Letter from a distraught Catholic

Here is a letter from a Catholic wife and mother upset at being refused communion on the tongue during the supposed CV-19 crisis

"No, you can’t order the faithful to receive Communion in the hand."

Reading this got me all fired up again!  I had no idea that even the bishop can't take this right away.  Thank you so much for sending this! I will do as much as I can to fight this and get others to.  I expect the CDW [congregation for divine worship]will be getting a ton of complaints, mine will be one of them, and they will hopefully address this in the future. THEY WILL NOT BE GETTING TO THAT FILE SOON WITH ROME UNDER LOCKDOWN.

I can't explain to you the suffering of these past few days for so many different reasons, but all of it boils down to the underlying disobedience, lack of devotion, and cowardice of our shepherds and fathers who have literally taken Him away from us.  They hold Him in their hand and with a false power and authority absolutely refuse to give Him to us since we will not receive Him the hand. It is a humiliating position to be in because I am very hungry for Him, but I cannot do as they say, so I am forced, as is Jesus Christ, to be separated from the One I love by their demanding and at times arrogant and triumphant behavior.

REMEMBER THAT THERE IS AN INDULT = PERMISSION GIVEN TO RECEIVE IN THE HAND. IT IS NOT WRONG FOR THE PARTICULAR CATHOLIC TO DO, THEY HAVE PERMISSION GIVEN BY THE CHURCH. EVEN THOUGH US TRADITIONALLY MINDED PEOPLE SEVERELY CRITICIZE THE GENERAL PRINCIPLE WE HAVE TO RECOGNIZE THAT THE FAITHFUL WHO RECEIVE IN THE HAND SUBJECTIVELY DO NOTHING WRONG .

In the mind of the priest he may not understand your position because you have permission to received communion in the hand so he thinks why not use that permission especially in times of supposed crisis. In such a case it would be an act of charity to receive in the hand for the health of others. On the other hand he may actually be taking advantage of a supposed crisis to impose his defective Eucharistic theology. I don’t know his mind.

The parish priest that I asked to receive on the tongue has, for all the time we have lived here, had a great disapproval of those who receive on the tongue.  He gave me a good lesson once when seeing that the Host had fallen to the ground because he had haphazardly put it on my tongue, he simply moved away from the Host and had the people continue on the line around me, leaving me there to pick up the precious Body of Christ from the floor.  Although I waited for him to do it for a few moments, he refused and so I was forced to do it, reading loud and clear from him his message that my hands were the same as his and that since I had caused this accident by receiving on the tongue instead of the more safer way of the hand, I should take care of it.  So, although I knew very well his position when I asked him, I came before him anyway for the sake of my hunger for righteousness in his person and for the sake of speaking the truth about Christ's Divinity in the Eucharist.  It is a very humbling position because he greeted my request with almost an enthusiastic defiance, telling me I had no right to this over and over again, even though I vehemently protested and pointed to the bishops' guidelines.  I even appealed to his kindness telling him how much it meant to me, but it was as if I was arguing with a heart of stone.  The once kind, personable, always approachable priest became arrogant, smug, completely uncompassionate and accusatory.  Although this is simply a personal experience, it illustrates before my eyes the wicked spirit that permeates the hearts and minds of so many of our good priests.  They are good up to a point.  All of a sudden when it comes to giving Christ the proper reverence and adoration He deserves, it makes them livid and disdainful for their very own children.  It all of a sudden tears away the veneer and gives a very clear, irrefutable and insightful view of their souls, unfortunately.  "Something is rotten in Denmark."  

I can't get out of my head the image of an old woman refused Communion because she would not put her hand out.  I am amazed that, except for this old woman and myself, all the others who usually genuflect and receive on the tongue, simply went from receiving Him on their tongues one day to receiving Him in the hand the next. It's absolutely astonishing to me and I grieve to see this acquiescing so easily to the abuse of authority of our priests.

I can't believe how fast all this happened! I feel as if I'm in a Communist country over night, but, incomprehensibly, it is our parish priests who are enforcing these terrible rules upon their own children and Jesus Christ, preventing the greatest uniting of hearts in the whole world, that of the soul and Christ.  He is there longing for me, I am there longing for Him.  Who is separating us?  His priest!  How do these things happen from one day to the next, except that the souls of his priests have grown cold and no longer hear His Voice of Love.  It is for this reason that my grief is terrible. 

I grieve for the souls of these priests and bishops all over who are enforcing these rules against Christ and his faithful and I grieve for all the faithful who have a true love and reverence for Him and for this reason must suffer the pain of separation from Him within their own churches. Although I have been able to find a parish that so far allows us to still receive on the tongue, I still feel the pain of all the faithful who are not able to find a parish.

When I hear of Masses being canceled and churches closing for weeks all over Europe and now the US, I feel as abandoned and bewildered as Mary Magdalene in the garden when she couldn't find the Lord.  Why have you taken Him away from us? The pain is all the greater because it is His own apostles who have done this.  I simply cannot convey the absolute shock, betrayal and intense pain my soul is inundated with, but I feel sure you must be feeling it, too.  It is one thing to know that our bishops and priests have grown cold through materialistic lifestyles and poor theology, but it is another thing to find them stepping into the relationship between the soul and Christ and saying, "No! You may not have each other!  I forbid it!"  It seems to me sometimes that I am carrying the interior pain and shock of the Church in this complete abandonment of Her greatest Treasure, Her living Spouse, by Her Shepherds and the absolute and sudden refusal to feed the flock entrusted to their care with the Heavenly Manna they so crave and need for spiritual sustenance.

