SACRED HEART HASTINGS BANISHES OUR LORD

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The new Sacred Heart. It's supposed to be 'Mission style'

At Sacred Heart Hastings on Friday the midday Mass congregation once again saw the terrible irreverence to our Lord and God Jesus Christ of banishing Him from His rightful place in the church.

Father ran out of consecrated Hosts while a long line of school children and adults waited in the Communion queue for the female sacristan  (whose ministry is actually reserved to males) bustled up the raked floor (which should be level) and out of the church to the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, and back again.

Her route back to Father was obstructed by two lines of waiting school children. Undeterred, she elbowed her way through (one mustn't keep Father waiting) with the ciborium to deliver her precious Burden so that Holy Communion could be distributed - to the kids who approached with hands out that is, as opposed to crossed on the chest. (The number of the latter - those who've not yet made their first Holy Communion, presumably because they're unbaptised - was what one would like to think was extraordinary for Catholic school children but tragically it's not.) 

These two considerations - the banishment of our Lord from His domain and the number of children not receiving Holy Communion - are of course, related. If Sacred Heart treated their Eucharistic Lord as the Church ordains, by placing this Prisoner of Love in the tabernacle at the centre and forefront of the congregation in the church, chances are that parishioners' understanding of the awesome mystery of God with us would be deepened, and that they would expect children of the age of reason (7) at their parish school to be admitted to this Mystery of love as soon as possible. 

The other factor which would accelerate that understanding, and therefore baptism and Holy Communion for their children, is reception of Communion kneeling and on the tongue. 

As things stand at Sacred Heart Hastings - and at probably all churches in the Diocese of Palmerston North, under the aegis of Cardinal John Dew in the Land of Mordor - almost every communicant receives their Almighty God while standing, taking Him with their unwashed fingers like a lolly or a biscuit, and often strolling off with their Lord still in their hand, heedless of the risk of dropping the Host, or particles falling to the floor to be trodden on. One's faith must by the grace of God be very strong, to withstand this daily witness of unbelief.  

At Sacred Heart Hastings on Friday an example of this was given by the celebrant, who held his Lord out at arm's length to hand Him to the sacristan - who was doubling as  'Eucharistic Minister'. 

When she and Father had given the Host to the last of the children she took off to the Blessed Sacrament chapel while Father turned back to the altar, leaving the last communicant, an adult, standing waiting. After a few seconds the slighted one returned to her pew to make a spiritual Communion - but she'd reckoned without the school children (or maybe the sacristan), who drew her to Father's attention.

The sacristan, carrying the ciborium on It's hike to the tabernacle, kindly approached this woman but received a whispered "No thank you". (She's one of those rude individuals who refuse Communion from unconsecrated hands.) The sacristan, unruffled, thereupon called out, "She won't take It from me, Father, she'll only take It from you". 

By now most of the children (who'd just received holy Communion), had turned around in their pews waiting to see what happened next and what happened next was that Father, once he'd realised what was up, immediately brought the Host to this woman as she knelt in her pew. The sacristan meanwhile had continued her journey with Jesus up the slope to the lonely chapel to which Sacred Heart Hastings condemns Him, in mostly solitary confinement.

The old Sacred Heart, traditional style

There was a time - well within living memory - when EVERYONE received Communion kneeling, on the tongue, ONLY from the priest, because ONLY the priest is consecrated to perform the marvellous privilege of distributing Communion, and EVERY woman, or girl past toddling age wore somehing to cover her head in church (like this woman, doubtless very peculiar to those children in her black chapel veil), in reverence for the Real Presence of our Lord and Saviour in the Eucharist. The thing is, Our Lord hasn't changed. Not a bit. It's our attitude towards Him that has changed.

It's still like this at St Anthony's Whanganui

It's only to be expected that the priest and the sacristan would act as they did and it's not Father's fault that so many of the school children are not baptised: he only very recently arrived in this parish, where in recent years the priests have been imported and uncertain as to "the way we do things here" and perhaps somewhat under the parish council thumb. 

