For the past few years, the Archdiocese of Washington has urged Catholics to go to the sacrament of confession during Lent through a wonderful program called “The Light is On”. Archbishop Wuerl has told all parishes in the Archdiocese to have extended confession hours and asked that confession be promoted as much as possible. He has also told all parishes to offer confession every Wednesday night during Lent from 6:30-8:00pm. I can’t think of a better idea to help Catholics enter into this penitential season.

This year, however, the Archbishop has added a new wrinkle: Eucharistic adoration. During those Wednesday evening hours, parishes will also have the Blessed Sacrament exposed for quiet adoration. As Archbishop Wuerl noted, “What better place to say penance after Confession than before the Blessed Sacrament?”

Here are more details:

• The Light is On website
• An interview with Archbishop Wuerl about the program
• Archbishop Wuerl’s pastoral letter

This Lent, get to confession and make time to prayer in front of the Blessed Sacrament as well. You will not regret it!

It has become a rite of passage of sorts in our modern world: the TV confession. A public figure does something disgraceful and after a period of time in which everyone piles on in self-righteous answer, he (usually it is a “he”) goes on television, usually in interview-format, and makes a “confession” and asks the public for forgiveness. As long as we believe him to be sincere, this has an amazing effect on the public’s perception of him, and he goes from reviled to beloved, or at least forgiven, in a few short hours. After all, we Americans are a pretty forgiving people.

The latest examples of this phenomenon are Mark McGwire and Harry Reid. McGwire has been hounded by steroid rumors for years and he finally admitted to their use this week. Reid, it was recently discovered, made what many consider racially insensitive remarks about President Obama over a year ago, for which he has now apologized. Big Mac and the Senate Majority Leader follow in a long line of public TV confessions that have occurred over the past decades.

These confessions often take a standard form:

1) Admit to wrongdoing, often without being too specific. (“I made inartful statements”)

2) Note that the alleged wrongdoing didn’t really change anything (“I took steroids, but it didn’t impact my performance in any way”).

3) Be sure to cite mitigating factors (“I played during the Steroid Era”).

4) Deflect the emphasis from your apology to the offense others have taken (it’s not “I’m sorry for my actions”, but “I’m sorry for any who are offended by my actions”)

5) Hope desperately that the public will forgive you.

As Catholics, we need to be careful that we don’t take these TV confessions as our model when we go to sacramental confession. Instead, our whole outlook must be precisely the opposite:

1) We are brutally specific about our sins.

2) We admit that our sinfulness has dire consequences, even if we can’t see them.

3) We do not excuse or mitigate our sins, but instead take full responsibility for them.

4) We do not talk about others, but only focus on our own sinfulness.

5) We have confidence in the mercy of God and God alone to forgive our sins.

It is a good thing that people still feel the need to ask for forgiveness when they do something wrong; we can take that as a reminder of our own need to ask for forgiveness. However, we must not model our own confessions after TV confessions, but instead model them on the advice of saints and doctors throughout the ages.

St. John Vianney, pray for us!

At least a few times a year I attend an Eastern Catholic liturgy, and many times I will try to encourage friends to attend with me to that they can experience this beautiful liturgy of the Church. The first time someone attends I usually try to prepare them by explaining some of the aspects of the Eastern Liturgy that differ from the Western Mass. I usually am sure to mention the following:

1. Everything is sung.
2. There is no kneeling, and you stand for almost the entire liturgy.
3. There is a lot, I mean a lot, of incense used.
4. There are many, many icons.
5. The priest faces the same direction as the people during the Eucharistic prayers.
6. Communion is received on the tongue.
7. The bread used for communion is leavened, not unleavened.
8. Baptized infants can receive communion.

It is that last one that usually gives people pause. After all, the other practices are clearly outward signs and are not fundamental to our faith. But infants receiving communion? Don’t you have to reach the “age of reason” to be able to received our Lord in the Eucharist? Isn’t this somehow disrespectful of this great Sacrament?

The reality is that infant communion (also called “paedocommunion”) has always been the practice of the Church in the East, and was also the practice of the Church in the West until the 1200’s.  Fellow blogger Orthocath gives a useful overview of the practice in this post, quoting Fr. Robert Taft, S.J. (one of the foremost scholars on Eastern Christianity in the world today):

“The practice [of communing infants] began to be called into question in the 12th century not because of any argument about the need to have attained the “age of reason” (aetus discretionis) to communicate. Rather, the fear of profanation of the Host if the child could not swallow it led to giving the Precious Blood only. And then the forbidding of the chalice to the laity in the West led automatically to the disappearance of infant Communion, too. This was not the result of any pastoral or theological reasoning. When the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) ordered yearly confession and Communion for those who have reached the “age of reason” (annos discretionis), it was not affirming this age as a requirement for reception of the Eucharist.

