RKIA Explains the Mass - part 1

Dear Rev. Know-it-all,

I went to my first Catholic Mass last Sunday. I was clueless. All that kneeling and standing and the strange outfits. Could you please explain the Mass?

Yours sincerely, 

Churchill A “Churchy” Lafemme

 Dear Churchy,

You, like most of us Catholics, have no idea of the meaning, origin and rich symbolism of the Mass, so I will explain it in tedious detail:

The Mass. Mass is only one word for the fullest way we Catholics worship the Lord. The other words are the “Sacrifice of the Mass”, the “Holy Eucharist”, the “Liturgy” and, most interestingly, the Hebrew/Aramaic word “Korban” which is still used by Aramaic-speaking Christians.

“Mass” is an adaptation of the last words of this ancient ritual when it is said in Latin. The last words said by the priest are “Ite, missa est." “Ite, missa est” literally means “Go, it is the dismissal”, in effect, “You are free to go.”  Not a very glorious word for the name of something so important to us.  A lot of liturgical experts try make something more meaningful of the words, saying that it refers to our being sent on a mission, yadda yadda. Hogwash! It means, “You can go now.”  And those were the only words that some people paid attention to.  

The more proper word for the Mass is the Holy Eucharist. Eucharist is a Greek word that means “Thanksgiving”. The ancient Israelites offered a sacrifice called the Thanksgiving Sacrifice, “Korban Todah” in Hebrew. It was a communion sacrifice that involved 40 loaves of bread along with a pouring out of wine. It was offered when someone had been saved from death. The Hebrew sages believed that at the coming of the Anointed One (Messiah, in Hebrew, Christ, in Greek) all the sacrifices of the Law would cease, except for the Thanksgiving Sacrifice. The first Christians realized that Jesus had established this Messianic thanksgiving Sacrifice by giving us His own flesh and blood in the form of bread and wine. This is what He promised when He fed the multitude by multiplying a few loaves and fish. This is what He did at the Last Supper and this is what finished on the Cross. 

The Mass is a kind of time machine that takes us back to the Last Supper and to Calvary and even to the end of time where we celebrate the great wedding feast of Christ and church. Sometimes we call the Mass the “Liturgy” which is a Greek word. It literally meant the work of the people, but referred to the sacred dramas performed by the Greeks to retell the stories of the gods. These liturgies were very sacred and did not originally change the story. The actors wore masks so that you knew you were not looking at actors but at the faces of the gods. The first Christians who mostly spoke Greek adopted the word “Liturgy” to mean the unchanging ritual that made God present among us. A liturgy belongs to all the Christians ever born or whoever will be born. It is a work of the whole people of God, not just one congregation or community so it is a very structured ritual, not just an optional and changeable church service. 

The Aramaic word by which the very first Christians and their Middle Eastern descendants still call the Mass is Korban, the Sacrifice. Jesus died once and for all on Calvary, but St. Paul says, “I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions.” (Col, 1:24) Christ’s sacrifice is perfect. All that is lacking is the offering of myself along with Him for the salvation and redemption of the world. He is timeless. We are still in time. At a Mass, time and eternity meet. Heaven comes to us and we go to heaven. Mass is the un-bloody renewal of the one sacrifice of Christ on the Cross in which you and I have the privilege of participating.  

In the Thanksgiving Sacrifice in the temple, 40 loaves of bread, some leavened and some unleavened, were offered to God and then after some had been burned on the altar and wine had been poured out, the loaves were returned to the one making the sacrifice, which he then took home and shared with his neighbors. In the Mass, bread and wine are offered to the Lord and it is Christ himself, the Lamb of God who is returned to us to share with our family and friends. We believe that the bread and wine offered to God become Christ Himself, the Bread of Life, present in a physical way. Bread and wine don’t simply represent Christ. They become Christ. This is real. We call it the Real Presence. 

