The Eucharist at World Youth Day.
Lemme get this right. These boxes were acting as a tabernacle in public view, and for people to pray before? https://t.co/vgYHJefzWO
— Joseph Shaw (@LMSChairman) August 6, 2023
Ciboria?
…While thousands of young people were in the open fields under the scorching sun all day and night long… Jesus was kept inside a tent, on a table, with an altar cloth, with a plant, candles & loads of people coming to adore him. By morning, the ciboria’s were taken out of… pic.twitter.com/WfAA60pJm4
— Fr Sean Gough (@FrSeanDGough) August 7, 2023
I’m stumped—stumped, I tell you!—as to why so many Catholics don’t believe the Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ.
Must be the trads’ fault… pic.twitter.com/2WNtvM4dS3
— Eric Sammons (@EricRSammons) August 3, 2023
A 16-year-old Spanish World Youth Day pilgrim says she miraculously recovered her sight after receiving the Eucharist at Fátima, Portugal, during a Mass there. The girl had suffered a 95% vision loss for two and a half years. #WYD#Lisbon2023https://t.co/db0kKz7tYP
— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) August 7, 2023
Loading ...
Pingback: TVESDAY MORNING EDITION – BigPulpit.com
I guess they couldn’t find a monstrance for one large host??
If they intend keeping hosts in those sorts of containers, they ought use this tent as a sacristy, set up Adoration someplace else.
These hosts have all been (pre)consecrated properly, right?
Those two posts by Father Gough are right up there with “why is my wife upset I bought her a toaster for our anniversary” and “I even sprang for the extra large soda at McDonalds for her birthday dinner.”
OK, stupid question here . . . . I know just tossing the Body of Christ in a tupperware container is obviously wrong, but given the logistics of it all, what would be the right thing to do? Where have so many people at once received the Body of Christ AND have had the Body of Christ more reverently been stored – i.e. a GOOD example that they could have emulated? Again, I’m just a simple layperson with ZERO experience at this and am genuinely curious. . . and yes, they SHOULD have planned a LOT better, especially if there were good examples they could have followed!
As far as I can tell, we are now in post-Egypt tabernacle mode. Wasn’t the original Tabernacle in Exodus basically a tent that could be moved easily?
We are returning to this because a new Exodus and even a new Babylonian Exile are coming, or perhaps, it’s already here.
I am almost disappointed not to have seen reports here of the youth being warned against embracing ‘backwardism’ by Francis during WYD; of course that would have been quite sardonic, given the youth I have encountered (who are quite active in their Parishes, among other places) all possess this deeply-hated trait to some extent or another… The punchline is, they’re not even trads!
@sjoseph371
Perhaps the answer is to stop encouraging mega-youth events like this that resemble Woodstock more than they resemble anything approaching reverent worship of God? Perhaps the answer is to have many smaller Masses offered in many locations rather than one big, rock-star Mass for the Pope to show his superstar status? Perhaps the answer is to NOT distribute communion to everyone since the validity of the Mass being offered is not dependent on all the laity receiving the Eucharist (and encourage them to make a Spiritual Communion)? Or maybe even the answer could be an army of liturgically vested priests with legitimate holy vessels walking out amongst the people to distribute the Eucharist while everyone is kneeling and waiting to receive Our Lord?
Those aren’t hard answers to come up with and ponder. Clearly those in charge of this didn’t spend even five minutes trying to figure out how to handle the problem of ensuring the Eucharist is treated with reverence and devotion because THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT THE EUCHARIST.
We all know that the answer is NOT just dump the Eucharist in a bunch of plastic bins like old Christmas decorations (don’t even bother to put a veil over them or anything) and it’s 100% NOT just buy some cheap Ikea bowls and put saran wrap over them so the ladies wearing t-shirts can easily distribute the Eucharist to the masses.
But maybe all the priests were too busy playing soccer to worry about stuff like this. Who am I to judge?
