Posted on 07/21/2002 2:01:09 PM PDT by JMJ333
“We do,” said John.
“Your Church teaches that he is really present there, yes? That what's there is the man who was God?”
“Yes. The formula is 'Body and blood, soul and divinity.'”
“And you believe that?”
“Yes.”
Isa made as if to say something, but stifled it. John assured him he would not be offended.
Finally, reluctantly, Isa said, “I don't understand.”
"I understand how you feel. It sounds very shocking.”
“No, you don't understand. That's not what I mean. You will take it as an insult, but I don't mean it to be.”
“I promise I won't take it as an insult. But I really want to know what's on your mind.”
“Well then. . . . I don't think you really do believe that. I don't mean to say you're dishonest, but . . . .”
“I think I know what you mean. You can't empathize with anyone who believes something so shocking. You don't see how you could ever get down on your knees before that altar.”
“No, I don't see how I could ever get up. If I believed that thing that looks like a little round piece of bread was really Allah Himself, I think I would just faint. I would fall at His feet like a dead man.”
John looked carefully at my reaction as he reported Isa's words. My eyes opened, and he smiled. “What did you say to him?” I asked.
“Nothing. Then, after a while, just 'Yes.'”
John is a wise man.
CULTURE CLASH
This story got me thinking about the ills of our culture both outside and inside the Church. Every American knows our culture is in crisis. And every Catholic knows that the crisis has infected the Church as well as the world. But what is the root of the disease — Liberalism vs. Conservatism, Newchurch vs. Oldchurch? Yes, but that is only the formal structure of every conflict — new vs. old.
Is it infidelity vs. fidelity, then? “Fidelity” — to the “deposit of faith” — adds both a personal dimension of moral responsibility and a theological dimension of content to “conservatism.” But this is not enough; we must ask what part of the “deposit of faith” is in peril. It seems to be the supernatural. Modernism, the master heresy of the modern era (as Gnosticism was to the ancient era), is essentially the denial of the supernatural: It means reducing God to goodness, Christ to a good man, the Holy Spirit to something like “school spirit,” scripture to man's word about God instead of God's word about man, and divine institutions to human ones. Is that the deepest source of the crisis, then?
No, it goes even deeper. Even the destruction of Modernism would still only be a victory of doctrine. As St. Thomas Aquinas says, the primary object of faith is a reality, not a proposition (though propositions are indispensable). Not the proposition “God exists” but God; not the doctrine of the Resurrection but the reality of the Resurrection; not the creeds about Christ but the real presence of Christ, is the crux and crisis. It is a crisis of Christlessness.
“Real presence” is impossible to conceptualize, for it is not a “what” at all, but the “thereness,” or “hereness,” of the “what”; not essence but existence. It must be shown, not defined. Whenever God shows up in scripture, it is His real presence that makes all the difference. Job's three friends talked about God as if He were absent, but Job talked to Him, however confusedly, for his faith was in God's presence. That faith was rewarded when God appeared to Job but not to his friends and approved Job's speeches, not theirs.
Throughout the Gospels we find Jesus constantly doing just that: showing the difference between mere concepts and real presence. He did it when He proved the Resurrection to the skeptical Sadducees on the basis of the first five books of Moses alone (which was all that they accepted as divine authority), by connecting three names for Himself that God had revealed to Moses: “I AM WHO AM,” “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” and “the God not of the dead but of the living.” “For all live to Him,” He concluded (Luke 21:38).
He did it when He berated the Pharisees, with ironic humor, for keeping their noses in their books instead of looking to Him — the book was wholly about Him! (John 5:39-40)
He did it in His parting words to His apostles, when He left them with the only thing powerful enough to transform the world: not comforting words about Him but His real presence: “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)
This is what transformed them from confused cowards into saints and martyrs. Instead of being shaken by the world, they would now shake the world. How? What converted the world's longest-lived, successful, and hard-nosed dictatorship — the Roman Empire — into “Christendom”? Not just Christ's theology or teaching, not just Christ's morality or example, but Christ's real presence, in His Body the Church and in His Spirit. And it was meant to continue.
A LONG RETREAT
Why has it stopped? Why are the Christian soldiers no longer marching onward but retreating?
Because we no longer understand this “real presence,” this difference between Christ abstract and Christ concrete; because we no longer understand St. Paul's startling one-word definition of “wisdom,” “righteousness,” “sanctification,” and “redemption” given in I Corinthians: Christ. That is why his decision to “know nothing but Christ Jesus” to those sophisticated Corinthians was not a “know-nothing” anti-intellectualism or a minimalism, but a maximalism.