In 1996, in Buenos Aires, a communion wafer was found thrown away on a candle holder in the back of a church after Mass. Fr. Alejandro Pezet put it in water inside the tabernacle (the metal box in which the leftovers of communion are kept safely locked) when he next opened the tabernacle, he was amazed to find that the wafer which we call the host, (a Latin word for sacrificial victim), had changed into something that appeared to be bleeding. He contacted his bishop Don Jorge Bergoglio. The bloody Host was left in the tabernacle for years and continued to bleed and grow. After a few years the bishop decided to have it scientifically analyzed because a host normally dissolves when left in water. It doesn’t turn into a bloody piece of flesh that won’t decompose. 

In 1999, Cardinal Bergoglio asked Dr. Ricardo Castanon, an atheist, to examine the host. He sent a sample New York for testing without explaining what it originally had been. One of the examining scientists, Dr. Frederic Zugibe, a cardiologist and forensic pathologist, determined that it was a piece of heart muscle. A piece of unleavened bread had become a piece of heart muscle at a Mass. That’s what Catholics believe happens at every Mass. (By the way, Cardinal Bergoglio is now Pope Francis and Dr. Castanon is now a fervent Catholic.)  The same sort of thing seems to have happened in 2008 at St. Anthony of Padua Church in Sokolka, Poland and at the church of St. Longinus in Lanciano, Italy around the year 700. They too, having been forensically examined, turn out to be heart tissue.  

Mass is not just a nice religious ritual. It is the Last Supper continued; it is Calvary renewed; it is the Resurrection made present; it is heaven anticipated. 

“Well,” you may say, “You haven’t explained the strange clothes, the complicated rituals and all the standing and kneeling and sitting.” Don’t worry, the night is still young. 

Next week: Ancient Roman raincoats and other Catholic things.

How does a Catholic respond to, "Are you saved"? -- part 2

Continued from last week

Everyone is talking about the New Evangelization. This makes me nervous. We are wasting our time with all this discussion of the New Evangelization if we cannot agree on what Evangelization, new or old, really is.  When I was in seminary Evangelization was definitely out, because one religion was as good as another. There was actually a practicing Buddhist in the class ahead of me. He did not go on to ordination, but I thought his strobe candles were really groovy.  We got past that silliness, but by the time we decided that maybe it wasn’t a bad thing for people to become Christians, and dare I say, even Catholics, we had gotten a bit muddled about what the Church actually taught.  Evangelism or evangelization, or whatever we are calling it these days, meant having people break into small groups in which they discussed their feelings and then comes back together into the large group for a candlelight service during which really catchy tunes were sung. Then we moved on to the early RCIA in which people were taught this was optional and others taught that was optional. Nothing was really required.

I remember some poor fellow who eventually ended up being very Catholic, but  who was told by his pastor that we no longer really believed in the Real Presence. This bewildered catechumen asked, “Am I allowed to believe in the Real Presence?” Things are mostly better now, but when they say “evangelize” most Catholics mean “catechize.” These are two very different things. To catechize is to help others know about the Lord. This is an absolute waste of time unless some one first knows the Lord.  We teach our kids all about the faith and we prepare them for the sacraments and we make them sit in long boring classes in which we explain the fine points of theology to the little numbskulls who haven’t even a clue when Jesus was born, died and rose, much less knowing that he is truly present in the tabernacle. We can get them to parrot back answers on a test with no problem. They are  regularly expected to do this in the government schools in which standardized tests have become very popular as a means of proving that the public funds are not being wasted. This process has nothing to do with the actual education of children whether in the government schools or in our religious education classes. We have religion programs in which all the records are perfectly kept, and all the appropriate courses, diplomas and certifications are required of the DRE, CRE, AC, UC, and DC for the RCIA and the RE and the CCD and all those other inscrutable collections of letters of which we Catholics are inordinately fond. We use them as if anyone actually understands what they mean. The end result of all the meticulous preparation, documentation, orientation, regimentation and consternation is that as soon as school is out, no one actually comes to church because it is as boring as getting a root canal.