Sjoseph371 – I cannot remember if it was JPII or Benedict, but the point was made that, at these Masses with huge numbers of faithful, care for Our Lord’s Presence can in no way, ever, take “a back seat,” or be otherwise minimized. These are saints speaking – not politicians or people-pleasers.
So, although many if not most today would be taken aback at this idea, it is nonetheless, reality: everyone present at such a Mass does not need to receive Holy Communion! Care for His Eucharistic Species is always of paramount concern.
We aren’t taught this reality any more by our “leaders”…but, regardless, His Truth doesn’t change…
sjoseph371,
I do not have a lucid detailed answer, but I was stuck by Kennedy Hall’s 3 August post at One Peter Five entitled “Sacrilegious Disaster: the Opening Mass for World Youth Day”. He notes “There was an army of priests who sat on the grass beside the platform as the Bishop and a dozen other priests stood around and did basically nothing as lay people did most of the work.” And “There were upwards of 100 or more priests present, yet in the crowd and at the gates stood dozens of lay Eucharistic ‘ministers’ with ciborium filled with consecrated hosts”. He also includes photographs of, and from, a book about the Eucharistic Congress in Chicago in 1926. I have not ready any of them yet, but just found another three books about it scanned in the Internet Archive: one including the official program, another “Published by The Public Service Office of the Chicago Tribune”, and the third “The Official Public Record Published By The Committee In Charge” (Imprimatur “Nov. 4 1927”). Two of them include the subject link “International Eucharistic Congress” and the third the subject link “Eucharistic congresses” which together lead to many more scans from 1904, 1908, 1910, 1913, 1915, 1926, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1954, and 1960. I suspect we will be able to learn a good bit from them, one way or another. (And I hope the scans will not start disappearing because I mentioned them!)
@Venerator Sti Lot
At the very least your scans will reveal appropriately dressed attendees.
In 1979 when JPII was scheduled to visit Des Moines, my parents got wind of a plan to allow non-Catholics to receive communion at the outdoor Mass. My father was just a layman with no connections but he made some calls. Long story short, it made it all the way to the Cardinal in Chicago and back. No, non-Catholics would not be permitted. Nonetheless, we didn’t attend out of concern for the potential abuse that could occur.
It’s seems to me that the spectacle of a huge crowd at an outdoor Mass was the actual focus of WYD (and other outdoor Masses) rather than the Mass its self.
Locally,since it’s summer, there are parishes that have annual Masses at parks or on the beaches of lakes. I’ve never attended and not sure of the purpose but I’m sure the casually attired attendees in their lawn chairs maintain the appropriate level of reverence due the Mass.
I was going to say pretty much what WVC said. The justification for these “million plus” masses is pretty tenuous at best: there is no truly critical reason for them. Furthermore, we have proven over and over again, by the numbers, that whenever the stage is bigger, (both metaphorical and literal meanings work), more abuses creep in. Sheer logic tells us that until we can stop the abuses, stop the unnecessary events that so strongly encourage them!
Moreover, there is absolutely no reason to knowingly have a large, large amount of consecrated hosts ready BEFORE the mass at which you will need so many: what’s wrong with consecrating them there at that mass? In principle, that is the ideal. You don’t want a plastic bin with 1,000,000 hosts on the altar? OK, then MAKE a few huge ciboria that are actually sacred vessels! What’s the problem with that? (These events take years in the planning, they don’t happen overnight.)
But really: why not hold 200 masses at 200 altars with the 200 priests in attendance, where each one brings his own chalice and ciborium, all around the city? Surely that’s much, much better than a single mass where 200 priests sit on their backsides. Mass is not supposed to be the Catholic-equivalent of a rock concert. (More likely than not, a concert with 1,000,000 people is ALSO a very bad idea, in principle.)
sjoseph371
Echoing what others have said, these huge “spectacle” masses need to end.
Also, while our Lord was sitting in a plastic box in a tent, I wonder what the accommodations for the Pope and his Prelates were.
For they are ever so humble.