The crisis of faith in the Church is a crisis of faith in Christ's real presence. The deepest root of the dullness and ineffectiveness of most parishes, laity, clergy, homilies, liturgies, music, catechesis, programs, and all the extra Martha-like activities, is not outright heresy or apostasy but simply remoteness — not, as the “liberals” say, the Church's remoteness from “the people,” but from The Person.
Let's ask ourselves honestly: Why have Evangelical, Fundamentalist, and Pentecostal Protestant sects and denominations been so much more successful throughout the Americas during the past generation? Why would a Catholic, who is in possession of the fullness of the faith, the full gospel, exchange it for a faith that is only partial? It is not primarily because of a disaffection for the things Catholics have and Protestants don't—history, tradition, popes, saints, sacraments, etc. Rather, it is due to an affection for the one thing Catholics have but don't know they have—in fact, the main thing Catholics have: Christ. These Catholics never knew Jesus Christ in the Church, but they did find Christ present in the souls and lives of Protestants.
Do you think I exaggerate? I teach philosophy at Boston College — one of the top Catholic universities in America. Eighty percent of my students are Catholics who have had twelve years of catechism. Yet when I ask them what they would say to God if they died tonight and were asked why they should go to Heaven, only one in 20 even mentions Jesus Christ. (Only one in 20 Evangelicals, Pentecostals, or Fundamentalists would not know that answer.) This is worse than a “problem;” this is an inexcusable scandal, an unmitigated disaster.
Ironically, the Church has a presence these Protestants do not even claim to have: an objective and perfect real presence in the Eucharist, worthy of worship, not just a subjective and imperfect presence in souls. Christ is really, truly, objectively, fully present in the Eucharist — hidden under the appearances of bread and wine — as He was in the streets of Nazareth or on the Cross.
And that's what we're neglecting!
The central problem of the Church today is that most of the generation now becoming adults — the generation educated by CCD texts full of deadly platitudes — simply do not know Jesus Christ. They are not merely unaware of right doctrine about Him (though that's tragically missing too) but of Christ Himself, His real presence. Nothing less than Christ could have Christianized the world, nothing less than Christlessness has de-Christianized it, and nothing less than Christ can re-Christianize it. What happens when Christ's real presence is known? Read the Gospels and find out. The Gospels are not mere historical records; they continue, they happen, for the One they present is not dead and gone and past but alive and here and now.
Where is He present now? In His Church. This means essentially two things. First, He is present in the Church's sacraments, primarily in the Eucharist. Second, He is also present in the Church's members, in the souls and lives of those who have believed in Him. What a tragedy that so many Protestants do not know that first presence! And what an equal tragedy that so many Catholics do not know the second!
What will happen if we also neglect the first? What sound will we hear to replace the great silence of eucharistic adoration? The same sound we hear from the National Council of Churches: the sound of coffins being built, the sound of dead logs falling.
And what will we hear if we rediscover His presence and adore Him? The same sound we hear in the Gospels: the sound of a blazing fire, the rattle of dry bones coming to life, the shouts of joy that ring through scripture and through the great old Protestant hymns.
RETURN TO JOY
How do we get this joy back? Not by any gimmicks or human contrivance, but by recognizing the real presence and responding with adoration. And the primary place of the real presence is the Eucharist.
The primary reason for eucharistic adoration, however, is not the one we have been exploring so far: that it will bring passion and power and joy and life to us, our Church, and our world. Those are only incidentals! The primary reason must be to obey the primary moral rule, which I shall call Right Reality Response (the 3 R's), or (in a single word) Realism. Adore Him because He is adorable, and present. Even if it didn't save the world, the Church, or the soul, it would be the right thing to do, not just because of who we are, but because of who He is.
Right Reality Response is the ultimate basis for all morality. We must be moral because God commands it, of course; but also because it is good, or right; and it is good, or right, because it is true. And it works both ways: Not only do understanding and loving the truth lead to moral obedience, but obedience also leads to understanding the truth. Adoration trains us in the habit of seeing the Absolute as absolute and the relative as relative, instead of vice versa.