Few of the certified and certifiable formators that we produce have a passion for the faith and the Lord. If our volunteers do have a passion for the faith, there is doubtless a diocesan program that can cure them of it. They will soon learn that the Bible is allegory, the sacraments are optional, there is no hell and maybe no heaven. There will soon be women priests and democratically elected popes and on and on and on. I have had people write and call me to say that they had been attending classes to train as catechists and had heard exactly these kinds of things during lectures. '

“Well, Father, that is an isolated instance.” 

Are you sure? It isn’t in my experience. We are in a situation of catechetical chaos in this country, and this muddled catechesis passes for evangelization. That is why I say I am a bit nervous about the new evangelization. I hope it’s more coherent than the evangelization of the past 40 years.

So then what is evangelization? Or evangelism? Or whatever we are calling it?  The best definition I ever heard of evangelism is “to bring someone to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.” We are trying and failing to bring people to a historical or a theological knowledge of Christ but all the history and theology is pretty useless unless we first know the Lord.  Don’t you just hate it when some crashing bore shows you picture of their Aunt Kunigunda’s vacation in the Adirondacks and regales you with humorous tales of her adventures with the local Mohawk Indians?  Perhaps if you knew Aunt Kunigunda personally this might be entertaining. Usually you would rather jump out of a moving vehicle than hear the fellow drone on about his beloved aunt and her indigenous friends. You stare into space until the drone becomes a distant, irritating whine. Doesn’t that sound like religious education classes you have attended? Once I asked a waitress what she had learned in religious education classes. She told me that, “This is how you hold your hands for first communion and Jesus loves me.” I suspect she learned more than most. You can’t catechize someone without evangelizing them first. You are usually wasting your time talking about someone your listener doesn’t know and doesn’t care to know.

So how do you evangelize someone? Easy. You pray with them. It’s easy. I remember a young man, a committed pagan who had started to come to our  prayer group because he wanted to get to know a young woman in the prayer group a little “better.” He was quite confused by all this Christian nonsense. He had cobbled together a personal philosophy from the best of all religions. He had blended Buddhism, Confucianism, Islam, Hinduism, especially the more, well, interesting elements of Hinduism. He didn’t understand why the Christian philosophy was so very narrow. I told him that Christianity isn’t a philosophy, it’s a person. To which he responded, “Huh?” I said, “Close your eyes.” which he did. I prayed very simply and out loud, “Lord Jesus when I was about my friend’s age, I was searching, too. Please let him know that You are alive and real  and that You love him.” I left him alone in the room with his eyes closed. He came out into the hall where a few of us were talking after the prayer meeting, and all he could say was “Wow!” He said “Wow.” for about five minutes. He had encountered a third person in that room. He had encountered Christ. I could have argued with him for hours. He was looking for a good argument. It would have been a waste of time. He didn’t need an argument, he needed Christ.

When someone comes to you with a problem, don’t just give them advice, pray with them. After listening with patience ask that person “would you like me to pray for you?’ If he says yes ask him to close his eyes and then pray for him. “What if it doesn’t work? I’ll feel like a fool!” Good. If you are anything like me you probably are a fool. You might as well be a fool for Christ. Pray with your children. Pray with your friends when you visit them in the hospital. Pray with your grandmother. It is simple. Just have them close their eyes, and then, out loud,  you tell the Lord what they just told you. Make it short and simple. The Lord knows the details. You don’t have to explain the situation to Him. You are just inviting Him into the situation. Maybe you can end with a simple Our Father. Then go away. Before you go away, you might give them your phone number or Email in case they have any questions. If they call you, invite them to go to Mass with you. Introduce them to the pastor. Bring them to the Monday night Bible study. That’s what it means to be an evangelist. To evangelize is to invite someone to meet Jesus, and then to meet his wife and family, by which I mean His church.

