Belief in the Real Presence from 87% to 34%. Hypotheses on why?

[Don_Ruggero]

Most assuredly, there are rubrics for the laity. They were mandated the world’s bishops at Vatican II in order that those present outside the sanctuary would act more cohesively, as befits a liturgical assembly. The Council Fathers decreed in Sacrosanctum Concilium:

1. The revision of the liturgical books must carefully attend to the provision of rubrics also for the people’s parts.

This was in clear distinction to how the faithful were not to be present at the liturgy:

1. The Church, therefore, earnestly desires that Christ’s faithful, when present at this mystery of faith, should not be there as strangers or silent spectators

 

[BlackFriar]

Catholic Holy Communion is God Himself and therefore the greatest source of grace available to humanity

We all agree with the sentiments but I think we have to be careful not to oversimplify the economy of salvation with over simplified apersonal universals.

Its a bit like the old marriage versus Religious Life re which is more perfect debates.
Or like the benefits of taking Calcium supplements to repair a deficiency (the reason many people are short on calcium is to do with uptake blockers not deficiency in diet).

One cannot abstract away from the individual person and their circumstances when making these statements. The fact of the matter is its always horses for courses…what works for one cannot be said to necessarily do so for all or even most.

So marriage may be better for one of two person’s from similar circumstances because they burn and fail if they attempt religious life. So marriage is their way to heaven and their best uptake of grace.

It may well be so for religion, not everyone is suitable material for joining the Catholic Church and they may well have a greater grace earning potential in their own lesser Church than in converting when God is not actually wanting them to despite what Catholic friends may be saying.

 

[Crusaderbear]

My uncle always said things sound more believable when you use odd numbers and fractions!

 

[Debbie_Kono]

Kneeling, genuflecting, folded hands, bowing, praying…all these things can be done by “rote”…but I’m sure that’s not the goal. I don’t understand using “rote” as the argument NOT to do these things. I know for me personally, my private prayers are “better” when I’m kneeling. That’s not to say my prayers are always perfect or even reverent (it’s especially easy for me to wonder while praying the Rosary)…but I don’t stop trying to perfect them and physical actions can and do force me to think about what I’m doing/saying.

 

[TK421]

It isn’t about telling people that they shouldn’t make exterior signs. It’s the expectation that exterior signs are a blanket solution to the Church’s ills. Or that reverting to a 1950s liturgy is going to fix anything instead of making things much worse.

You can go to any point in time you want, during any of the many, many different liturgies practiced in public worship, and you are always going to find the same concupiscence.

"The abuses were so bad that many local Church synods were called to try and bring in some reform. One of these, the Council of Elvira, was held in Spain in 300 and its surviving records give us a pretty harrowing list of crimes going on well before the “deep blackness and the Dark Ages” set in. The catalog includes the following: pastors loan-sharking the faithful; money-grubbing bishops living the high life out of church funds; presbyters shacking up with female parishioners; deacons visiting and participating in pagan worship; a clergy winking at and routinely partaking in gambling; divorce, and adultery.

As for abuses among the laity, the council lists routine fornication before marriage, rampant divorce and remarriage, and the abortion of children conceived in adultery. If anything, the pure early Church seems to have been more pure (in its morals, at any rate) after Constantine than it was before.

In real life - as opposed to popular mythology - the third century was the age of the Ghetto Church…"

• The Apostasy That Wasn’t: Rod Bennett, 2015. pg37.

The good old days don’t exist. They are a fiction.

 

[AdamP88]

It may well be so for religion, not everyone is suitable material for joining the Catholic Church and they may well have a greater grace earning potential in their own lesser Church than in converting when God is not actually wanting them to despite what Catholic friends may be saying.

That is not what the Church teaches. It is also not what Christ said himself. And if God did indeed establish the Catholic Church, then surely he desires all to be part of it.

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’

I guess Jesus didn’t really mean what he said?

 

[AdamP88]

It’s the expectation that exterior signs are a blanket solution to the Church’s ills.

You’re the only one saying this. It’s a strawman argument. Nobody here actually thinks that restoring the old liturgy is a magical formula.

 

[AdamP88]

Nostalgia for 1959 doesn’t solve anything. Neither does nostalgia for 1975.