Oh Father, if I thought my pain was intense when my daughters were taken from my spiritual arms, the pain of that is simply a drop compared to the ocean of grief that is continually welling up within me from the betrayal of so many of our shepherds. To see how quickly and unapologetically they capitulate to the suggestions of godless(harsh )men who have no concept of the Eucharistic Presence of Jesus Christ and simply, almost with a shrug as if they were saying, "We all must listen to these educated men'', ignore the living Voice of Christ, Who should be animating them from within to know that His Heart desires to bring His people the healing, faith and comfort they are so in need of during this crisis.  If they really were the living representatives of Christ as they proclaim themselves to be, their heart would be moved to give their people for as long as they could the spiritual sustenance they know they have the power to give them.  This is what gets me.  They have power over Christ Himself there in the Host Who desires so greatly to give His living strength to us through the reception of His Body and they have power of over us, who are hungry for Christ, and they are abusing this power by refusing Communion on the tongue, canceling Masses and closing churches, literally surrendering to godless men their power to protect us from these godless men and their agenda.  It has really been a huge shock to my Catholic soul.  Although I knew about the insipid theology that has been forming them these past 50 odd years, it is quite another thing to see the empty Christian souls of our shepherds coming out in full view on such a grand and open world stage such as this, each one capitulating as fast as another falls down.  

So far we are blessed with the Bishop . He has held off from canceling all Masses, even though the governor of the state has just issued a statement that all "mass gatherings" should be canceled for the next 30 days. We'll see what happens. I was working on getting the signatures for a petition to the Bishop, but I have to say that has also added to my sorrow. Out of more than 70 Catholic women (50 of whom belong to our St Julian Eymard Eucharistic Prayer Group), only 3 said they would sign.  I received several emails saying that it was best to go along with this, even though it was upsetting, because it is possible to receive in the hand with just as much love and reverence, it's better to be obedient, etc.. I am completely bewildered and sorrowful about this because these are women who pray before the Eucharist every day and make devotion to the Eucharist their primary apostate. They all, except for a few, have no idea what's at stake in this whole thing, seeing it simply as a personal sacrifice to be accepted. I will be sending out an email explaining what is going on behind all of this and encouraging them not to accept these things without a fight because so much is at stake.  Not finding support from the group I was certain I would find it from has only shown my heart how great the spiritual damage is that has been done through receiving in the hand.  Many of them are Extraordinary Eucharistic Ministers and therefore have no concept of the great fear of God and reverence that Cardinal Sarah mentions in his Preface.  Thank God for his Preface!!  It is absolutely providential and such a boost to the Faith we know, but don't see anywhere, even among the finest of our Norvus Ordo Catholics.  I sent out an email using his quotes to the group because of the confusion certain women were causing by the quotes they were using to justify communion in the hand.  I went from defending my position to the parish priest and the bishop to defending it to these beautiful Catholic women.  This took up the little bit of time I had, so I haven't written out the letter to the Bishop yet, though I fully intend to do so after this crisis has passed because right now it looks like it will be a mute point at the rate Masses are being canceled throughout the US, plus it's too much of a finer point for him to have to deal with when he has such pressing and continually changing decisions to make. 

I found out at Mass yesterday that the Bishop would be on the Catholic FM radio later in the day, so I called in to see if they would let me ask him over the air.  Sure enough they did.  I was the only question they took!  He was very concerned and compassionate about it, saying that where ever this was happening, we should talk to our priest and ask him to provide a way of giving Communion on the tongue.  ONE WAY THAT IS POSSIBLE IS THAT YOU GO TO THE END OF THE LINE SO THAT IF THE PRIEST’S SLOPPY TECHNIQUE CAUSES HIM TO CONTACT YOUR SALIVA IT DOES NOT SPREAD TO THE NEXT PERSON. I wasn't able to ask what to do when he doesn't because the call ended, but I found out that he has a podcast every week, so I will call him this week and talk more about it with him on that.  

It was such a boost of sanity going to Fr. Pio’s (not real name) Mass this morning, as you can imagine!!  He was in rare form and acted in every way as a true representative of Christ, going so far as to tell us that if Masses were banned, he would just happen to be doing his private masses at the exact same time as the Masses used to be, and of course anyone was invited to come to his private mass.  Oh, it was good to hear him rail out against all the blindness going on in the Church!  I did miss you there of course!  I haven't been there since you left.  I think of you most at the statue of Our Lady, seeing you put hand there so many times.  What would you put there?  I was startled and delighted the first time I saw you do that because I had just put a kiss there with my hand before Mass in the exact same spot.

Sorry about the length of this email!  Thank you for letting me talk to you.  There is no one who understands around here, not even my dear husband, though he does to some degree, except for my children and Fr. Pio.  I guess that's a good number!  Thank God those three children understand very, very well.

In His Heart,

Catalina