The years, in the case of the elderly priest, and a lifetime probably, in the case of the sacristan, spent seeing our Lord treated with irreverence or downright contumely in the Novus Ordo Missae ("New Mass') have been insidiously effective: belief in the Sacrament of the Eucharist has degraded to such an extent that a 2019 survey showed two-thirds of American Catholics don't believe in the Real Presence. Should we think that Kiwis, whose bishops in contrast to the US seem uniformly modernist, are more devout than Catholics who enjoy the likes of Cardinal Salvatore Cardileone, Bishop Joseph Strickland and Father James Altman?

Disbelief is catching. Where Catholics no longer genuflect or make the Sign of the Cross at the door, where they talk and/or laugh in church, where they sing 'Happy Birthday' in church and clap in church it's hard to realise that what's going on in the Mass is the Agony and Death of Our Lord on Calvary. 

In Sacred Heart Hastings it's hard to realise that in the Blessed Sacrament chapel, where no one goes while Mass is being celebrated in the church, is the "Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth" to whom the angels sing without ceasing. It's hard to realise, when Father makes small talk during Holy Mass, when children come running into the church past the tabernacle, that "the angels are there", as Bishop Athanasius Schneider says, keeping their Lord company and constantly flying to and fro at His command on their divine errands.

Angel holding a candle
Michelangelo

Faithful, traditional Catholics give thanks to God for their priests who day in, day out, celebrate the Most Holy Eucharist on their behalf, and for the sacristans and parish councils who run the machinery that makes the Miracle happen. 

They thank God for the grace of humiliations bestowed by their bishops and priests in segregating them for their refusal to accept an abortion-tainted gene serum, aka the Covid 'vaccine', in making them wait till last like lepers to receive Holy Communion and especially for cancelling their ministries for publicly expressing views they don't like.

Thanksgiving for these graces and all graces is, after all, one of the reasons they attend Mass as often as faithful Catholics can. But thanksgiving (and praise, which is rarely mentioned) is only one of the four reasons for which the priest offers the Sacrifice of Calvary, and faithful Catholics assist. They assist at Mass also to impetrate graces and blessings, imploring God to protect them, their families and their priests and asking Him for everything they need, especially during those precious 15 minutes after Holy Communion when they have this gracious Guest in their soul, and try to give Him all their attention which in a Novus Ordo Mass is next to impossible. 

Traditional Catholics know also that Mass is the time to beg God's pardon for all the wrong we do, in other words we confess our sins and humbly ask His forgiveness for sins, individual and collective. By collective sin is meant that for which, for example, Cyclone Gabriel was sent (by the agency of St Gabriel whose very name means Messenger) to chastise what might be called the fleshpots of Auckland, Coromandel and Hawke's Bay. 

What sin, you may ask. What did we do to deserve Cyclone Gabriel? 

Abortion. Same-sex 'marriage'. Euthanasia. That's what we've done and if we don't stop doing it we can expect more punishment like Gabriel. Or earthquake. Actually the possibilities for God's chastisement are endless. Infinite, as God is. And He sends them in the hope of bringing us to our senses and repentance.

The fourth reason why faithful Catholics attend Holy Mass is actually the first, because it is dictated by the First Commandment. Mass is primarily adoration. We adore God. That's why we genuflect. It's why we kneel, especially to receive His Son in Holy Communion. That's why we sing hymns about adoring God rather than sappy songs adoring one another. 

In the traditional Latin Mass the priest makes the Sign of the Cross 52 times, as the summary and emblem of the bloody Sacrifice of the Cross which the Mass represents and renews. That's probably why you're not supposed to sing happy birthday and clap just after Christ has died for you (at the fracture of the Host) and while He is still in your soul.

"The justices of the Lord are right, rejoicing hearts, and his judgments are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb: for Thy servant keepeth them" (Offertory, Third Sunday of Lent).

But if I by the finger of God cast out devils; doubtless the kingdom of God is come upon you 

-Gospel, Third Sunday of Lent