Page 44 - HQ May June July 2020

Profanities have to stop,

the Eucharist isn’t negotiable

The following excerpts are taken from an interview
with Cardinal Robert Sarah from the Daily Compass, the
Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the
Discipline of the Sacraments intervenes on the subject
of “take away” Communion and on the “negotiations”
underway to guarantee its taken with the correct precau-
tions: no compromise:
“It’s a matter of faith and if we were really aware of
what we are celebrating in the Mass and what the Eucharist
is, certain ways of distributing Communion wouldn’t even Cardinal Robert Sarah
come to mind.” Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation And the second issue?
for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments Nobody can prevent a priest from confessing and
responds publicly to the “concerns” of the faithful, who have giving communion, nobody has the right to stop him.
not only been deprived of Holy Mass, but who are now dis- The sacrament must be respected. So even if it is not
mayed by the bizarre proposals being put forward, with a possible to attend Masses, the faithful can ask to be
view to a limited return to public Masses, that guarantee confessed and to receive Communion.
hygienic safety for the distribution of communion. Speaking of Masses, what do you think about
Recently, and in Italy, there has been talk about the prolonging of celebrations on streaming or on
a solution which has already been adopted in Germany TV?
by some, whereby the Body of Christ is "packaged" : "To We cannot get used to this, God became incarnate,
allow Italian Catholics to return to it, whilst avoiding con- He is flesh and blood, He is not a virtual reality. It is also
tamination — states the newspaper La Stampa - con- highly misleading for priests. In Mass the priest has to
sideration is being given to a "do it yourself" communion look at God, instead he is getting used to looking at the
with "take away" hosts previously consecrated by the camera, as if it were a show. We cannot go on like this.
priest, which would be closed individually in plastic bags Let's go back to Communion. In a few weeks,
placed on shelves in the church". «No, no, no - Cardinal there is still hope that public Masses will be re-
Sarah replies shocked on the phone - it's absolutely not stored. And apart from the more sacrilegious so-
possible, God deserves respect, you can't put Him in a lutions, there is also discussion as to whether it
bag. I don't know who thought of this absurdity, even if is more appropriate to receive Communion in the
it is true that the deprivation of the Eucharist is certain- mouth or in the hand, and in the latter case how to
ly a suffering, the matter of how to communicate is not receive it in the hand. What should be done?
open to negotiation. We communicate in a dignified way,
worthy of God who comes to us. The Eucharist must be There is already a rule in the Church and this must
treated with faith, we cannot treat it as a trivial object, we be respected: the faithful are free to receive Commu-
are not at the supermarket. This is total madness." nion in the mouth or hand.
Something like this has already taken place in In recent years, there has been concern that a
Germany ... Unfortunately, many things are done in Ger- clear attack on the Eucharist is taking place: first
many that are not Catholic, but that doesn't mean you there was the question of the divorced and remar-
have to imitate them. Recently I heard a bishop say that ried, under the banner of "communion for all"; then
in the future there will be no more Eucharistic assemblies, intercommunion with Protestants; then the propos-
als on making the Eucharist available in the Amazon
only the liturgy of the Word. But this is Protestantism. and in the regions with a shortage of clergy, now the
As usual, "compassionate" reasons prevail: the Masses at the time of the coronavirus ...
faithful need Communion, which they have been de- It should not surprise us. The devil strongly attacks
prived of for some time, but since the risk of conta- the Eucharist because it is the heart of the life of the
gion is still high, a compromise must be found ... Church. But I believe, as I have already written in my
There are two issues that must be absolutely clari- books, that the heart of the problem is the crisis of faith
fied. First of all, the Eucharist is not a right or a duty: it is a in the priesthood. If priests are aware of what the Mass
gift that we receive freely from God and that we must wel- is and what the Eucharist is, certain ways of celebrat-
come with veneration and love. The Lord is a person, no ing or certain hypotheses about Communion would not
one would welcome the person he loves in a bag or oth- even come to mind. Jesus cannot be treated like this. V
erwise in an unworthy way. The response to the privation
of the Eucharist cannot be desecration. This really is a https://newdailycompass.com/en/sarah-profanities-have-to-stop-
matter of faith, if we believe we cannot treat it unworthily. the-eucharist-isnt-negotiable

www.michaeljournal.org MICHAEL May/June/July 2020 45