We Catholics have become so afraid to say anything about our faith that the world wonder if we have any. Another wonderful thing is to kneel at an altar rail in front of a tabernacle, if you can find an altar rail anywhere. Perhaps a kneeler in a pew will have to do. Pray with them there. This can be wonderfully powerful. Don’t explain it. Just do it. You can explain it later when they are signed up for RCIA, which by the way are the initials of the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults. Just make sure they go to an RCIA taught by a Catholic who believes things like the Real Presence and the teaching authority of the pope and the power of prayer.   

To evangelize is to pray with people, because prayer is a conversation, an encounter with God. You can’t prove that I exist by talking about me. I may be some tortured figment of your imagination. You can, however, bring someone to meet me. This is true of the Lord also. Bring people to Him. He really is alive. You can even say the Sinner’s Prayer with them, Here is a good example of it.

Lord Jesus, We know that we are sinners, and we ask for Your forgiveness. We believe You died for our sins and rose from the dead. Please come into our hearts and lives. We want to trust and follow You as our Lord and Savior. Give us the gift to know You, to love You and to serve You in this world and to be happy with You forever. Amen

A final question: Do you know the Lord? Have you ever felt that He was right there with you, did you once know the Lord but wandered away from Him? Wherever you are right now, you can pray that prayer. You don’t need me to lead you in it. He is in all places at all times and He wants nothing more than to give you new life. Try it. See you in church Sunday.

The Rev. Know-it-all

RKIA's Guide to behavior in a Catholic Church... part 2

(CAUTION! This is easily the most insulting series of Articles the Rev. Know-it-all has yet written.)

The Rev. Know-it-all's guide to how to behave in Church Part 2

Upon entering a Catholic Church the first thing one should do is shut up. We Catholics believe that Jesus ─ the Messiah, the Second Person of the Trinity, The Son of the Father, the Visible Image of the Invisible God, the Word through whom all things were made ─ is present in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.

He is there, present in the way that substance is present, in that little box in the center of the front of the church. We call it the Tabernacle, in memory of the dwelling of God in the camp of Israel. (“You must make the tabernacle and all its furnishings following the plan that I am showing you.” Exodus 25:8‑9)

In Hebrew there is something called the shekinah, which means the presence of God, the cloud of His glory. The tabernacle, called the mishkan in Hebrew, a derivative of the word shekinah, means the place of the presence. That means that God lives in every Catholic church where the Body and Blood of Jesus is kept in the tabernacle (mishkan), even more surely than in the tent of the Old Testament, or in the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Solomon.

This is what we Catholics believe. If you don’t believe this, at least humor us, or maybe you should find a nice Protestant Church, somewhere they don’t claim to have God physically present, and they can chatter with each other as much as they please.

(Note to the bewildered: If you enter a Catholic church and you don’t see the tabernacle (mishkan) front and center, that may be because some liturgist has hidden it behind the potted palms or put it in a little side room somewhere near the janitor's closet because they are embarrassed by the rather odd idea that God's infinity could be present in a box on an altar. In that case, just ask an usher or a liturgical dancer or someone official looking where the Blessed Sacrament is kept. You can even quote scripture to do so by saying as Mary Magdalene said on the first Easter Sunday “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have put him.” - John 20:13)

The renowned Dr. Hahn tells a story of someone who was being questioned about his Catholic faith by a Muslim. The Catholic was asked, “Do you really believe that God became man in the person of Jesus of Nazareth?” To which the Catholic answered, “Yes. I do.” “And do you really believe that Jesus lives in the little box behind the altar in your churches?” To which the Catholic again answered, “Yes I do.” The Muslim finally said, “If I believed what you claim to believe I would find the nearest Catholic church, I would go in, fall on my face in worship and never leave the building again.”

“What you claim to believe...” Interesting way to say it. Some people are better behaved in a movie theater than they are in Catholic Church. When you come into a Catholic Church acting like you’ve just arrived at happy hour at the V.F.W. Hall, it means that you don’t believe it, no matter how much you claim to.

