Saturday, September 12, 2009

Why would Father Richard P. McBrien refer to Eucharistic Adoration as a "needless devotion"?


In his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, Pope Benedict XVI says that:


"With the Synod Assembly...I heartily recommend to the Church's pastors and to the People of God the practice of eucharistic adoration, both individually and in community. Great benefit would ensue from a suitable catechesis explaining the importance of this act of worship, which enables the faithful to experience the liturgical celebration more fully and more fruitfully. Wherever possible, it would be appropriate, especially in densely populated areas, to set aside specific churches or oratories for perpetual adoration. I also recommend that, in their catechetical training, and especially in their preparation for First Holy Communion, children be taught the meaning and the beauty of spending time with Jesus, and helped to cultivate a sense of awe before his presence in the Eucharist.

Here I would like to express appreciation and support for all those Institutes of Consecrated Life whose members dedicate a significant amount of time to eucharistic adoration. In this way they give us an example of lives shaped by the Lord's real presence. I would also like to encourage those associations of the faithful and confraternities specifically devoted to eucharistic adoration; they serve as a leaven of contemplation for the whole Church and a summons to individuals and communities to place Christ at the centre of their lives.

Forms of eucharistic devotion

The personal relationship which the individual believer establishes with Jesus present in the Eucharist constantly points beyond itself to the whole communion of the Church and nourishes a fuller sense of membership in the Body of Christ. For this reason, besides encouraging individual believers to make time for personal prayer before the Sacrament of the Altar, I feel obliged to urge parishes and other church groups to set aside times for collective adoration." (Nos 67, 68).

St. Louis de Montfort, in his Love of Eternal Wisdom, explains that, "Eternal Wisdom, on the one hand, wished to prove his love for man by dying in his place in order to save him, but on the other hand, he could not bear the thought of leaving him. So he devised a marvelous way of dying and living at the same time, and of abiding with man until the end of time. So, in order fully to satisfy his love, he instituted the sacrament of Holy Eucharist and went to the extent of changing and overturning nature itself. He does not conceal himself under a sparkling diamond or some other precious stone, because he does not want to abide with man in an ostentatious manner. But he hides himself under the appearance of a small piece of bread - man's ordinary nourishment - so that when received he might enter the heart of man and there take his delight....How ungrateful and insensitive we would be if we were not moved by the earnest desires of Eternal Wisdom, his eagerness to seek out and the proofs he gives us of his friendship! How cruel we would be, what punishment would we not deserve even in this world, if, instead of listening to him,we turn a deaf ear; if, instead of seeking him, we flee from him; if, instead of loving him, we spurn and offend him! The Holy Spirit tells us, 'Those who neglected to acquire Wisdom not only inherited ignorance of what is good, but they actually left in the world a memorial of their folly in that their sins could not go unnoticed' (Wis 10: 8). Those who during their lifetime do not strive to acquire Wisdom suffer a triple misfortune. They fall (a) into ignorance and blindness, (b) into folly. (c) into sin and scandal. But how unhappy they will be at the hour of death when, despite themselves, they hear Wisdom reproach them, 'I called you and you did not answer. All the day long I held out my hands to you and you spurned me. Sitting at your door, I waited for you but you did not come to me. Now it is my turn to deride you. No longer do I have ears to hear you weeping, eyes to see your tears, a heart to be moved by your sobs, or hands to help you.'" (No. 72).


One Roman Catholic priest who spurns Wisdom in the Most Holy Eucharist is Fr. Richard P. McBrien. In an essay which may be found here, Fr. McBrien writes, "Notwithstanding Pope Benedict XVI's personal endorsements of eucharistic adoration and the sporadic restoration of the practice in the archdiocese of Boston and elsewhere, it is difficult to speak favorably about the devotion today. Now that most Catholics are literate and even well-educated...there is little or no need for extraneous eucharistic devotions...Eucharistic adoration, perpetual or not, is a doctrinal, theological, and spiritual step backward, not forward."


Such a statement only serves to highlight the immaturity of this confused priest. It was Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand who explained that, "It is a characteristic symptom of immaturity to feel oneself more mature and independent than men of previous times, to forget what one owes the past, and, in a kind of adolescent self-assertion, to refuse any assistance. One need only recall Dostoyevsky's masterly description of the puberty crisis - Kolya Krassotkin in The Brothers Karamazov, Hypolit in The Idiot, the hero of The Adolescent - to grasp the special immaturity of the man who is convinced of his superior maturity, who thinks that in him humanity has in a unique way come of age, who is dominated by one preoccupation - to show his independence. His ludicrous smallness is manifest as he looks down on everything passed on through tradition, even the most timeless values." (Trojan Horse in the City of God, pp. 143-144).
But there is more than immaturity here. Having spurned Wisdom, the "intellectual elite" who proclaim that "man has come of age" have retreated from the truth. They are antichrists preparing the way for the Antichrist, the Son of Perdition who hates the Lord Jesus and desires to lead all men to rejection of Eternal Wisdom, to rejection of God's Love.

10 comments:

Michael Cole said...

Fr. McBrien's attitude toward Jesus Our Eucharistic Love may only be described by one word: demonic.

Stewart said...

We need Jesus in the Eucharist. We need to adore Him. It's Father McBrien's nonsense and apostasy that we don't need. The Eucharist is central to our faith, or at least it should be. Pope Paul VI said that, "To visit the Blessed Sacrament is...a proof of gratitude, an expression of love, and a duty of adoration toward Christ our Lord." This i cited in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1418). If Father's description of Eucharistic Adoration isn't a sign of the apostasy we have entered, what is it? A sign of faith?

Sanctus Belle said...

