The Eucharist Can Save the World
A new book makes the provocative case that the Eucharist can save our civilization. We’ll find out how that can happen on today’s podcast.
The Themes of Holy Thursday
The Holy Eucharist, the ministerial priesthood, and fraternal charity are intimately bound together in the mystery of Holy Thursday.
The Eucharist Is Not Just for Eating
Eucharistic adoration seems so passive, without purpose, functionless, and is written off as Catholic superstition. But it reflects the unitive love between Christ and the believer.
A Eucharistic Revolt
One cannot help but come to the conclusion that Fr. Thomas Reese is not after a Eucharistic Revival. He is after a Eucharistic Revolt.
A Radical Proposal for the USCCB’s Eucharistic Revival
Four simple changes to how we receive Communion will do far more to create a Eucharistic revival than any multi-million dollar program.
Gnosticism Still a Challenge to Christianity
Gnostic philosophy, like a noxious weed, thrives in the barren soil of our post-Christian culture. It also emits a foul odor akin to the smoke of Satan, filtering through the doors of the Church and influencing our anthropology, as well as severely compromising the integrity of our worship of Christ in the Eucharist. Catholicism is … Read more
A Crisis of Faith Cannot Be Met by Liturgical Protocols
The unprecedented message of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI regarding the crisis of the clergy contained a surprising illumination that is so incisive it will probably be ignored for years: All problems connected to Holy Orders are related in some way to the Eucharist. Benedict wrote: Our handling of the Eucharist can only arouse concern… What … Read more
Proper Liturgy Needs Doctrinal Truth
“This is why respect for truth is ultimately inseparable from what we call worship. Truth and cult are inextricably united—one cannot exist without the other, however often history may have separated them.” ∼ Joseph Ratzinger (1982) Liturgical thought today seems to downplay the importance of doctrine while elevating the significance of practice. The harmony of lex orandi … Read more
A Pastoral Guide to Receiving Communion
The Baltimore Catechism reliably provides a catechesis on the Holy Eucharist: “The Holy Eucharist is the Sacrament which contains the body and blood, soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ under the appearances of bread and wine.” Furthermore, “Jesus Christ is present whole and entire in the smallest portion of the Holy Eucharist under the form … Read more
A Modest Proposal to End the Vocations Crisis
Allow me to touch a liturgical third rail: Communion in the hand. Before I do, look at the July 4th edition of La Croix International. It reports that of the 96 dioceses in the country of France, 58 produced not a single ordination to the Priesthood. Truth be told, this crisis is not restricted to … Read more
How to Not Receive the Eucharist
There are thousands of articles explaining “how to receive communion,” and thousands more explaining who may receive communion. But there are few articles about how to not receive the Eucharist. Notice I say “receive the Eucharist.” I hate the phrase “receive communion.” Communion is not a thing to be received, but a condition at which … Read more
Yes, Virginia, the Real Presence is Really Real
Most Protestants and even some Catholics (arguably, 20 percent, maybe more) deny the predominately Catholic teaching that Jesus Christ is really present in the Eucharist. And many of those who accept the teaching betray little dis-ease receiving the sacrament in a manner that would have been unthinkable in a generation when the confessional lines were … Read more
Corpus Christi and the Modern World
At first glance, the Solemnity of Corpus Christi seems primarily an internal church feast. However, once upon a time (especially when societies were more religiously homogenous) that internal faith found external expression in public processions with the Eucharist. In some places (e.g., Poland), public expression was never lost; in others, like the United States, it … Read more
When the “Reformers” Abandoned the Eucharist
The first lines of Belloc’s 1936 book, The Characters of the Reformation, are these: “The break-up of united western Christendom with the coming of the Reformation was by far the most important thing in history since the formation of the Catholic Church fifteen hundred years before.” We live in a time when the Reformation is … Read more
The Spiritual Roots of the Church’s Crisis
In the midst of moral and sacramental debates in the Church, it is easy to focus on ecclesial politics and to look there for solutions. Without denying the importance of such debates, it is also helpful to take a step back and to examine the roots of the crisis. The Church’s Cross: A Crisis of … Read more
The Christmas Triad: Christ, Church, Eucharist
As a cradle Catholic long accustomed to the rituals and feasts of faith, the earliest memories I have coincide, most happily, with membership in what the comedian Lenny Bruce used to call the only the Church. And so there was never a time when Christmas was not an occasion for sheer wonderment and joy, an … Read more
Contraception and Communion
It is puzzling: why do many Catholics receive the Eucharist, the source of all grace and the sign of being in communion with the Catholic Church, and yet support and practice contraception, abortion, and unnatural relationships such as homosexual “marriage,” all of which are in direct contradiction to the Church’s teachings? How can there be … Read more
On Allowing the Unworthy Reception of the Eucharist
Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor accused Christ of insufficiently loving the “weak, ever sinful and ignoble race of man.” Christ, he declared, cared only for those “great and strong” souls who would freely obey him for the sake of the bread of Heaven. So the Grand Inquisitor would “care for the weak too”—the “millions” who are too … Read more
Teach the Faith, Please
While I generally find the profusion and milling-around of lay ministers of the Eucharist distracting and unnecessary, I found myself offering prayers of thanksgiving for one this past Sunday. We’ve recently moved and were attending a new and unfamiliar parish with a bewildering process for going forward to receive, including multiple lines of Eucharistic ministers … Read more
On Gratitude, Grapes, and God
Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, There’s always laughter and good red wine. At least I’ve always found it so. Benedicamus Domino! ∼ Hilaire Belloc When my wife and I were first married—oh, about half a lifetime ago—there was no wine for us to drink at our reception. It was not that others had depleted … Read more