I once quoted the statistic that only 30% of Catholics believe in the real presence of Christ in the tabernacle. My hearer said, “Oh no, Father. 100% of Catholics believe in the real presence.” The point being made is that if you don’t believe in the real presence you aren’t a Catholic. Remember, that the word “believe” means “trust” You may not understand how such a thing can be. You may have a thousand questions, but if you trust what Jesus said, “This is My body and this is My blood”, then you believe. To believe is not to be of a certain opinion, or simply to sign off on a set of assumption. It is to trust. The idea that what appears to be a piece of bread is actually God among us, well, that takes real trust. And if you trust, you begin to know and even to feel that the infinite treasure held in that small box is the most powerful vehicle of the divine presence. It is the very substance of God's passionate longing to dwell with us.

Everyone thinks that the great commandment is twofold “Love God” and “Love your neighbor.” In fact, the Great Commandment is threefold: (Mark 12:29-31) “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord, your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” There are three imperative verb forms in the passage: Listen, Love and Love. Allow me to paraphrase

1) Shut up and listen! I'm God. You're not!

2) Love God and

3) Love your neighbor.

How many times do I have to tell you that God has this problem: He thinks He's God. And 99.99% of what He does in our lives is done to make that point. Some people think that with all this wanting to be worshiped, the Almighty has issues and should see a good therapist. Think for a moment, what is worship? There is no worship like the mindless gaze of two young lovers. Perhaps you’ve had your little prince or princess come home from their freshman year at Watsamata U. and say something like “Oh Ma, she's perfect and I think her bright orange hair, Daisy Duke shorts and multiple navel rings are charming,” or “Oh Daddy, I’ve met the most wonderful boy. You’ll love him. He doesn’t have that many tattoos and he’s only been arrested twice.” Human love is deaf, dumb and stupid. We choose a life’s partner with less care than we’d take to buy a used suit of clothing. But that’s worship. To worship is to fall in love. Unfortunately we fall blindly in love with imperfect human beings who are bound to disappoint us. The Infinite and Almighty God is the only being worthy of that absolute love called worship. God wants us to fall absolutely in love with Him because He has already fallen in love with us and He knows that falling in love with Him is the greatest possible happiness for human beings.

Now back to chattering in church. Have you ever been on a really bad date? It usually consists of some narcissist droning on and on about themselves. “I can’t stand phonies! Can you stand phonies? They’re just the worst. My friend Becky Sue is such a phony! She’s says she doesn’t like phonies, but I know she does. That just makes me so mad, doesn’t it make you mad...” or “Yeah, I got a lot of trophies for sports, I’m the captain of the school curling team. I’m really into curling it’s the greatest sport there is and I’m the greatest curler in the state. I got the state award for curling two years running You have to have real upper body strength for curling I can do 312 one armed pushups. I can show you. I’ll do them right here in the restaurant.....”

This is the point at which you realize there won't be a second date. Or has the cell phone made first dates even worse? You're getting acquainted and... “Hold on! I’ve got take this call. Where were we? Oh, yeah, you were just telling me about how you were kidnapped by pirates when you were two and you have real trust issues... Hold on I’ve got another call....”

The invention of the cell phone may be the reason that monasticism is once again popular. If behavior like this is disrespectful to some schlub on a first date, do you think it more respectful to God almighty. When people are in love they capable of long silences in one another's presence. Sometimes silence says more than words ever can. Listening matters, especially when it is God to whom we are listening. “Be still and know that I am God!” (Psalm 46:10), so the first thing do upon entering a Catholic Church is to shut up.

Why do you worship graven images?

Dear Rev. Know it all.

The Bible is clear. NO GRAVEN IMAGES. (Exodus 20:2-17) "You shall not make for yourself an idol.... You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God." And Deuteronomy 5:6-21 says exactly the same thing. The Catholic have neatly tucked this second commandment into the first so people won't notice it. What do you have to say about that?

