Recieving Communion
Recieve The Holy Eucharist like Mary did...
At the baptism of our daughter, we were at a church that was without kneelers as they raised money to build a church. We had chosen my cousin and his wife as our daughters godparents and knew them to be faithful Catholics. Although kneelers are only meant to assist us at Mass the majority of the congregation never knelt. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal directs us to kneel from after the Sanctus (“Holy, Holy, Holy”) to after the Great Amen and to kneel also after the Agnus Dei (“Lamb of God.) At Masses for severals hundreds, we were generally one of perhaps a dozen "kneelers" at this church. Considering that we'd be at the front for the baptism we wondered how the godparents would feel about kneeling and we decided to follow their lead. They knelt. When we shared our relief after the baptism my soft-spoken, gentle cousin was uncharacteristically firm and empassioned as he reminded us, "Do you think that when we are before Our Lord face to face we could choose not to kneel? No, St. Michael would push us to our knees in reverence of Christ!" And yet, we are before Christ and the choir of angels at the reception of the Eucharist.
When the Catholic church stopped kneeling to recieve Our Lord at Communion 40 years ago, when we started "taking" Him like a potato chip out of our hand, instead of recieving Him in humility from consecrated hands, we started down the slippery slope of losing our reverence. Not surprising that there are so many today that are so casual about The Most Blessed Sacrament. Weekly confession is a thing of the past, dressing for our King, prayers after Mass...do they really believe that hidden in the host IS Our Lord and Savior? If we did believe, wouldn't we go to Adoration to be with the one we love?
Do you know what Mother Teresa said?
4 comments:
Thank you for posting about this!!
God Bless!
I agree...very well said.
I had a friend leave the faith after 35 years of being a Catholic because she didn't feel anything after she received our Lord.
Now she goes to one of those non-denomination churches where the music is fun...very entertaining.
It is a slippery-slope...not sure how much we can slide into worse shape. There are not too many people I know who are faithful. I found Jamie and I am so lucky!!!!
Nice post!
I see the opposite though, I see many faithful, faith filled people coming together and I think things will change for the better. Just reading blogs along, there are SO many faithful Catholic women out there all over the country, it's amazing!
I think I surround myself with very good Catholics and am kind of shell shocked when I have to be around people with little or no faith. I don't see that much of the bad, I guess.
I DO love that quote of Mother Teresa, my favorite, I was a Eucharistic minister many years ago,like 10 and read that and decided it was wrong and have not received in the had since then.
If we ever move Jamie, I'm want to find out where you live, sounds nice! Today at our Latin Mass picnic we were talking about how it would be nice to all live in a compound. :)
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