of Jorge Bergoglio

'In his new book Let Us Dream, Pope Francis recognises the success of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in managing the COVID-19 pandemic,'Cathnews tells us today.

Did no one at the Vatican advise Jorge Bergoglio that it might be a teensy bit tactless for a 'Pope' to praise a baby-killer who has stage-managed the slaughter of thousands of God's most innocent children?

 

“The countries with women as presidents or prime ministers have on the whole reacted better and more quickly than others, making decisions swiftly and communicating them with empathy,” he says.

By way of example, Francis cites the success in New Zealand, Germany, Iceland, Taiwan and Finland.

This observation has led him to increase the number of women in decision making roles in the Vatican. Women are “much better administrators than men,” he writes.

In his new book, Francis suggests “the perspective women bring is what the world needs at this time.”

“Allowing women’s perspectives to challenge existing assumptions” in the Church, is something he has tried to focus on as Pope, he writes.

Throughout his pontificate, Francis says he has sought to appoint women to leadership positions – in the Roman Curia and in advisory, board level positions on Vatican bodies.

“I chose these particular women because of their qualifications but also because I believe women in general are much better administrators than men,” he says.

“They understand processes better, how to take projects forward." https://cathnews.co.nz/2020/11/26/female-leaders-pope/

Yes. That's because God designed women to be wives and mothers - by far and away the most challenging role on offer. But now the world and women's role in it have become perverted to such an extent that a very senior cleric of the PN Diocese can bruit it abroad that he "can't wait for women priests" - and surely it's only a matter of time before Bergoglio grants his wish.

But to return to the senior cleric's confrere, Fr Grayland:

Fr Grayland, priest incognito

"In this world, social distancing and masks play an important part. Too easily we can forget that our safety is relative and not absolute."

Oh, spare us, Father. As a pastor you  know 'our safety' - by which you misguidedly refer here to our physical safety - is relative to, and very inferior in importance to, our spiritual safety. But we'll get to that in a moment. 

On the subject of the Wuhan virus, I refer you to Christopher Ferrara who you surely know (but readers may not) is an American Catholic attorney, pro-life activist, and journalist. He is the founder and current president of the American Catholic Lawyers and writes for The Remnant magazine which you, Father, may not enjoy but I'm sure many readers of this blog would. On the Wuhan virus, Ferrara has this to say:  

"We have been well and truly had. And the COVID con has been the means by which, almost overnight, pop-up dictatorships have taken possession of our rights, banned our worship, and ordered us to live in six-foot bubble zones behind useless “face coverings.”

Does anyone detect the distinct odor of sulfur in all of this? I do, and I have a lousy sense of smell."

https://fatima.org/news-views/life-site-news-exposes-the-covid-con/

Father Grayland is now getting into his stride:

"Too often individuals have put their wants before the common good when they have demanded their rights over the safety of others. In the Church, some have demanded communion on the tongue because their piety demands it without consideration that their saliva, on the fingers of the priest, may endanger the next person in the communion procession" ...

 

PN's Cathedral of the Holy Spirit: that tabernacle is empty

'Procession'. That's a nice way of putting it. And even better, Father Grayland admits that Communion on the tongue is a right. Does Father not know how to give Communion on the tongue without touching the tongue? Of course he's out of practice or maybe he never learned to do it the way thousands of priests have done it for hundreds of years, in the Church. Until Vatican II. Father Grayland could ask the SSPX priests at St Anthony's Whanganui for a demo. 

"The language of hatred and violence is still prevalent in our world. It is obvious at all levels of society and sadly within the church too. The level of violence directed at Pope Francis by self-proclaimed catholic apologetics" (sic) ...

 I think Fr Grayland means 'apologists'. Like moi.

... "and prophets of orthodoxy is staggering. Evil takes many guises. Its most seductive is the one that argues for purity of religion through the exclusion of another, or the sinner. The Gospel confronts this lie through the repeated reminder that Jesus sat, talked, and ate with sinners."

That's okay, Father. We 'self-proclaimed catholic apologetics (sic) and prophets of orthodoxy' can choose to sit, kneel, and receive Communion with the sinners at the Traditional Latin Mass, whether indult or SSPX. If we can find a TLM. 

In the Land of Mordor (Wellington) the high proportion of 'catholic apologetics and prophets of orthodoxy' who'll turn up to the March for Life on December 5 can forsake St Mary of the Angels just up the street, and all the other churches in and around Wellington under the sway of Cardinal John Dew where Communion on the tongue is denied, and repair to St Michael the Archangel Chapel, 32 Beauchamp Street, Tawa.

Saturday December 5 isn't just the March for Life, it's a First Saturday. Has Cardinal Dew, NZ's pre-eminent pastor of souls, given thought to those who, wishing to avoid the sufferings of Purgatory, are trying to make the Five First Saturdays, and how much more difficult he and his priests are making that time-honoured devotion for people who continue to believe, as the Church has believed and taught for 2000 years, that Communion on the hand is sacrilege?