May T. Fortress
 
Dear May,

Let me answer the second question first. Catholics follow the division of the commandments established by St. Augustine around the year 400, which was the same as the Jewish division at that time.  Martin Luther and his followers still use the same Augustinian division as the Catholics. Maimonides, the Jewish sage in the 1100's, divided them differently. In his division which today's Jews use the commandment against idol worship is a completely separate commandment. We have divided the commandment in St. Augustine's way for at least 1,600 years.

Now for the next question. The commandments in both Deuteronomy and Exodus forbids bowing down (lo tishtak'we) and the serving (lo ta'abdem) of images. In my whole life I have never bowed down to nor served an idol or an image. I have knelt at shrines where there are images, because the Lord says that wherever two or three are gathered in His name, He is present. (Matt: 18-20) When I join in prayer with the saints, whether those on earth or those in glory, I often kneel, because the Lord is present as He promised, but I have never prostrated myself before an image, and that is exactly what the word for worship means in both Hebrew and Greek (proskynein).

I am not just playing at words here. I mean it. Worship is to lie flat out before God, sometimes in body, always in soul. It is to confess that He alone is God. To ask for the prayers of the saints is quite another thing.

Even in the Mosaic covenant, the prohibition against images was not absolute. In the tent and in the temple there were representations of the Cherubim as well as of plants and animals. There was even the graven image of the bronze serpent that Moses had made in the dessert (Num.21:6) which was eventually removed from the temple when people began to burn incense to it (2 Kings 18:4) and to worship it.

The first Christians relaxed the prohibition on images because God Himself had given us a visible image of Himself. (Col:1-15). Against the images of saints there has never been a prohibition. It is clear from the practice of the Israelites that only images of gods are prohibited, and no true Catholic would ever mistake an image of a saint for God.

Images of the saints and especially of the characters of the Bible Story became common on the Middle Ages when many could not read. Statues, pictures and stained glass windows taught the stories of the faith to the illiterate. The great cathedrals of the Middle Ages were the schools of the poor. Art had always been used this way by Christians and it still is. When did you first hear the Gospel story? I remember when I was a very little boy, that my parents told me what the Christmas crib meant and who the characters were. Pictures in my children's Bible made me want to hear the story and the beauty of the Church, with its paintings and images helped me know the power and the peace of God. If you are opposed to religious images, have you thrown out your picture Bibles, your art and your Christmas crib?

In the temple there was no danger of the worship of the cherubs or any other image, because the presence of the Lord filled the temple. And in the same way there is no real danger for a real Catholic in the use of religious images because we enjoy the real presence of God present in the Tabernacle that holds the Eucharist, the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, who is the visible image of the invisible God.

I have pictures of my parents which are very dear to me, especially now that they have left this world. I have never once mistaken a picture for my mother or father. It would be all the more ridiculous if my parents were still here, to reverence the picture and not the parents. So it is with Catholics. The saints are in glory and their images remind us of their constant prayer for their brethren who still struggle here, but they are not gods. Even images of the Lord Jesus are only reminders of His nearness.

I would never mistake the image for the Lord, because whenever I want, I can go into a church and spend an hour with Him who is really present in the tabernacle even more truly than the god of Israel dwelt in the temple in Jerusalem. If I go into any church where the Lord is present in the sacrament, I am not alone. Why would I cling to an image when the Lord is so near?

Rev. Know-it-all    

How do you feel about Eucharistic Adoration?

NB. A glossary for, Heathens, Protestants and Modern Catholics:
Eucharist, a Greek word meaning thanksgiving. A reference to the Thanksgiving Sacrifice in the Old Covenant. In the New Covenant that the Messiah gave us this Eucharist (Thanksgiving Sacrifice) is usually called the Mass. Outside of the Mass, Eucharist also refers to the consecrated bread and wine which we believe the Holy Spirit transforms during the Mass into real the Flesh and real Blood of Jesus of Nazareth.
Tabernacle: the box or container in which this transformed bread is kept in most Catholic churches. In traditional churches, it is kept in the center of the church because it is Christ who is really present among us and is the center of our lives. In more progressive and up to date churches it is kept over on the side or in a broom closet or behind some shrubbery.
Eucharistic Adoration: The host (a Latin word meaning sacrificial victim), which is the  consecrated communion wafer, is placed in a monstrance (another Latin word meaning “display case” related to the English word demonstrate, sometimes also called an ostensarium. Same meaning) We spend time in prayer and worship before Christ present in the Eucharist and displayed in the monstrance, though the Eucharist not eaten as at Mass, only worshiped.