It is for the Lord to judge each person, but from this priest's words it would be logical to conclude his spiritual sense of sin has been darkened most likely due to personal sin.

Free will is a terribly freedom and if we hand ourselves over to evil it is by our own doing.

Cleghornboy said...

"if we hand ourselves over to evil it is by our own doing." Well said Sanctus. To spurn devotion to, and Adoration of, the Eucharist is to spurn Divine Love. One will ultimately stand self-condemned if one refuses to love the Eternal Wisdom.

Without passing judgment on Fr. McBrien, objectively speaking he is engaged in a work of evil. Any attempt to discourage others from Eucharistic Adoration - or any other form of Adoration or worship of God - is a work of evil.

Pray for Fr. McBrien.

Jennifer said...

Fr. Richard McBrien and Fr. John Catoir have supported the ordination of women. Because the Church has said definitively that women cannot be ordained (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, No. 4), Fr. McBrien has said that being a Catholic now is like "belonging to a private club that won't admit blacks or Jews."

Fr. John Catoir has said that women WILL BE ordained deacons and priests one day.

Such dissent is an attack on the faithful. It is an act of spiritual violence. Why do we not hear from our Bishops who are supposed to be defending the faith?

Cleghornboy said...

Someone left a comment at this Blog falsely asserting that Vatican II did not teach on Hell. I have said it many times and I'll say it again, critics of Vatican II (both modernists who advocate a "spirit of Vatican II" which isn't based upon the texts and so-called "Traditionalists" who desire to blame Vatican II for all of the ills in the Church) who haven't even read the Conciliar documents need to step back, relax, and take the time to study the 16 documents.

Vatican II, basing itself on the New Testament, teaches:


"Since however we know not the day nor the hour, on Our Lord's advice we must be constantly vigilant so that, having finished the course of our earthly life, we may merit to enter into the marriage feast with Him and to be numbered among the blessed and that we may not be ordered to go into eternal fire like the wicked and slothful servant, into the exterior darkness where "there will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth". For before we reign with Christ in glory, all of us will be made manifest "before the tribunal of Christ, so that each one may receive what he has won through the body, according to his works, whether good or evil" and at the end of the world "they who have done good shall come forth unto resurrection of life; but those who have done evil unto resurrection of judgment". Reckoning therefore that "the sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come that will be revealed in us", strong in faith we look for the "blessed hope and the glorious coming of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ" "who will refashion the body of our lowliness, conforming it to the body of His glory. and who will come "to be glorified in His saints and to be marveled at in all those who have believed"

And Vatican II doesn't mention Hell? Then what is this "eternal fire" for those "who have done evil"?

Honestly, this sort of nonsense does not help the Church. Let's all take the time to read the Conciliar documents. Is that too much to ask?

albizzi said...

Paul,
I don't say the document you are quoting doesn't exist, but the poisonous "Spirit of Vatican II" used by many to say and to do all and the contrary of all, does as if it never existed.
Indeed, it is very seldom when one hears a full homily about Hell or about sin, and still more seldom with conciliar documents to support the speech.
I remember the pope JPII himself wondering if Hell wasn't void eventually.
If Hell is void it is equal as if it never existed.
The Modernists are used to read the Conciliar documents only when they go according to their agendas and ignore them in the contrary.

Cleghornboy said...

Albizzi, actually you did imply that Vatican II did away with Hell. You wrote (and I quote): "Since Vatican II it is forbidden to condemn those who are in doctrinal error...Oops! I forgot that sin and Hell no longer exist since Vatican II."

You now assert, "I remember..Pope John Paul II himsef wondering if Hell wasn't void eventually." Once again, you are wrong and are, in all likelihood, thinking of Cardinal von Balthazar's thought as expressed in his book "Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved."

As I mentioned in a previous post (in which I corrected a dishonest article written by Fr. John Dietzen):

"Pope John Paul II concludes his remarks (which may be found on pages 185 to 186 of 'Crossing the Threshold of Hope') with a series of rhetorical questions which indicate that some sinners will end in hell: "Is not God who is Love also ultimate Justice?,' "Can He tolerate these terrible crimes," "Can they go unpunished?," "Isn't final punishment in some way necessary in order to reestablish moral equilibrium in the complex history of humanity?," "Is not hell in a certain sense the ultimate safeguard of man's moral conscience?"

Source:
http://lasalettejourney.blogspot.com/2009/04/father-john-dietzen-gets-it-wrong-part.html

albizzi said...

Paul,
I fully agree with you.
My comments were only a bit ironic.
I well acknowledge the VATII teachings that you quoted about Hell as much as the conclusion of JPII.
I just wanted to show how the VATII council was exploited by the modernists to lead the Church according to their agenda.
They succeeded in introducing a lot of errors in the minds, among those the non existence of Hell is the least.
The problem is that our priests and our bishops, even the most traditionalists of them, look as if they had been silenced and are afraid to reaffirm the Truth.

Fr Mc Brien's despising of the Eucharistic Adoration is a further error added to a long string of other ones. Is he so pleased to lead the souls astray by his bizarre ideas? Anyway, will there any disciplinary action taken against him? Certainly not.
In other times the Vatican would have sent him forever in a remote monastery. Now millions of souls are at risk of eternal damnation and nobody cares.

Rooting these errors took only a few years. Unrooting them will be much longer.

Anonymous said...

You need think about it. Despite the emails, the overwhelming evidence showing global warming is happening hasn't changed.
"The e-mails do nothing to undermine the very strong scientific consensus . . . that tells us the Earth is warming, that warming is largely a result of human activity," Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told a House committee. She said that the e-mails don't cover data from NOAA and NASA, whose independent climate records show dramatic warming.

Site Meter