Cardinal Sarah: Summoning the faithful to receive Holy Communion on the tongue while kneeling

Life Site News reports:

"The head of the Vatican department overseeing liturgy is summoning the Catholic faithful to return to receiving Holy Communion on the tongue and kneeling.

In the preface to a new book on the subject, Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, writes: 'The most insidious diabolical attack consists in trying to extinguish faith in the Eucharist, by sowing errors and fostering an unsuitable way of receiving it. Truly the war between Michael and his Angels on one side, and Lucifer on the other, continues in the hearts of the faithful.'

'Satan’s target is the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Real Presence of Jesus in the consecrated Host,' he said.

The new book, by Don Federico Bortoli, was released in Italian under the title: ‘The distribution of Communion on the hand: a historical, juridical and pastoral survey’ [La distribuzione della comunione sulla mano. Profili storici, giuridici e pastorali].

Recalling the centenary of the Fatima apparitions, Sarah writes that the Angel of Peace who appeared to the three shepherd children in advance of the Blessed Virgin’s visit 'shows us how we should receive the Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ.' His Eminence then identifies the outrages by which Jesus is offended today in the Holy Eucharist, including “so-called ‘intercommunion.’”

Sarah goes on to consider how faith in the Real Presence 'can influence the way we receive Communion, and vice versa,' and he proposes Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa as two modern saints whom God has given us to imitate in their reverence and reception of the Holy Eucharist..."


Communion on the tongue is the normative manner of receiving the Eucharist. Communion in the hand is allowed by indult (a sort of grudging permission if you will) and should never be presented as the preferred way of receiving.

The Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship teaches clearly that, “The new manner of giving communion [in the hand] must not be imposed in a way that would exclude the traditional practice..” And, “The rite of communion in the hand must not be put into practice indiscriminately…it is necessary to have the introduction of the rite preceded by an effective catechesis, so that the people will clearly understand the meaning of receiving in the hand and will practice it with the reverence owed to the sacrament.”

On kneeling for Holy Communion, see here.

Bishop Gerhard Mueller, the CDF's new Prefect, and the pillars of the Faith

It was Father Vincent Miceli who warned that, "Once the liturgy is humanized, Christ the Center and Object of it becomes the humanist par excellence, the liberator, the revolutionary, the Marxist ushering in the millenium; he ceases to be the Divine Redeemer.  We must be alerted to those who plan, by convincing us to abandon our sacred forms, at length to seduce us into denying our Christian faith altogether.  The Church is attacked by these Sons of Satan, in and outside her fold, because she is a living form, the sacrament - sign and instrument - of communion with God and of unity among all men; because she is the visible body of Religion.  Hence these shrewd masters of sedition know that when her sacred forms go, religion will also go.  Violate the lex orandi and you must inevitably destroy the lex credendi.  That is why they rail against so many devotions as superstitions, why they propose so many alterations and changes, a tactic cleverly calculated to shake the foundations of faith.."

The Devil hates the Eucharist and Our Lady [recall how these two pillars played an important part in Don Bosco's prophetic dream as they stabilized the Church represented by a ship with Peter at the head] and never ceases to attack them.  He uses variations on gnosticism, symbolism and modernism to attack the authentic teaching of the Magisterium on the Holy Eucharist.  As the spiritual war continues to escalate all around us, the Devil's attacks against the Eucharist will multiply.  These attacks will intensify and reach a crescendo with the Man of Sin.  Do you doubt this?  Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, Doctor of the Church, has already warned us that:

"The devil has always managed to get rid of the Mass by means of the heretics, making them precursors of the Antichrist who, above all else, will manage to abolish, and in fact will succeed in abolishing, as a punishment for the sins of men, the Holy Sacrifice of the altar, precisely as Daniel had predicted." ("Le Messa e l'Officio Strapazzati" in Opere Ascetiche).

Pope Benedict XVI has just named Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, who was a student of Father Gustavo Gutierrez (credited with founding Liberation Theology), to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.  As this Blog post notes, Bishop Mueller has expressed some rather odd ideas regarding the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Real Presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ - Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity - in the Holy Eucharist:

"On the Perpetual Virginity of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary:


In his 900-page work "Katholische Dogmatik. Für Studium und Praxis der Theologie" (Freiburg. 5th Edition, 2003), Müller denies the dogma of the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary claiming that the doctrine is "not so much concerned with specific physiological proprieties in the natural process of birth (such as the birth canal not having been opened, the hymen not being broken, or the absence of birth pangs), but with the healing and saving influence of the grace of the Savior on human nature."