Dear Rev. Know it all, 
About a month or so ago, I was asked by a parish member (who is also on our parish council) if I would be interested in participating in 24 hour adoration. I reluctantly said yes, and explained my reluctance was not because I didn’t want to participate in such a wonderful practice, but that I didn’t think the organizers had thought it through.  I brought up a few of the problems that I knew just off the top of my head and simply said if you can get these things answered I would consider signing up.
1) Our Tabernacle is in a side chapel that only allows maybe at most 6-10 people in it at once.  What if 15-20 people want to adore at the same time; do we tell them no? 
2) Our Priest lives 15 to 20 minutes away from the Church, what if nobody shows for their time slot?  What are you going to do with my Lord?
Well, as with any of the other issues of abuses and or novelties that I have brought up to my Priest and parish council, they ignore my thoughts as being nuts and continue on.  I need your help with this because as you know, if this is treated with the same cavalier attitude that the other novelties and abuses which they have introduced, we could have some serious problems! I have kids at this school and really don’t want them introduced or confused by anymore abuses or novelties!  The Catholic faith is so beautiful. I don’t want them to question any more things that go on there than they do already.
Thank You for Your Time,
Si Kahtic,
 
Dear Si, 
You may be nuts, but about this, I think you may have a point.  Eucharistic Adoration is an amazing source of grace. The Real Presence in the tabernacle of Jesus of Nazareth, Messiah, Son of God, Son of Mary, is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise “Behold, I am with you all days ‘til the end of the earth.” It is not a virtual presence, not a symbolic or metaphorical presence, but a real presence. The whole Christ is present in the bread and wine become Flesh and Blood. God became flesh and remains in the world He loves so dearly in every tabernacle. Therein lies the problem.
We are pieces of work, we moderns. We wear pajamas to the grocery store. People go to the office in sweat pants. We wear ripped jeans to Mass. I was at a wedding not long ago and the younger members of the family of the bride were wearing greasy looking T-shirts. Why is this a problem? After all, isn’t it what’s inside that counts? That may be true, but you can usually tell what’s inside by the outside actions. What our actions say in this self absorbed culture is that “My personal comfort is more important than the people who have to stare at me.” To dress appropriately is really more about my respect for the people around me than it is about my vanity. We live in the culture of “Whatever.”  You don’t matter to me. Only I matter to me. This is the prevailing mindset of our dying culture and it  endangers Eucharistic Adoration. 
Eucharistic Adoration is wonderful, but what passes for Eucharistic adoration is often only Eucharistic convenience.  Back in the Neolithic Age when I was a boy, people dropped to their knees when the priest opened the tabernacle to get the sacrament for a sick call. Often, an altar boy carrying a lit candle and ringing a bell would accompany the priest on a sick call. Catholics would drop to their knees on the street if a priest carrying the Blessed Sacrament walked by (People walked back then, it was really something to see.)  The family of the person receiving the Sacrament at home would greet the priest and his sacred burden by kneeling with lit candles. Now it’s hard to get the person receiving the sacrament or his family to turn down the television.
These outmoded superstitions were replaced in the glorious and groovy sixties by a more modern, breezy attitude. Eucharistic ministers would pop by the church to pick up the Eucharistic on their way to the supermarket. People would keep the Blessed Sacrament in the top drawer in the dining room cupboard so that they would not have to be going back and forth to Church, I even knew people who like to keep the Blessed Sacrament in their night stands as a sort of good luck charm. Mind you, I have nothing against Eucharistic ministers. There certainly seems to be precedent in the history of the Church for non-ordained people to bring the Sacrament when a priest cannot. 
