CONFESSION

EUCHARIST
AND THE

SITUATION OF THE CHURCH

St. Teresa Avila said, it suffices to receive one holy communion, for a soul to be transformed into a saint
(Gal 2:20: It is no longer that lives but Christ living in me.)

The truth is that many go to communion and there seems to be no

transformation
in their lives.

On the contrary when they go back to their families or homes, they show the ugliness of their temperament like before.

PROBLEM John Paul II, Domenicae Cenae, 24 Feb 1980 # 11, is concerned that many go to communion without going to confession. a. In this Culture of Death, many commit the sins of contraception and various kinds of sexual sins.

b. Others commit sins of lying and dishonesty, of anger and unkindness to others, of arrogance and self-indulgence.

c. Today Catholics pray little, sin much and are in danger of even losing their faith altogether; yet the confessional are empty and 100% of the church goers receive communion.

d. While it is not a requirement to go to confession

before receiving communion, nonetheless a person in the state of mortal sin cannot receive communion or else he desecrates the Eucharist and finds himself infested and an enemy of God.

Among the Magisterial prohibition on the reception of Communion are:

1) Catechism of the Catholic Church a. According to the Church command, after having attained the age of discretion, each of the faithful is bound by an obligation faithfully to confess serious sins at least once a year.

b. Anyone who is aware of having committed a mortal sin must not receive Holy Communion even if he experiences deep contrition, without having first received sacramental absolution, unless he has a grave reason for receiving communion and there is no possibility of going to confession. c. Children must go to the sacrament of Penance before receiving Holy Communion for the first time. (CCC 1457).

2) Canon Law prohibits from receiving Communion:

a. Those who are excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and
b. Those others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion. (Can 915)

3) Local Magisterium
a. Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Loius, Missouri, banns communion to politicians and legislators who openly proposed anti-life policies. (Cf. Can 915)

b. There is no element of the common good that could justify voting for a candidate who also endorses, without restriction or limitation, the deliberate killing of the innocent, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, human cloning, or same sex marriage. (cf. A Pastoral Letter of Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, "On our Civic Responsibility for the Common Good." [Dec. 2004])

4) Among others prohibited to receive communion by the Church Teachings are the following:
a. Divorced and remarried (CCC 1649, 1650, 1651) without prejudice to those exemptions mentioned in Familiaris Consortio (1984) and the CDF Instruction on 14 October 1994). b. Civilly married

c. Living habitually with partner in concubinage.

d. Ex-Priest and perpetually professed religious who married without laicization. e. Those excommunicated and interdicted who are not yet absolved by the Holy See and Bishop or their delegates. (Can 1331)

5.Those who sin against the Holy Spirit, e.g. those who do not believe that confession cannot absolve them from their sins because of their grave sins.(cf. John Paul II, Encyclical on the Holy Spirit, 1987) Case: Jerome & Helen

6.Those who make bad confession because of shame, or convenience. (cf. St. Teresa of Avila) 7.Those who cannot forgive and forget their enemies.(cf. Our Father)

Solution: I.Delicate Conscience

(cf. Benedict XVI, Conscience of Our Times, edited by Vincent Twomee)

1.Those who have not lost their sense of sins and sense of God.

II.Proper Disposition
1. Proper disposition is needed so souls may once again find their joy and peace when they receive communion and not be hexed due to irreverence of the Eucharist.

a. King Lothaires sacrilegious communion with his entourage, despite the Popes warning of his illicit relationship with Waldrada, died of a mysterious and horrible death. (1Cor11:27)

King Lothaire and his entourage were attacked by satan with malignant fever; they lost their speech; they were tormented by an inward fire and their nails, hair and skin fell off. On the other hand, the lives of the kings suite who refrained from receiving communion were spared.

