Fr. Z's Blog

If only priests were as hard working to develop reverence in their parishes as they are to facilitate communion-no-matter-what and for-anyone-at-all.

There is a piece at LifeSite, in which I am heavily quoted, about a priest who came up with wacky ideas – astonishingly tacky and irreverent – to facilitate Communion.   It is hard to believe that anyone in this day and would do this.  But, this is the depth to which we have sunk in some places.

The priest put out a video, showing also a map with zones on the parish campus where people, divided into categories, had to be.   Then his suggestions – I am NOT making this up:

• Every family will be provided with a ziplock ‘Mass bag’ which contains “everything you need for Mass except Holy Communion.”

• “Every family will be issued a sacred vessel, and a husband and wife will be designated as Eucharistic ministers for your family.”

• “When you come to church, you bring your sacred vessel and your Mass bag, and then you’ll pick up the appropriate number of hosts for your family, 2, 3, 4, so on.”

• “When it’s time for the offertory, you will take your hosts, unconsecrated, from your zip lock bag and place them into your sacred vessel.”

• “An adult member of your family will hold the sacred vessel for the consecration, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Lamb of God.”

• “At communion time, you will then as adults give communion to each other and one of the adults will give communion to your children, and then you place your sacred vessel back into your Mass bag and you’ll have it ready for next week.”

Link to the 4 minute video:  HERE

There are so many problems with these proposals that it is hard to know where to start.

Here is some of the comments I sent to the writer at LifeSite. He did NOT link to me, for some reason I can’t fathom, so I will provide comments here.   In no particular order…

“Worry free environment” (he talks about that in the video). This smacks of an attitude which is wholly focused on this world, the here and now, the immanent, without regard to, nay rather, through a reduction of the supernatural and eternal to the natural and the worldly.

This is hardly to be distinguished from a Protestant communion service.

How undignified.

I don’t in the least think that this priest intends for all of this to be so infra dignitatem, so tacky. I’m convinced he is well meaning. However, it could be that he is simply so deeply tuned into a modernist frequency that he doesn’t realize how bad this looks, he doesn’t contemplate the potential sacrileges both unintended and intended.

“Sacred vessels” What does that mean? Does it mean a horrid little inexpensive plastic home Communion pyx that were used for in the past? Does it mean something made of metal? In their photo album I spotted one man with a metal pyx, peering at the Host with a bewildered expression.

Furthermore, how are the “sacred vessels” to be purified? The priest says, “Place your sacred vessel back into your Mass bag and you’ll have it ready for next week.” Without purification! Are people just going to shake out particles onto the ground, or, unaware of them, haul them around in their ziplock baggies?

And what is to become of all these “sacred vessels” afterward, whatever they are, when COVID time passes and they are no longer needed? Will people keep them? What happens to them then?

How are people to be designated as “Eucharistic ministers” exactly? A wink and a nudge? The terminology isn’t even correct. Even “Extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion” ought to be instituted formally as such and have sound training. They should be carefully vetted. How are any of these people being given “Mass bags” being vetted?

Does the local Bishop of Biloxi, know about this?

People are to take unconsecrated hosts to be consecrated … at what distance? I looked at the “zones” and their map. There is no way that they are in eyesight of the altar without the obstruction of buildings. How can one be convinced that the consecration was valid? If some of those hosts are NOT consecrated, then people are being lead by the priest to commit, unwittingly, the objective in of idolatry.

And those cases when the consecration would be valid, what’s to prevent people from taking a few extra hosts to be consecrated and then saved for later, at home? Or for that nice lady down the street, not Catholic, but really nice? Or even to be, quod Deus avertat, give or sold to satanists for ghastly rituals and desecration?

These crazy gyrations affirm the findings of the Pew Research survey which revealed plummeting belief in the Church’s teachings about the Blessed Sacrament. And those finding may apply to priests, as well.

Communion in the hand was bad enough, but consecration in the hand and self Communication, having nothing to do with the priest, having nothing to do with the altar, is sacrilege at a new nadir.

These crazy gyrations affirm the findings of the Pew Research survey which revealed plummeting belief in the Church’s teachings about the Blessed Sacrament. And those finding may apply to priests, as well.

It’s like something from another religion.