This is true. But people born in the 90’s and 00’s don’t have nostalgia for those times. That’s why I’m often surprised at the resistance that some of an older generation have to the movement, mainly among young people, to make the TLM more widespread. Many young priests I know wish to return to saying mass in a manner more consistent with what used to exist. They are aware that it must come with catechesis and formation. But they don’t believe it will suddenly solve all the problems of the Church. They have reached their views through a process of analysis and study, and indeed prayer. It’s amazing how some people choose to view this as such a simplistic issue and characterise them as restorationalists and other things.

 

[MonteRCMS]

Eucharistic Miracles by Joan Carroll Cruz is available from Amazon books.

 

[AdamP88]

For me, who doesn’t really get offended, I just think it’s a bad argument.

 

[Gingersnaps4]

I have never received on the tongue and wouldn’t really want to, it seems awkward to me to open my mouth and have another person set the host on my tongue. Regardless, I believe in the real presence and our priests and deacons are constantly reminding parishioners of the real presence during homilies etc. so anyone attending mass regularly at my church is going to be informed of it, whether they believe or not.

I do think that receiving standing and by laypeople may contribute to a lack of reverence for the Eucharist. I believe that kneeling to receive in the hand or on the tongue would impart more respect to the Lord, although at large parishes like mine it would probably add 30 minutes more so that could be why many places don’t do that. Also, while I’m not offended by contemporary or low masses and regularly attend them, I believe that if all masses were toward the high side it would also help with this issue.

 

[MonteRCMS]

To best receive Holy Communion on the tongue, it is necessary for the priest to be higher up than the communicant.

The way to do it is for all the communicants to be kneeling … as lined up along the altar rail … and the priest goes down the line. And there is an altar boy holding a paten under the communicant’s chin to catch a falling Host.

It is extremely difficult to give Holy Communion if the priest or Eucharistic Minister is standing and the communicant is also standing. Very awkward.

I once was giving out Holy Communion and the communicant was not only standing but he was easily a foot taller than me … could not ever SEE the top of the tongue.

 

[Gorgias]

For those who want to go back, this is a good pic for reflection. Four priests, each with their own server, celebrating Mass alone. I guess they thought 4 Masses is better than 1.

No… it’s just that concelebration wasn’t allowed at that time.

 

[Augustinian]

Nobody here actually thinks that restoring the old liturgy is a magical formula.

If “here” is a reference to the internet, I think you’re wrong. People believe all kinds of things, and have all kinds of theories.

 

[AdamP88]

“Here” is a reference to this thread. Nobody on this thread is arguing that there’s a magic forumla to create more faithful Catholics.

 

[TK421]

You’re right, I don’t think anybody (in this thread) has gone that far, except for maybe the guy who posted the two loaded pictures, but he’s SSPX and doesn’t really count. I apologize.

My experiences so far have not given me a high opinion of certain movements, and it can make me defensive.

 

[AdamP88]

Even that guy had a point, despite the fact that the issue is not as black and white as he seems to think.

 

[TK421]

I just find it highly unusual that among so many more obvious explanations for why people don’t believe in the Real Presence, of all things, the thread has steered in the direction of the liturgy. It’s such a left field hypothesis.

 

[AdamP88]

I don’t agree. Yes there are many other issues. But the way people act toward something has an effect on the way we percieve it and the attitude toward it. If we act like the thing in the tabernacle is The Lord Jesus, King of Kings, then our interior attitudes will follow. That’s just human nature.
You see concrete examples of this in society all the time. People act like abortion or terrorist attacks are part of everyday life, in reality they are both a horrific injury to the human person and humanity as a whole, but we are desensitised.

Personally, I think the greatest factor is lack of proper catechesis, but I really don’t think that the way we reverence the blessed sacrament has no bearing on this.

 

[BlackFriar]

You believe that if an evangeliser is not successful in making Catholic converts then it is the fault of the hearer who is therefore damned?

If not then it is clearly possible that due to their history and circumstances it is likely they will never be Catholic and their personal path to God and grace will likely succeed in other ways.
That doesnt deny the above generic truth…it just means that in individual cases there will always be exceptions.
We live in a world where many things interfere with the ideal.

Gravity is generic and applies to all material things. Yet we also have birds, planes and rockets.

That is not what the Church teaches. It is also not what Christ said himself.

I am willing to discuss a quote from the Catechism, which teaching there are you referring to?