St.TeresaAvila: Sacrilegious confession and communion bring about lost of faith and reduction of our lives to brutes. St. Peter Julian Eymard: Sacrilegious confession and communion is punished by lost of faith, delay of graces and withdrawal of graces already received.
(cf. Fr. Michael Muller, The Blessed Eucharist,TAN 1994, p. 167)

SOLUTION
1. Benedict XVI (cf God
is Near Us, 2003, pp. 59-60)

traces the reasons why grave sinners go to communion without going to confession:

a. Some scholars say that the Eucharist of the early Church was built upon meals that Jesus shared with his disciples day after day (Ibid. p.59)

b. Others teach the Eucharist is the continuation of the meals that Jesus held with sinners .

c. Still some say the Eucharist is an open table to which all may come to encounter the universal God, without any limit or denominational conditions.

d. Moreover others teach that the Eucharist is itself the sacrament of reconciliation.

2. Benedict XVI (cf. God Near Us, 2003) teaches that the Eucharist is only for the reconciled and not for sinners.

a. Scripture tells us in Paul (1 Cor 11:27)

b. The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles, one of the oldest writings available outside the New Testament, at the beginning of the 2nd century said that: Whoever is holy, let him approach, he who is not holy, let him do penance.

c. Traditions teach that the Eucharist from the very beginning of its institution, was meant only for the new family of apostles who were reconciled with God.

3. Dominicae Cenae. John Paul II, (1980) said many go to communion without going to confession because of the wrong morality on what is good and evil. (DC, # 11).

a. The sacrament of Penance leads to the sacrament of the Eucharist; the sacrament of the Eucharist opens to the Sacrament of penance. (DC, #7)

4. Pastores Dabo Vobis, John Paul II, (1995) a. The priests spiritual and pastoral life like that of his brothers and sisters, lay and religious depends for its quality and fervour, on the frequent and conscientious personal practice of the Sacrament of Penance.

b. The priests celebration of the Eucharist and administration of the other Sacraments, his pastoral zeal, his relationship with the faithful, his communion with his brothers priests, his collaboration with his Bishop, his life of prayerin a word, the whole of his priestly existence, suffers an inexorable decline if by negligence or for some other reason he fails to receive the Sacrament of penance at regular intervals and in a spirit of genuine faith and devotion.

5. Mane Nobiscum, John Paul II, (2004)

a. The mutual abiding of Jesus in us and we in Him, enables us to have a certain foretaste of heaven on earth.
b. The Eucharistic communion was given so that we might be satiated with God here on earth, in expectation of our complete fulfillment in heaven.

STORY St. John Vianney who spends 16 hours per day in the confessional is the typical example of the close link between the Eucharist and Reconciliation. Making people worthy or at least properly disposed in receiving communion in ten years time change the whole Ars into a cilivilation of love, a priestly nation.

APPLICATION 1. Cardinal George Pell, member of the CDF, speaks of how he fought against ideas of seminarians who do not go to confession because of the new concept of sin that man is not capable of really committing mortal sin. a. Moreover, he lamented why seminarians are taught by professors that they do not need to go to mass daily.

2. His Solution was to dismiss all the seminarians and professors, and close the seminary for one year.

After that he recruited seminarians who are daily mass goers and believe in regular confession. Moreover he managed to change all the professors with authentic doctrines and fidelity to the Magisterium.

3. The seminary is overflowing with good seminarians, faithful to the Pope.

CHALLENGE 1. Saints who go to confession daily or regularly before celebrating mass, have beautiful experiences of ecstasies after communion are St. Francis Assisi, St. Claire, St. Francis Sales, St. Francis Borgia, St. Dominic Savio, St. Therese of Child Jesus, St. Hugh, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Louis Bertrand, St. Joseph Cupertino, St. Ignatius, St. Leonard of Port Maurice, etc. (cf. Stefano Mannelli, Jesus, Our Eucharistic Love, 1973, pp. 42-43).

2. With regular confession to the oratory boys of Don Bosco almost 1/3 of them fall into ecstasy after communion.
3. St. Teresa of Avila, Magdalene of Pazzi, Gemma Galgani, Rose of Lima, Aloysius Gonzaga, they all fall into ecstasy after communion.

4. If they can why cant we so that we have a meaningful encounter with Jesus, really present, Body, Blood, Soul, Divinity of Jesus Christ.