I am working on the way of life for the Dedicated Widows of the Holy Eucharist I am in the process of co-founding. We have to write a section on the Eucharist.
My take, as a daily communicant, is that Jesus, the Bridegroom, is leaping down from heaven, to come right inside me. And, perhaps, even more dramatically – if the seminarians don’t persevere, we will starve.
Already some parishes in the US have a priest once a month and Communion Services the rest of the month. Some parishes no longer have daily Mass. Fr. Tony Anderson, SOLT, is pastor of 90,000 Mexicans.
Priests are an endangered species. Pray for vocations. Within the next month you will be hearing from me about a book I edited of Late Vocation stories. It will be called: “Last Call: 14 Men who Dared Answer.” These stories range from former night club managers to international bankers, to a Peruvian considered late vocation at 21 because in his time they took in boys of 7!
The hound of heaven isn’t dead yet!
Dr. Ronda Chervin has many free e-books and audios on her website rondachervin.com. If you go to her website and read or listen and then want to correspond with her she will be available. Her schedule does not permit, however, responding to comments on the Blog, though she enjoys reading them. Dr. Ronda’s newest project is spiritualityrunningtogod.com.
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1 Robert Fox says...
Dear Ronda:
A young boy's first encounter with the Eucharist is in the parish setting. The so called 'vocation crisis' is not an accident. It is a crisis in Catholic masculine identity. That crisis is rooted in the banalization of the Mass itself (and consequently the theology of sin, propitiation and redemption). This banalization touches everything in the family that is Catholic.
As a father of three, I can tell you there is a huge difference between the attention span of a little boy at the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite as compared to the same littel boy's focus at the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.
A boy can not really relate to the Mass as a 'meal' so much but rather CAN relate to it as 'a sacrifice'. I'm telling you this from first hand experience with my own son and with boys who I have watched weekly at a Novus Ordo versus watching the same little boys at a Tridentine Mass over and over. The feminizing of the Mass for the past 45 years is the reason we have lost so many young boys long before they become of age to be reasonably thinking of a life of sacerdotal service. And this, my friend, is why the Holy Father liberated the Tridentine Rite back in July of 2007 (though it goes mostly ignored by most bishops, seminary rectors and therefore most parish priests).
At the same time, the feminizing of the Mass has attracted a different type of man whose sexual identity may have stopped at some early stage in his development.
Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi. As we Worship, So we Believe, So we Live.
The deconstruction was done at the work and urging of those who agitated for deconstruction. I judge not their motives… but I can sure as heck judge the outcome. The 'Reform of the reform' won't happen until laity agitate and build for beauty and truth, until teachers teach the Mass of ages, until musucians move away from liturgical cocktail music and embrace that which lifts man to Heaven. I believe that is what littel movements like Watershed and others like it are doing. If we take care of supplying the little bricks, Our Mother will make sure the God who was a Carpenter rebuilds the building for us. Only then will the priesthood be restored.
The "Marian Chivalry" that is the foundation of a healthy priesthood is is not dead… it has just been intentionally hidden from us by those who dislike a "God Man" and a Queen Mother who are both also a King and Queen of the social order. And for that reason, the herald of His Kingdom in the Holy Sacrifice has been suppressed.
Ave Maria
Robert Fox, Long Island, NY
Posted at 10:40 a.m. on April 8, 2011