“Nevertheless, the notion eventually took hold that Communion could not be received until the age of reason, even though infant Communion in the Latin rite continued in some parts of the West until the 16th century. Though the Fathers of Trent (Session XXI,4) denied the necessity of infant Communion, they refused to agree with those who said it was useless and inefficacious — realizing undoubtedly that the exact same arguments used against infant Communion could also be used against infant baptism, because for over ten centuries in the West, the same theology was used to justify both! For the Byzantine rite, on December 23, 1534, Paul III explicitly confirmed the Italo-Albanian custom of administering Communion to infants….So the plain facts of history show that for 1200 years the universal practice of the entire Church of East and West was to communicate infants. Hence, to advance doctrinal arguments against infant Communion is to assert that the sacramental teaching and practice of the Roman Church was in error for 1200 years. Infant Communion was not only permitted in the Roman Church, at one time the supreme magisterium taught that it was necessary for salvation. In the Latin Church the practice was not suppressed by any doctrinal or pastoral decision, but simply died out. Only later, in the 13th century, was the ‘age of reason’ theory advanced to support the innovation of baptizing infants without also giving them Communion. So the “age of reason” requirement for Communion is a medieval Western pastoral innovation, not a doctrinal argument. And the true ancient tradition of the whole Catholic Church is to give Communion to infants. Present Latin usage is a medieval innovation.” (Emphasis added) (Text from here.)

I admit that I am supportive of the idea of returning the practice of infant communion to the Western Church, although I do think there can be solid pastoral reasons for refraining until the age of reason is reached. The grace that is received from the sacrament – grace that is not due to our ability to understand it (for who can really understand it?) and therefore unrelated to our use of reason – is needed from the earliest ages. I personally would love it if my own 6-month-old daughter was allowed to participate at the Lord’s Table with the rest of the baptized.

I hope every one of my American readers have a restful and happy Thanksgiving tomorrow. It is a wonderful idea to take a day to remember all that we have to be thankful for (as well as stuff ourselves with turkey, argue with relatives, watch football games and prepare for crazy shopping the next day just like the original pilgrims did).

But let us remember that as Catholics we can celebrate Thanksgiving every day. After all, the word Eucharist is from the Greek word for “thanksgiving”, so every time we attend Mass we are celebrating thanksgiving. In the Mass we are thanking God for the incredible sacrifice of His Son for our salvation. What is a greater gift than that?

Vatican II taught that the Eucharist is the “source and summit” of the Christian life. Among other things, this means that giving thanks should be an integral part of our spiritual lives. Do we thank God every day for the wonderful gifts He has given us?

What a beautiful picture (click to enlarge):

Eucharistic Procession during the National Catholic Youth Conference

See full story here.

I recently read an interesting article on the rise of “online churches”. Many Evangelicals are building “churches” on the Internet, allowing people to come together for services very similar to Protestant church services. This has been a growing trend, and some Evangelicals are even replacing their participation in physical churches with online “churches”.

The article also mentions that Catholics and Orthodox are creating many online spaces for believers to “gather” together. However, neither of these two Churches will ever have an “online church”. Why? Because, simply put, “the Eucharist makes the Church”. With no Eucharist, you have no Church (and the reverse is true as well: without a Church you have no Eucharist). And since the Eucharist is, and always will be, a physical phenomenon, it is impossible to have a true “church” online.

The Church is not simply a gathering of like-minded believers, like the Elks club or the Rotary club. It is the Body of Christ and it is mystically united in the Eucharist, not simply in a common belief (in fact, our common belief is a fruit of the Eucharist). This great Sacrament is the sacrament of unity and it binds together diverse people into one physical body. As St. Paul wrote in today’s first reading, “We, though many, are one Body in Christ, and individually parts of one another.” (Romans 12:5). This unity is humanly impossible, but it is possible in the divine economy.

Catholics should have a presence in the online world and through that presence we can and should bring people closer to Christ. However, we are not a “church” online; our churches can only be found where there is the Eucharist.

Here is a tradition I didn’t know: when you have your 12th child, you have a bishop baptize him or her. But that is exactly what happened here in Maryland recently, as Kolbe Peter Fatzinger, the 12th child of Rob and Cecilia Fatzinger, was baptized by Bishop Martin Holley (the Auxiliary Bishop of Washington DC who is himself the 8th of 14 children) a few Saturdays ago.

Earlier the [Bishop Holley] told participants through the beautiful sacrament of marriage, Kolbe’s parents became co-creators with God – and the new baby is a “product of that love,” Bishop Holley added.