For in adoration we focus on Christ the center, and everything else then appears as it truly is: as a ray of light from that sun, the Son of God. We see the world in terms of Christ's coordinates instead of looking at Christ in terms of the world's coordinates. It is the great exercise in realism, since reality is Christocentric. Even this great mental benefit, or “payoff,” must not be our primary motive, however. If we adored the Adorable One for the sake of something else, we would really be worshipping the “something else” as the end and using God as the means. This would reverse the order of reality, treating the End as a means and the means as the end. God has left us clear instructions forbidding this: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then all these other things will be added unto you.” He commands us to adore Him for His sake, not for our sake; but He does this for our sake, not for His sake. His glory is to be our concern; our glory is His concern. That is what love is: exchange.
A CONVERSATION
What holds us back, then? What is the objection to eucharistic adoration?
It's not that it's hard or requires any special gifts or education. The only requirements are faith and love.
Perhaps it would be a good exercise for us to get our objections out in front of us by inventing an imaginary objector.
Our objector protests,
“Although it is not hard in itself, it is hard for us, because our faith is weak. It is our nature to live by sight, not by faith.”
True. Our faith is smaller than a mustard seed. But faith is like a muscle. And this is a compelling reason for strengthening our faith by exercising it through adoration.
“How can we exercise a faith we don't already have?”
That's like the question: “How can I read a book entitled How To Read A Book? If I can read already, I don't need to read that book, and if I can't read already, I won't be able to read that book.” We can read a little already, and reading that book will help us to read a lot better. So we have a little faith already, and we can adore a little bit; doing that will help us to have more faith and to adore better.
“Well, it's still hard. It doesn't look or feel like there's anything there but bread. Why couldn't God have come out with some visible miracle to make it easier for us?”
Because He wants to strengthen our faith, and wean us from relying on our senses and our own minds.
“Then why doesn't He give us more interior highs, mystical experiences?”
Because He doesn't want us to rely on our feelings either, but on faith. If we relied on what the saints call “sensible consolations,” we'd get a spiritual sweet tooth.
“Why is that so bad? It would make us happier.”
Because we are happiest when we are most like Him, when our happiness is the most like His and the least like the happiness of animals or addicts.
“But there's such a distance! He is a simple, pure spirit. We are complex and material.”
That is why He gave us a world, and an Incarnation, and a Eucharist. But even in this complex world He trains us to be simple. Our faith grows by getting simpler, not more complex. The saints' faith was simple. Remember St. Thomas's Eucharistic hymn:
Sight, taste, and touch in Thee are each deceived; The ear alone most safely is believed. I believe all the Son of God has spoken; Than Truth's own word there is no truer token. A modern equivalent is: “God said it, I believe it, that settles it!”
“But how can sitting alone in an empty church address the urgent needs of a life and a society in chaos? It's like fiddling while Rome burns.”
Your objection is very common, and very important. And my answer is not very commonly known or believed. Your objection assumes a whole “world-view” that is erroneous. We habitually see reality inside-out and upside-down. We see reality inside-out because we see matter as containing spirit instead of spirit as containing matter. We think of the material universe as the basic containing reality, and spirit as a tiny bit of light surrounded by an enormous quantity of matter, time, and space. But the whole universe is only a little hazelnut in God's hand. That's the vision God showed Lady Julian of Norwich: “He's got the whole world in His hands.” That's the true vision. Saints are not fools; they're realists. We also habitually think of the soul as “in” the body instead of the body in the soul—as if a play were “in” its stage setting instead of the setting being “in” the play, as one of its dimensions.
We see reality upside-down because we think of earth as the foundation and Heaven as far away, “up there” somewhere, so religion becomes a kind of Tower of Babel reaching up. That's upside-down, because the Church has its foundation in Heaven, and the New Jerusalem comes “down out of Heaven as a Bride adorned for her Husband,” according to Revelation. Heaven isn't insubstantial; it's far more substantial than earth. And God is not “watching us from a distance.” Heaven came to earth in Christ.
“But Christ ascended back to Heaven. He is in Heaven now.”
That does not mean He is not here. “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.”
“Is Christ in Heaven or not?”
Christ is not relative to Heaven, Heaven is relative to Christ. So Christ is not in Heaven, Heaven is in Christ, Heaven is wherever Christ is. And Christ is still here, in the Church and especially in the Eucharist. If you want to understand the Church, you have to see her as primarily a Heavenly reality.
“But the Church is a visible, earthly institution.”
It is primarily invisible, primarily Heavenly.
“That sounds Protestant.”
It is Catholic. It is the “mystical Body of Christ.”