On the Real Presence of the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Lord in the transubstantiated Eucharistic species:

In 2002, bishop Müller published the book "Die Messe - Quelle des christlichen Lebens" (St. Ulrich Verlag, Augsburg). In this book, he speaks of the Sacrament of the Altar and warns against using the terms "body and blood" in this context. These terms would cause "misunderstandings", "when flesh and blood are considered to mean the physical and biological components of the human Jesus. Neither is it simply the transfigured body of the resurrected Lord that is being designated."

Bishop Müller continues: "In reality, the body and blood of Christ do not mean the material components of the human person of Jesus during his lifetime or in his transfigured corporality. Here, body and blood mean the presence of Christ in the signs of the medium of bread and wine."

Holy Communion transmits according to Müller a "community with Jesus Christ, mediated by eating and drinking the bread and the wine. Even in the merely personal human sphere, something like a letter may represent the friendship between people and, that is to say, show and embody the sympathy of the sender for the receiver." Bread and wine thus only become "symbols of his salvific presence".


That is how Mgr Müller explains a "change of being" in the Eucharistic gifts:

"The essential definition of bread and wine has to be conceived in an anthropological way. The natural essence of these offerings [bread and wine] as the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands, as the unity of natural and cultural products consists in clarifying the nourishment and sustenance of man and the communion of the people in the sign of a common meal [...]. This natural essence of bread and wine is transfigured by God in the sense that the essence of bread and wine is made to consist exclusively in showing and realizing the salvific communion with God."

Strange days.  Dark days.  The smoke of Satan has darkened many minds.

In his Encyclical Letter Mysterium Fidei, Pope Paul VI warned us that, "..among those who deal with this Most Holy Mystery [transubstantiation] in written or spoken word, there are some who, with reference either to Masses which are celebrated in private, or to the dogma of transubstantiation, or to devotion to the Eucharist, spread abroad such opinions as disturb the faithful and fill their minds with no little confusion about matters of faith, as if every one were permitted to consign to oblivion doctrine already defined by the Church, or to interpret it in such a way as to weaken the genuine meaning of the words or the approved import of the concepts involved." (No. 10).

Pope Paul VI goes on to warn in this important Encyclical that, "it is not allowable...to discuss the mystery of transubstantiation without mentioning the marvelous changing of the whole substance of the bread into the Body and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood of Christ as stated by the Council of Trent, so that it consists in 'transignification' or 'transfinalization.' as they put it."

In No. 46 of Mysterium Fidei, the Pope explains:

"After transubstantiation has taken place, the species of bread and wine undoubtedly take on a new meaning and a new finality, for they no longer remain ordinary bread and ordinary drink, but become the sign of something sacred, and the sign of a spiritual food.  However, the reason they take on a new significance and this new finality is simply because they contain a new 'reality' which we may justly term ontological."

This is the teaching of the Council of Trent regarding Eucharistic dogma: "In the first place the holy Synod teaches...that in the precious Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, after the consecration of the bread and wine, Our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is truly, really and substantially contained under the species of those sensible things."

This is the Church's authoritative teaching.  And, as Pope Paul VI said, no one is free to "consign to oblivion" this defined doctrine or to weaken the Church's teaching or the concepts involved.

Pray and watch.  For a diabolical disorientation is clouding minds.  The smoke of Satan continues to wreak havoc.

Why do so many Catholics no longer believe in Our Lord's True Presence in the Most Holy Eucharist?

Many Catholics, as this article explains, no longer believe in Our Lord's True Presence in the Most Holy Eucharist.  Why is this?  Largely because of false interpretations of Vatican II which encouraged the erroneous idea that devotion to Our Lady was "a thing of the past."  Theological opinions which sought to downplay the importance of such devotion.

This eclipse was foretold in Sacred Scripture.  We read in Revelation 12: 13-17:

"When the dragon saw that he had been cast down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the boy.  But the woman was given the wings of a gigantic eagle so that she could fly off to her place in the desert, where, far from the serpent, she could be taken care of for a year and for two and a half years more.  The serpent, however, spewed a torrent of water out of his mouth to search out the woman and sweep her away.  The earth then came to the woman's rescue by opening its mouth and swallowing the flood which the dragon spewed out of his mouth.  Enraged at her escape, the dragon went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep God's commandments and give witness to Jesus.."