Everyone who answered my questions had great answers – so thank you for the insights. One of the answers struck me as “well duh” – why have a trove of consecrated hosts BEFORE the Mass? Will not every host that’s on the altar be consecrated DURING Mass, or is that not a thing anymore? THAT would make more sense regarding the plastic bins. Then one could greatly overestimate the amount one needs and any leftovers could be reverently be distributed amongst the local parishes.
Another note was that everyone doesn’t need to receive communion, nor should they if they’re not properly disposed and free from mortal sin. Given that’s one of the things that many if not most Catholics are aware of, this would have been the BEST time to emphasize that to everyone AND given the great number of priests, offer confessions!
As far as not having these huge gatherings – well, they’re not going away anytime soon, so those in charge should actually do some, you know, preparing for these types of events so these abuses don’t keep happening – for starters maybe not have the DJ priest play a role!
However, God has a plan for everything and He doesn’t allow things like this to happen for no reason . . . one of the more heartening things I read was that at least some youth recognized that Jesus was present in that tent and acted accordingly and that some actually realized the irreverence that was shown to the Body of Christ and actually knelt and prayed prayers of reparation, so there’s hope yet with the younger generations!
Again, thanks for all of the insights.
I am rather reminded of my impressions of Stations of the Cross for World Youth Day in Cologne or Eucharistic Adoration during a March for Life pilgrimage. The former I watched on EWTN, the latter I experienced as a chaperon.
In both cases, the Church seemed to place a little too much value on spectacle, not enough value on …well…catechesis and practice.
Cologne presented Stations as a series of life-size (and “live-action”) events progressing through a large city; pilgrimage presented Adoration as an event accompanied by a rock concert. Neither approach seemed prudent to me. WYD isn’t precisely for evangelizing–it’s for building identity for already-Catholic youth–yet it should not summarily discard normal evangelistic needs.
I would be happier with WYD if they’d focus on various practices as an average parishioner would encounter them. For Stations, send the pilgrims to the numerous churches (parishes) in the area. Likewise, attend Adoration for an hour in the arena, pile into busses and go pray at an abortion mill, then come back for the rock concert.
My suspicion is they don’t do either because the logistics involved with moving literally thousands of pilgrims about a city…is a rather a nightmare. Still, …many abuses have cropped up because someone decided that “unnecessary” logistics challenges warranted doing things differently. ..They wind up incidentally undermining the basic-most premise of the event.
It’s not that plastic bins and pewter can’t store anything. (Incidentally, those bowls look to me like cereal-bowls, not Tupperware.) It IS that this means …strongly detracts from declaring Christ. We might place objects–even important objects–in a plastic bin for long-term storage. We never DISPLAY something important that way.
..Setting up the tent for Adoration with a monstrance would’ve been much better.
Honestly why should we be surprised at this? This is the result of the massive loss of understanding of the sacrifice of the Mass. When viewed as a communal meal, why wouldn’t you put Jesus in dishes and store him in catering bins?
I am a regular participant at the multitudinous annual Chartres pilgrimage that takes place over Pentecost weekend. Pilgrims walk nearly 70 miles over three days between Our Lady’s two great cathedrals, Notre Dame de Paris to Notre Dane de Chartres. It is the most wonderful experience of pure, holy, traditional Catholicism in the whole world. Countless graces and blessings have been showered upon the pilgrims over the years: I can speak personally of witnessing such amazing ‘good fruit”. The numbers of participants run into the thousands (16,000 thousand registered this year!) and the average age is no more than early/mid twenties.
Most striking of all is the reverence and devotion of these thousands upon thousands of youngsters at the daily celebrations en route of the Traditional Latin Mass. It is something so beautiful, so incredible, that no one could doubt that belief in the True Presence is unanimous here. Most significant: this is surely due in large part to the teaching and testimony of the many holy priests that accompany us along the way and who celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass each day. Before Holy Communion is distributed by priests (kneeling and on the tongue) an announcement is made over the microphone of the importance of being in a state of grace to receive our Eucharistic Lord.
The organisers of WYD could have learned what it means to give due reverence and honour to God if they would have taken a leaf out of the book at the methods of the organisation of the Chartres pilgrimage.