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“The way people often simply receive the

Holy Sacrament in communion as a matter

of course shows that many see communion
as a purely ceremonial gesture... We must

do all we can to protect the gift of the

Holy Eucharist from abuse.”

the Sunday Eucharistic celebration shows how little But a self-made Church cannot constitute hope. (…)
we Christians of today still know about appreciat- Today, the accusation against God is, above
ing the greatness of the gift that consists in His Real all, about characterizing His Church as entirely bad,
Presence. The Eucharist is devalued into a mere and thus dissuading us from it. The idea of a better
ceremonial gesture when it is taken for granted that Church, created by ourselves, is in fact a proposal
courtesy requires Him to be offered at family cele- of the devil, with which he wants to lead us away
brations or on occasions such as weddings and fu- from the living God, through a deceitful logic by
nerals to all those invited for family reasons. which we are too easily duped. No, even today the
The way people often simply receive the Holy Church is not just made up of bad fish and weeds.
Sacrament in communion as a matter of course The Church of God also exists today, and today it is
shows that many see communion as a purely cere- the very instrument through which God saves us.
monial gesture. Therefore, when thinking about It is very important to oppose the lies and half-
what action is required first and foremost, it is rath- truths of the devil with the whole truth: Yes, there
er obvious that we do not need another Church of is sin in the Church and evil. But even today there
our own design. Rather, what is required first and is the Holy Church, which is indestructible. Today
foremost is the renewal of the Faith in the Reality of there are many people who humbly believe, suffer
Jesus Christ given to us in the Blessed Sacrament. and love, in whom the real God, the loving God,
(…) We must do all we can to protect the gift of the shows Himself to us. Today God also has His wit-
Holy Eucharist from abuse. nesses (martyres) in the world. We just have to be
(3) And finally, there is the Mystery of the vigilant in order to see and hear them. (…)
Church. The sentence with which Romano Guard- Today’s Church is more than ever a “Church of
ini, almost 100 years ago, expressed the joyful hope the Martyrs” and thus a witness to the living God. If
that was instilled in him and many others, remains we look around and listen with an attentive heart,
unforgotten: “An event of incalculable importance we can find witnesses everywhere today, especially
has begun; the Church is awakening in souls.” among ordinary people, but also in the high ranks
He meant to say that no longer was the Church of the Church, who stand up for God with their life
experienced and perceived as merely an external and suffering. It is an inertia of the heart that leads
system entering our lives, as a kind of authority, but us to not wish to recognize them. One of the great
rather it began to be perceived as being present and essential tasks of our evangelization is, as far as
within people’s hearts — as something not merely we can, to establish habitats of Faith and, above all,
external, but internally moving us. About half a cen- to find and recognize them.
tury later, in reconsidering this process and looking I live in a house, in a small community of people
at what had been happening, I felt tempted to re- who discover such witnesses of the living God
verse the sentence: “The Church is dying in souls.” again and again in everyday life and who joyfully
Indeed, the Church today is widely regarded as point this out to me as well. To see and find the liv-
just some kind of political apparatus. One speaks ing Church is a wonderful task which strengthens
of it almost exclusively in political categories, and us and makes us joyful in our Faith time and again.
this applies even to bishops, who formulate their At the end of my reflections I would like to thank
conception of the church of tomorrow almost ex- Pope Francis for everything he does to show us,
clusively in political terms. The crisis, caused by the again and again, the light of God, which has not dis-
many cases of clerical abuse, urges us to regard the appeared, even today. Thank you, Holy Father! v
Church as something almost unacceptable, which
we must now take into our own hands and redesign. Benedict XVI

www.michaeljournal.org MICHAEL May/June/July 2019 21