“But how does that mean you can help the Church and the world by sitting in a dark building doing nothing?”
You can't. But you can mightily help both by doing something: adoring Christ, who is really present there in the Eucharist.
“But what do you do when you adore?”
You let God do things. He forms our minds and hearts — if we give them to Him.
“That sounds Quietist, or Buddhist.”
Buddhists often understand the superior power of silence over speech, and of contemplation over action, better than Catholics do today. “By serving a cup of green tea, I stopped the war” — I'll bet you don't understand that saying, do you?
“No. It's silly. How can drinking tea stop war?”
By changing souls, which are the sources of war. By touching the root, not the branches.
“What does that have to do with eucharistic adoration?”
There too we touch the root — the root of everything, Christ the Pantocrator. And when we touch this root — the root of all life — with our own root, our heart, we touch our candle to His fire. We touch a power infinitely greater than nuclear power, the sun, or the Big Bang.
“What power is that?”
The Blood and Body of Christ.
“Oh.”
Your responses are getting wiser.
“But we can't just sit around adoring all day.”
Can you do it for one hour?
“There's so much else to do. . . .”
Yes there is, and that's why you can't afford not to give God five loaves and two fishes of your time so that He can multiply it. He really does, you know. Because it's His — time is His gift to us, and it's precious to Him when we give it back to Him. Try it; you'll like it. Everything will fall into place once you acknowledge the Center.
“You said earlier that we shouldn't do it for the sake of its payoffs.”
No, but they will happen anyway, if we do it because it's right.
“Suppose I don't feel a great desire for this form of prayer.”
Then pray for the desire.
“You've got an answer for everything, don't you?”
No, but He does. Unless Philippians 4:19 is a lie. Do you believe it is?
“No. . . .”
Then you believe it's true.
“Yes.”
Then go. Do it.
“I have no more excuses.”
Then I'll see you in church.
I'm sorry, sitetest, I strongly disagree. Kreeft may not be an "idiot" but he's wrong. "Generally-accepted standards" may be fine for secularists, but we are Catholics and we (liberals excuded) want to preserve our Catholic heritage, tradition and beliefs in an increasingly secular world including academia and there is nothing wrong in doing so.
Unfortunately, the Catholic faith is at risk when young people are sent to Jesuit run Boston University, SFU, Geogetown and other so called "Catholic" Schools who promote abortion by giving awards to pro abortion speakers and who have pro abortion authors as part of their faculty with their anti Catholic Church pro abortion books proudly displayed in the campus book store.
On a side note, I'm glad you have the opportunity for Eucharistic Adoration in your parish. Unfortunately, I would have to travel quite far outside my own area for Eucharistic Adoration.
Especially true for the progressive liberal Catholic pro aborts.
We're not doing brain surgery here, of which you provide ample proof.
You're really a jerk.
Are "jerk" and "shove it" the extent of your ad hominems?
Says it all, doesn't it. One word --- Christ---
This should be changing because I have seen a letter from Rome accompanied by a letter to the U. S. Bishops from Bishop Gregory that is setting new standards for reverence while in the presence of and receiving the Holy Eucharist. Someone found it and posted it on another thread.
I'm still feeling a bit combative. ;-)
"I'm sorry, sitetest, I strongly disagree."
Gee, I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm not sure you do.
"Kreeft may not be an 'idiot' but he's wrong."
As I pointed out to Smedleybutler, there is a sense where Smedley is right, and Mr. Kreeft is wrong, but that Mr. Kreeft, nonetheless, is not an "idiot". You appear, perhaps, to agree.
Mr. Kreeft describes BC as a top Catholic university as a rhetorical tool. He identifies the school as having a Catholic identity, and as being a top university. But he is implicitly critical of the school, and finds something lacking in his overwhelmingly Catholic students: a personal love for Jesus Christ.
He is saying that entities with "Catholic" identities, and individual Catholics ourselves, need to focus more on the central object of our fatih: Jesus Christ.
Read for yourself:
"Do you think I exaggerate? I teach philosophy at Boston College — one of the top Catholic universities in America. Eighty percent of my students are Catholics who have had twelve years of catechism. Yet when I ask them what they would say to God if they died tonight and were asked why they should go to Heaven, only one in 20 even mentions Jesus Christ. (Only one in 20 Evangelicals, Pentecostals, or Fundamentalists would not know that answer.) This is worse than a 'problem;' this is an inexcusable scandal, an unmitigated disaster."