“Out of the sacrament of marriage is born all the other sacraments,” Bishop Holley later said. “The graces from (his parents’) marriage continues to be perpetuated in the life of this young boy – who will eventually make a decision of his own life,” whether that choice be marriage, a vocation to the religious life or a faithful lay person.

As the eighth of 14 children, Bishop Holley seemed right at home in front of the Fatzinger family. A large family teaches you Gospel truths, Bishop Holley noted. Children learn about God’s love through their parents – their first teachers. Later, children are taught how to love their neighbors by learning to love their siblings. “We often refer to the family as the ‘domestic church,’” Bishop Holley told the Catholic Standard.

He pointed out the younger children in the family who were gathered around their older siblings and parents watching them intently. “All eyes are looking at their parents,” Bishop Holley said. “The graces that come from marriages, are important for society, and so important for the continuation of the Church,” Bishop Holley said. “Marriage gives life to all the other sacraments.”

Or, as Mother Teresa once said, “big family, holy family.” And the Fatzingers seem like quite a family. They have only been married 20 years, yet have 12 children and already one of them is in the Seminary!

May God continue to shower His blessings on the Fatzingers!

And now, a much more useful video:

H/t: Aimee at Historical Christian

I think most married people will tell you that marriage involves a lot of hard work. In many ways it goes against our selfish natures – we must put the good of another always before our own good. Marriage is Gospel living: you must die to self every day to make it work successfully. Here is a great example of a couple who have lived that Gospel life to the full:

Couple say faith, commitment sustain 70-year marriage

It is a story about Marcellus and Marcella Ruder, who were married in October 1939. They have seen good times and bad during their marriage:

From the start of their marriage in 1939, the Ruders can tell you story after story about difficult times — and good times as well.

Because of the economic times, the couple began their marriage living with Marcellus’ parents. There also was another married sibling living at home, as well as seven younger Ruder children.

Marcella’s mother died when she was 11, and her father depended on her and her sister to care for the younger ones. After Marcella married, she went to town two days a week to help care for her siblings and her father’s household.

Marcellus and Marcella later moved to Hays and Plainville, then to Wyoming, Texas and back to Hays — wherever Marcellus’ job with an oil company took him.

“We lived in Wyoming for nine months, and that was one hellacious winter,” Marcellus said. “I asked for a transfer, and that’s when we moved to Texas.”

Through all the moves and the raising of their children, the Ruders continued to give of themselves. If it was a new school that needed to be built, Marcellus came home from work, skipped supper and helped to build the school until late into the night. If he could help to do anything for the church or its school, he did. In addition, each summer he took vacation to return home to help with the harvest on the family farm.

What a model for us all. Let’s pray that we, like the Ruders, might all have marriages that stand the test of time.

Fr. Richard McBrien is not a fan of eucharistic adoration. My own thoughts on the matter, which I’m sure show that I am not literate or well-educated:

Saying that Grassroots Films makes great Catholic videos is like saying Tiger Woods is good at golf. Here is another awesome one:

I am often struck by how easily we American Catholics complain about our lot. If our priest doesn’t preach a good homily or if Confession isn’t held at a convenient time or Mass goes longer than an hour, we immediately lament at our terrible lot in life. Yet in other parts of the world, Christians must risk their life just to be able to have access to the sacraments.

In Egypt, a Coptic priest is risking his life in order to make the sacraments available to his small flock:

Two years ago [Rev. Estefanos Shehata] converted part of his family house into a space where these services could be performed and went to obtain a permit for its use. Authorities kept refusing to give a direct answer and finally told him to talk to the village’s Muslims because they didn’t want to be responsible for any problems.

Shehata then talked to the village’s Muslims, who he said have a good relationship with the Copts in the area, about the permit.

The Muslim in his village held a meeting with the elders of neighboring villages, and, to his surprise, they were “extremely angry” with his proposal and issued a Fatwa (religious edict) calling for his death.

“They told the Copts in the village that it takes just one bullet to get rid of me since there is no ‘blood money’ for killing a Christian,” Shehata wrote in the letter.

“I have been banned from my village for over a month now. I cannot even go [see] my mother.”

Pray for Rev. Shehata and all Christians around the world who are facing serious persecution for their faith.

One of the bedrock doctrines of the Christian Faith is that God became man in the Incarnation. Not just “man” in the generic sense, but a specific man born as a Jew in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago. He had a modest home, annoying relatives, and all the things that make up a “real life.” As Scripture says, he is like us in all things “except sin.”