At St Michael the Archangel Chapel, Tawa, you can go to Confession at 10.30 and attend the Latin Mass at 11 a m that day, and still turn up to the March to mix it with the Satanists and Freethinkers at 2 pm. The more converts to the Latin Mass, the more Our Lord will be pleased. 

"The language of violence is based on an “original sacred violence” that becomes the “sacred grievance” justifying an individual’s, or a community’s continual acts of hatred or their demand to be a victim. Often one hears:  “I can’t help it; this was how I was brought up”, or “our people suffered this way, so we continue to hate those who did this to us”." 

Really, Father? You've actually heard would-be on-the-tongue communicants say they hate those who did this to them (I assume you mean, prelates like Cardinal Dew who forbid this ancient and hallowed practice of the Church?) 

... "Such a “sacred violence” is not a holy thing, it is a violence that is essentially evil, but over time it is cloaked in the language of meaning (hero, patriotic, freedom) thus making it sacred, or sacralised.

Wrapped in the language of sacrifice, an experience that is essentially evil" ...

So it's 'evil' for would-be communicants to wait while the rest of the congregation files up - quite possibly, given the rarity of Novus Ordo confessions, in a state of serious sin - and to have the Lord of the universe administered by a hand that has rested on the shoulder or worse, on the head, of any number of Massgoers, only to be denied the Body and Blood of Christ, and abandoned by the priest to the gaze of all and sundry?

Having a chat in the Communion 'procession'

Is it not 'evil' and in fact clerical abuse, not only of the communicant but infinitely more importantly, of Our Lord, to administer Holy Communion with a profane hand, or to deny It to anyone in a state of grace?  

... "is memorialized as meaningful, necessary, and glorious when in fact it was a meaningless, senseless act in a fight for property, power or prestige."

Just where is the 'property, power or prestige' in being publicly humiliated by denial of the Sacrament? Although I didn't find it humiliating. Had it not been a Requiem Mass, I'd have remained there kneeling after the priest turned his back and walked away, but I couldn't embarrass the mourners. So I returned to my pew and made a spiritual Communion. And I felt very sorry for the priest - who had apologised, and who I'm sure had acted out of obedience to his Marist superior. 

"Sadly, many who experience this sort of violence find they live more securely in their victimhood than in the struggle for reconciliation; the sacred violence becomes so internalized it becomes their primary identity. In this way the violence they suffer becomes the violence that shapes their life and their response to the world from which they often do not want to be freed, and sadly no amount of counseling or confessional forgiveness will free them."

'Sadly', and with respect for your priestly office, Father, I think you're getting carried away.   

"Violence can only be cast out through love and love needs to find expression in justice."

I presume the 'love' you mean, Father, is the Love of Christ - which is Justice, as it is every perfection.   

"Without question, justice needs to be experienced by those who have been sinned against, because without justice there can be no peace, no freedom" ...

Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage (“To Althea: From Prison,” by the seventeenth-century English poet Richard Lovelace). To put that in a Scriptural context, when unjustly imprisoned Ss Peter and Paul enjoyed perfect peace and freedom of spirit.

... "and no reconciliation.

"Perpetrators need to kneel before their victims and ask forgiveness" ...

Father, who are the 'victims' that Catholics who ask for Communion on the tongue need to kneel before? The rest of the congregation? But they've already received, and are back in their pews, safe from any horrid contamination. Or the priest who denies them Communion, because perhaps they've 'made him feel' bad", or who? Or are you writing figuratively? Even then, you're drawing a very long bow.

 

... "victims need to be prepared to become a minister of reconciliation. Where the perpetrator lives on in a denial of justice, and the victim lives in a sacralized victimhood, authentic freedom will not be possible for either ... 

"As women and men of Gospel truth, we hold firmly to the belief that forgiveness and reconciliation need to be experienced and are possible. The Eucharist is the memorial to this truth. In the Cross, Jesus is subjected to the sacred violence of the religious elite as a blasphemer and the political elite as an insurgent. He is subjected to violence so that the gods of the powerful who hold their power through violence would be appeased, the irony being that the true God is killed in order to defend and protect their false gods.

"The redemption of this “game of violence” is given in the death of Jesus on the Cross when God accepts the violence of “those who do not know what they are doing” and transforms it through love: “Father, forgive them BECAUSE they don’t know what they’re doing”. Love puts an end to violence" ...

Tell that to the Marines. 

..."through the one sacrifice given for all people and all time. It is the love within God that achieves redemption and without this divine love reconciliation is impossible. Such redeeming love will never be outdone by human violence because it is the free, self-giving of God that finds communion in Resurrection.

"In the event of the Cross and Resurrection human existence is freed of the demand to sacralize violence" ...

If we're freed of it, why are you so bothered about it? Violence will be 'sacralized' for as long as Satan's still around, but asking for Communion on the tongue is not 'violence'.

Father Grayland, your 'sacred violence' is a straw man.

"Pray very much for the Pope, Bishops, and Priests."

The weeping statue of Our Lady at Akita, Japan