He is contrasting what a top Catholic university, with the best of Catholic students, is with what it should be. He then states that Eucharistic Adoration is a perfect means to return Jesus Christ to the center of our faith and affections.
Sorry you find that message objectionable.
sitetest
Sorry to have brought the hornets to your thread.
That's not the message I object to, and I trust you're not patronizing me. Let me try to make it clearer.
Mr. Kreeft describes BC as a top Catholic university as a rhetorical tool. He identifies the school as having a Catholic identity, and as being a top university. But he is implicitly critical of the school, and finds something lacking in his overwhelmingly Catholic students: a personal love for Jesus Christ.
"Implicity" critical of the school? Sorry, I don't see it. Mr Kreeft is critical of the students and not BC. He is critical of the students' prior 12 years of "Catholic" education. He is not critical of Boston College. I am critical of the College, not the students.
He is saying that entities with "Catholic" identities, and individual Catholics ourselves, need to focus more on the central object of our fatih: Jesus Christ.
Boston College has given awards to pro abortion speakers for two years in a row. Do you think Mr. Kreeft would have the nerve to make a public statement critical of the school's policy? Being a strong pro life Catholic yourself, I am sure you would take issue with that policy, so why shouldn't Mr. Kreeft?
It's easy (and safer for ones career) to blame the students, but what kind of message are students getting when they go to schools such as BC or SFU and witness this kind of new tolerance/academic autonomy from Catholic institutions? Is it any wonder that Catholics procure abortion in the same percentage as the population at large? What kind of message is "Catholic" Boston College giving to Catholic young people?
"I trust you're not patronizing me..."
No, but I am kidding with you. I do that with folks I think I might like. If you would prefer that I refrain from that with you, I'll respect your wishes. I'll go back to teasing Michelle. ;-)
"Mr Kreeft is critical of the students and not BC. He is critical of the students' prior 12 years of 'Catholic' education. He is not critical of Boston College. I am critical of the College, not the students."
Well, I can see your interpretation, but I think mine works a bit better. He mentions that BC is a top Catholic university. He mentions that the students have had 12 years of Catholic education. He mentions that these are overwhelmingly Catholic students. And then he dumps on the whole picture. It seems a more natural reading to assume that he is building up rhetorically to make his point, and the rhetorical point includes mentioning BC as a top Catholic university.
"Boston College has given awards to pro abortion speakers for two years in a row. Do you think Mr. Kreeft would have the nerve to make a public statement critical of the school's policy? Being a strong pro life Catholic yourself, I am sure you would take issue with that policy, so why shouldn't Mr. Kreeft?"
I don't know whether or not Mr. Kreeft has made such a statement. I don't know why he might have made, or might have failed to make such a statement. It certainly wouldn't have pertained to this article, so why would I look for it here?
"It's easy (and safer for ones career) to blame the students,..."
Frankly, I don't see him as blaming the student. My interpretation is that he finds it lamentable. My interpretation is that whatever blame he lays implicitly, he lays at the feet of the "12 years of Catholic education" and at the "top Catholic university". To me, that seems to be part of the point, that this "inexcusable scandal", this "unmitigated disaster" occur at a "top Catholic university" where "Eighty percent of [his] students are Catholics who have had 12 years of catechism."
It doesn't make sense to me to separate the implication from the first rhetorical device that applies to the others in the series.
As to your final question, bringing abortion back into the picture, again, that isn't what this article is about. I don't know what Mr. Kreeft has written about abortion or about Boston College.
I sense that maybe you don't like Mr. Kreeft, or perhaps his work in general. Am I in error?
sitetest
I'm still feeling a bit combative. ;-)
Well, that explains it then. The rest of us (or most of us) listened to Mt. 13:24-43 - regarding not separating the wheat from the chafe until harvest time. ;-)
Please, keep the kidding. I love kidding. I'm a kidder myself, in case I haven't mentioned it to you. I've read somewhere that God doesn't like saints with sour dispostions so I try to keep smiling. :-)
He mentions that BC is a top Catholic university.
That's my point. I have no quarrel with anyone saying that Boston is a top university. It's that little qualilfier "Catholic" to which I object in reference to some schools. Schools that promote abortion indirectly or directly, with faculty or by awarding pro abortion speakers are not fully Catholic in my estimation. Some may wish to take issue with that statement, but I stand by it.
As to your final question, bringing abortion back into the picture, again, that isn't what this article is about.