Remember St. Tarcsissus? It would be well to remember him. He was a young boy who was bringing the Eucharist to jailed Christians back in the Roman times. He refused to show what he was hiding to some pagan friends of his and they beat him to death for his persistent refusal to show them what he was hiding. I have no trouble with a lay minister who is willing die for the honor of our Lord in the Sacrament.  We moderns however have gotten a bit casual about things.
Don’t get me wrong. I think that Eucharistic devotion is an essential, even central part of the Catholic life. It’s nice to pop in and say “Hi!” to God, but that’s called “a visit to the Blessed Sacrament.” It’s wonderful. I do it all the time. That’s one of the great things about being a parish priest. I live next door to Jesus. However, Eucharistic Adoration is something more. In the olden days, we had something called Forty Hours Devotion. The whole parish geared up and spent forty hours in prayer before the Lord. Night and day members of the parish came and spent time on their knees before the Lord. It was one of the high points of the Church year. You don’t see many Forty Hours any more. Why bother? I can run over to St. Dymphna’s and drop in on the Creator of the Universe for five minutes.
Eucharistic Adoration should not be convenient. It, like the Mass, from which it flows, should be sacrificial. It is my opinion that only a few places in a diocese should be permitted to have perpetual adoration, and that adoration should be truly perpetual. I have often gone to places that advertised perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and found our Lord there, alone as could be. He was not being treated as the Lord of the Universe, but more like a museum exhibit in a glass case.
So, here is my suggestion; if a parish and its pastor really believe that the Lord is calling them to be a center for perpetual adoration, then some real preparation has to happen. You must have two people volunteering for one hour, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, four weeks a month.
Why two people? One person often can’t make it, or has to leave early for perfectly good reason, or the car won’t start in the middle of the night, yadda, yadda, yadda. In effect, you need adoration teams. 
Why once a month, not once a week? Unless you are dealing with contemplative nuns, it gets old fast. Asking someone to get up at 3AM every week until they drop dead is like asking someone to live in a state of constant jetlag.  They have to go to work in the morning. They are going to be snarling at their children and arguing with their spouse and glaring at their boss.
Remember, sacramental commitments are primary. Going to Mass is a sacramental obligation, Marriage is a sacramental obligation, Eucharistic Adoration, though involving the Blessed Sacrament, is not a sacramental obligation. Irritability should not be the result of worship.
So that means 2 x 24 x 30 (or 31) = 1,440, or 1.448 people. Has your parish got 1,400 plus people who are willing to commit to this? Perhaps they can conduct a little experiment and if they get 1,400 people to visit the Blessed Sacrament regularly for a couple months they should go on to the next step.
If I had a group of people who were insisting on Eucharistic Adoration and I came into the Church and found the Sacrament abandoned, I would fold it down that moment. Eucharistic Adoration, though a sacrifice, should be a joy and a privilege, not just a boring burden. Once a week becomes a burden for most people. Once a month is a special privilege for which people gear up. Trust me. I’ve been in the business a long time.
I remember the story that should point out our proper attitude to the Sacrament. A Catholic once worked with a Muslim. The Muslim began to quiz him on his faith. The Muslim said, “Do you really believe that God has a son?”
The Catholic said, “yes.”
The Muslim asked, “Do you really believe that this son who is himself God, came to earth?”
The Catholic said, “yes.”
Again he asked, “and you really believe that this divine being is still here under the appearance of bread, and is kept in a box on the altar in Catholic churches?”
The Catholic once more said, “yes.”
The Muslim finally said, “If I believed what you believe, I would find the nearest Catholic Church, I would go in, fall on my face and never ever leave.”
We cannot let the glorious gift of  the Real Presence become common place. The Blessed Sacrament is heaven come to earth and should be treated as such. 
Rev. Know-it-all