What else is this "torrent of water" from the serpent's mouth but false opinions which have sought to sweep away devotion to the Mother of God?  Our Lady made this clear when she told Father Gobbi, on June 14, 1980 - the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary - "What is this flood of water if not the ensemble of these new theological theories, by which an attempt is being made to bring your heavenly Mother down from that place where the Most Holy Trinity has put her?  Thus it has been possible to obscure me in the souls, in the life and in the piety of many of my children, even to the point of denying some of those privileges with which I have been adorned by the Lord."

You might ask: What does this have to do with belief in Our Lord's True Presence in the Most Holy Eucharist?  Father Andre Richard, writing in the January 31, 1985 edition of the Wanderer newspaper, explains: "The eviction of the Mother has cast a shadow on the holy humanity of Jesus, upon the truth of the Incarnation of the Word of God, upon the Real Presence in the Host.."  The Devil, knowing the consequences of false theological theories which seek to undermine devotion to Our Lady and to deny her privileges, has cast doubts upon the Immaculate Conception, the perpetual virginity and the divine and spiritual maternity of Mary.

St. Louis de Montfort, in his classic treatise True Devotion to Mary, reminds us that: "Our Lady's charity towards her faithful servants goes further. She provides them with everything they need for body and soul. We have just seen that she gives them double garments. She also nourishes them with the most delicious food from the banquet table of God. She gives them the Son she has borne, the Bread of Life, to be their food. "Dear children," she says in the words of divine Wisdom, "take your fill of my fruits," that is to say, of the Fruit of Life, Jesus, "whom I brought into the world for you." "Come," she repeats in another passage, "eat the bread which is Jesus. Drink the wine of his love which I have mixed" for you with the milk of my breasts.

As Mary is the treasurer and dispenser of the gifts and graces of the Most High God, she reserves a choice portion, indeed the choicest portion, to nourish and sustain her children and servants. They grow strong on the Bread of Life; they are made joyful with the wine that brings forth virgins. They are carried at her breast. They bear with ease the yoke of Christ scarcely feeling its weight because of the oil of devotion with which she has softened its wood." (True Devotion to Mary, 208).

Jesus is the fruit of His Mother's womb.  The enemies of Mary are the enemies of Jesus.  And the enemies of Jesus are the enemies of the Father.  Again, St. Louis de Montfort emphasizes the necessity of devotion to the Mother of God as he writes of her role in the Incarnation: "God the Father gave his only Son to the world only through Mary. Whatever desires the patriarchs may have cherished, whatever entreaties the prophets and saints of the Old Law may have had for 4,000 years to obtain that treasure, it was Mary alone who merited it and found grace before God by the power of her prayers and the perfection of her virtues. "The world being unworthy," said Saint Augustine, "to receive the Son of God directly from the hands of the Father, he gave his Son to Mary for the world to receive him from her."



The Son of God became man for our salvation but only in Mary and through Mary.

God the Holy Spirit formed Jesus Christ in Mary but only after having asked her consent through one of the chief ministers of his court.

God the Father imparted to Mary his fruitfulness as far as a mere creature was capable of receiving it, to enable her to bring forth his Son and all the members of his mystical body.

God the Son came into her virginal womb as a new Adam into his earthly paradise, to take his delight there and produce hidden wonders of grace. God-made-man found freedom in imprisoning himself in her womb. He displayed power in allowing himself to be borne by this young maiden. He found his glory and that of his Father in hiding his splendours from all creatures here below and revealing them only to Mary. He glorified his independence and his majesty in depending upon this lovable virgin in his conception, his birth, his presentation in the temple, and in the thirty years of his hidden life. Even at his death she had to be present so that he might be united with her in one sacrifice and be immolated with her consent to the eternal Father, just as formerly Isaac was offered in sacrifice by Abraham when he accepted the will of God. It was Mary who nursed him, fed him, cared for him, reared him, and sacrificed him for us.

The Holy Spirit could not leave such wonderful and inconceivable dependence of God unmentioned in the Gospel, though he concealed almost all the wonderful things that Wisdom Incarnate did during his hidden life in order to bring home to us its infinite value and glory. Jesus gave more glory to God his Father by submitting to his Mother for thirty years than he would have given him had he converted the whole world by working the greatest miracles. How highly then do we glorify God when to please him we submit ourselves to Mary, taking Jesus as our sole model." (True Devotion to Mary, Nos. 16-18).

Do we wish to see Eucharistic Adoration thrive once again in all of our parishes?  Ad Jesus per Mariam! - To Jesus through Mary!  Let this be our battle cry.