True, but the discussion has diverted slightly into what is and what is not a good Catholic school. Despite it's merits, I don't believe Boston College is thoroughly Catholic.
I sense that maybe you don't like Mr. Kreeft, or perhaps his work in general. Am I in error?
Actually, I have no idea who he is. As I wrote to JMJ earlier, it was today's Gospel that put me in a combative mode, I was looking for anybody, you were around, so I though I'd pick a fight. You're good at checking your facts.
How's that for kidding?
CHAPTER XX.
Of Frequent Communion.
IT is said that Mithridates, King of Pontus, who invented the poison called after him, mithridate, so thoroughly impregnated his system with it, that when eventually he tried to poison himself to avoid becomning the Romans' slave, he never could succeed.
The Saviour instituted the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, really containing His Body and His Blood, in order that they who eat it might live for ever. And therefore whosoever receives it frequently and devoutly, so strengthens the health and life of his soul, that it is hardly possible for him to be poisoned by any evil desires.
We cannot be fed by that Living Flesh and hold to the affections of death; and just as our first parents could not die in Paradise, because of the Tree of Life which God had placed therein, so this Sacrament of Life makes spiritual death impossible.
The most fragile, easily spoilt fruits, such as cherries, apricots, and strawberries, can be kept all the year by being preserved in sugar or honey; so what wonder if our hearts, frail and weakly as they are, are kept from the corruption of sin when they are preserved in the sweetness (" sweeter than honey and the honeycomb ") of the Incorruptible Body and Blood of the Son of God. O my daughter, those Christians who are lost will indeed have no answer to give when the Just Judge sets before them that they have voluntarily died the spiritual death, since it was so easy for them to have preserved life and health, by eating His Body which He gave them for that very end. " Miserable men !" He will say, "wherefore would ye die, with the Bread of Life itself in your hands?"
As to daily Communion, I neither commend nor condemn it; but with respect to communicating every Sunday, I counsel and exhort every one to do so, providing the mind has no attachment to sin. So says S. Augustine, and with him I neither find fault nor unconditionally commend daily Communion, leaving that matter to the discretion of every person's own spiritual Guide; as the requisite dispositions for such frequent Communion are too delicate for one to advise it indiscriminately.
On the other hand, these very special dispositions may be found in sundry devout souls, and therefore it would not be well to discourage everybody. It is a subject which must be dealt with according to each individual mind; it were imprudent to advise such frequent Communion to all, while, on the other hand, it would be presumptuous to blame any one for it, especially if he therein follows the advice of some wise director. Saint Catherine of Sienna, when blamed for her frequent Communions, under the plea that Saint Augustine neither commended nor condemned daily Communion, replied gently, "Well, then, since Saint Augustine does not condemn it, neither, I pray you, do you condemn it, and I shall be content." But Saint Augustine earnestly exhorts all to communicate every Sunday. And as I presume, my daughter, that you have no attachment either to mortal or venial sins, you are in the condition which Saint Augustine requires; and if your spiritual Father approves, you may profitably communicate more frequently. Nevertheless, there are various hindrances which may arise, not so much from yourself, as from those among whom you live, which may lead a wise director to tell you not to communicate so often.
For instance, if you are in a position of subjection, and those whom you are bound to obey should be so ignorant or so prejudiced, as to be uneasy at your frequent Communions, all things considered, it may be well to show consideration for their weakness, and to make your Communion fortnightly; only, of course, where there is no possible way of overcoming the difficulty otherwise.
But one cannot give any general rule on such a point, each person must follow the advice of their own spiritual Guide; only this much I will say, that monthly Communions are the very fewest which any one seeking to serve God devoutly can make.
If you are discreet, neither father nor mother, husband nor wife, will ever hinder you from communicating frequently, and that because on the day of your Communion you will give good heed always to be more than usually gentle and amiable towards them, doing all you can to please them, so that they are not likely to prevent your doing a thing which in nowise inconveniences themselves, unless they were most particularly unreasonable and perverse, in which case, as I have said, your Director might advise you to yield. There is nothing in the married life to hinder frequent Communion. Most certainly the Christians of the Primitive Church communicated daily, whether married or single. Neither is any malady a necessary impediment, except, indeed, anything producing constant sickness.
Those who communicate weekly must be free from mortal sin, and also from any attachment to venial sin, and they should feel a great desire for Communion; but for daily Communion people should furthermore have conquered most of their inclinations to evil, and no one should practise it without the advice of their spiritual Guide.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.