Usually, right after Mass I can get some Hosts from the tabernacle to take with me to the hospital to distribute to the sick. But a couple of weeks ago, I guess the sacristan (or Father) miscalculated the number of wafers that would need to be consecrated and there were none left for me to get. When I remarked to the sacristan after Mass that I assumed I would have to wait until after the next Mass to get the Eucharist, he said, "Why don't you just get Father to come back here and bless some more for you?"
I was dumfounded! This was not a young man telling me this. He had obviously been a Catholic for a long time! I had to remind him that the Host is not simply "blessed" bread, but transubstantiated through the hands of the priest into the very Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, Himself!
Today, I came across a survey about what people know about other religions, as well as their own. One of the findings was that forty-five percent of Roman Catholics who participated in the study didn't know that, according to church teaching, the bread and wine used in Holy Communion is not just a symbol, but becomes the Body and Blood of Christ. So I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised at the guy's ignorance of church teaching.
Then again today, I found a link to a Time Magazine article about the illicit (and, I might add, invalid) ordination of women to the priesthood in the US. Canon Law 1024 says that only baptized men can receive holy orders.
The article is so full of hatred and diatribe against the Catholic Church I was actually sick to my stomach. If these men and women can't understand that Canon Law is based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Magisterial teachings and the Truth as revealed by the Holy Spirit, we must pray that their eyes open and they repent of their grave errors.
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