The fact of the Incarnation impacts every part of our life as Christians. One of the primary things it tells us is that we are not to disdain the physical world, and in fact that God has effected our redemption through it. In other words, the physical world becomes our means to salvation. We can see this most clearly in the sacraments, when God takes humble physical objects like bread or water or oil and transforms them into something so much more and then uses them to save us. Every sacrament must also have a real human being as its minister – some sacraments require a priest, but others can be celebrated by anyone (for example, a baptism). But all sacraments require a communion of at least two people.

The importance of this physical connection can be seen in the Church’s refusal to allow the sacrament of confession to be celebrated over the phone or over the internet – the penitent and the priest must be physically present to one another for the sacrament to be valid.

I thought of all this when I saw this headline:

Fla. Megachurch Brings Worship to the iPhone

The article explains that this church, which prides itself on its “distributed” form of worship, now streams its worship service via the iPhone so that people can join them wherever they are. The pastor is quoted as saying, “It’s not a place you leave your community to go, it’s the gathering of community for worship, service and equipping.” So this pastor believes that simply watching a service from your phone is participating in that community’s “worship.”

Yet how does a large church gather its members together? The problem of gathering all members of a Church together for Sunday worship has actually been a problem since the first century – and is one that was solved in the first century as well. Each city was appointed a bishop to be the head of that local church. It was the bishop to whom all local decisions were referred. For example, writing in the early 2nd century, St. Ignatius of Antioch declares:

See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as ye would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is[administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude[of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid.
Letter to the Smyraeans

But the authority of the local bishop did not separate the local church from the universal Church; in fact, it was through the bishop that the local church was united to the rest of the universal (or “catholic”) Church. The early Church was “distributed” by the fact that each local church was in communion – through the Eucharist – with all the other local churches throughout the Roman Empire (and beyond).

If you think about it, today the Pope is the pastor of a “megaChurch” of over 1,000,000 members. While it is true that he has made his sermons and other teachings available via various technologies (including the iPhone), he understands that a true worship experience is not simply listening to him via a TV or computer or phone, but instead requires a real gathering of people in one location to celebrate the Eucharist under the guidance of a local priest who is appointed by the local bishop. This is the way the incarnational, sacramental Church worships.

Last week I blogged about the episcopal ordination of Augustine Di Noia, O.P. and his appointment as the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, using it as an opportunity to write about the proper “direction” of worship – towards Almighty God.

Well, listening to Archbishop Di Noia’s remarks at his ordination was music to my ears:

A brouhaha has erupted in Canada over the Prime Minister, who is an Evangelical Christian, receiving a consecrated host at a Catholic Mass, then appearing to walk away without consuming it (see the video here). Later, the Prime Minister’s office stated that he did consume it after returning to his seat, but for a Catholic, the real scandal is the fact that the presiding bishop:

1. gave communion to a known non-Catholic.
2. didn’t confirm that the host was consumed immediately after reception.

Regarding the second issue, I am reminded of an incident that occurred in my parish just a week ago. A young boy, who appeared to be mentally disabled, went up for communion. Our associate pastor first looked to the mom to confirm that he could receive communion, and when she nodded her assent, he gave the boy communion. However, the boy started to walk away without consuming the host. Our associate pastor stopped distributing communion and (gently) told the boy to consume the host immediately. He did not resume the distribution of communion until he was sure that the youngster did in fact consume the host. This is what a minister of the Blessed Sacrament is supposed to do: ensure that it is treated with the great respect that is should have.

Regarding the first issue (giving communion to a non-Catholic), this of course brings up the whole issue of “closed communion” vs. “open communion.” In the Catholic Church (as in the Orthodox Churches) we practice closed communion, meaning only a member of our church in good standing should receive communion. This causes no end of confusion and problems in America (and apparently Canada as well) as just about every other Christian group practices some form of open communion.

But what it reflects is radically different understandings of what communion is. In the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, communion – the Eucharist – is the central act of worship and the means by which we are united in one Body, the Church. As Henri de Lubac said, “The Eucharist makes the Church.” It is the central mystery of our faith. This is not merely a symbolic reenactment of the Last Supper, but a participation in the Paschal mysteries.

Partaking of the Eucharist intimately unites a person to Christ, as well as to everyone else who partakes worthily of the sacrament. In many ways, it is analogous to marital relations – it both represents an existing union as well as strengthens that union. So to partake of that union when one has not been initiated into the relationship – by the sacramental wedding ceremony for marital relations and reception into the Church for the Eucharist – is to betray at a very fundamental level that intimate union.

Of course, the Canadian Prime Minister most likely didn’t realize that he was doing something that would offend Catholic sensibilities. But that is why the presiding priest (or, as in this case, bishop) should be vigilant, especially in cases in which it is know that many non-Catholics are in attendance. A priest casually handing out communion to anyone and everyone is like a father who allows boys to come and go into his daughter’s room without supervision.