Religious beliefs need to be changed.
The odds-on favorite to win the 2016 election for United States President said that to a crowd of abortion supporters in the run up to the election. Many people no doubt thought nothing of it. But coming from a secular leader running for the nation’s highest office, it begged a follow up question: How would that be accomplished?
How do secular leaders go about changing people’s religious beliefs? History shows they don’t do so by converting hearts and bringing people to the truth. Instead, they use the force of law to change beliefs, which of course includes threats to people’s livelihoods and safety.
Religious beliefs were changed by politicians in England about 500 years ago. Listen to a scholar describe how they did it:
Thus, if the sacrilegious rebellion was to succeed, the Mass had to be eradicated. All references to a sacrifice were eliminated from the service. Altars were torn down and replaced by communion tables. Belief in transubstantiation was considered a heresy punishable by death. Cranmer’s assault on the Holy Eucharist provided the impetus for laws passed by parliaments to exterminate the Mass from England and later from Ireland.
Thomas Cranmer, mentioned above, he who assaulted the Holy Eucharist, was not a member of Parliament, or some other government official. No, he was the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head priest in all of England. It’s interesting: The English government could not have toppled the Church without top players on the inside. There was nothing new in this. It started with Judas and continues today.
Belief in transubstantiation was considered a heresy punishable by death. The term “transubstantiation” is a term given to us by the Church that means “change of substance.” It means that the essence of a thing, what a thing is, changes. Transubstantiation takes place at Holy Mass when the priest, standing in for Christ says, “This is my Body . . . This is my Blood.”
The “Declaration Against Transubstantiation” was an English government statute mandated in 1691. Anyone seeking office in England had to recite the following:
I, [name], do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God profess, testify, and declare, that I do believe that in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper there is not any transubstantiation of the elements of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, at or after the consecration thereof, by any person whatsoever; and that the invocation or adoration of the virgin Mary, or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the Mass, as they are now used in the church of Rome, are superstitious and idolatrous.
(English Statute 3, William and Mary, chapter 2, section 5, in Danby Pickering, ed., The Statutes at Large, vol. 9, 1764, p. 131)
Superstitious and idolatrous? The Church Fathers, from the very beginning, preached that Holy Mass was a sacrifice; that Christ was the priest and victim of the sacrifice; and that the bread and wine became His Body and Blood during the sacrifice. That is what was passed on to St. Paul which he shared to the Corinthians in his letter written around 57 AD. In 1970, for some reason, the end of the passage read at Mass from 1 Corinthians got cut off. It was the verse that stated one ate his own condemnation if he received Holy Communion unproperly disposed.
Why was that verse cut out? After all, it is an obvious declaration for transubstantiation. For eating a mere cracker could hardly damn a person to hell. But daring to eat the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord; daring to commune, to co-mingle one’s flesh with Christ’s when not properly disposed could and should indeed damn a person. What other sin could be more serious than that one? Sinning against one’s neighbor is one thing, but sinning directly against God is quite another, is it not?
For what on earth could be holier than the actual Body and Blood of Christ? What precious relic is worth more? Think of all the beautiful Catholic churches all over the world. Are they more valuable? Understand something you may have never considered: All those majestic and glorious cathedrals and basilicas were built for one ultimate reason: to house the holiest thing in the world—the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord in the Most Holy Eucharist.
Many Church-going Catholics today are shocked to hear me say these things. That is because their religious beliefs have been changed, and we are now living in the midst of a sacrilegious rebellion. In a replay of the Protestant Revolt from 500 years ago, altar rails and high altars were ripped out and replaced with tables. We were then told to stand and receive Our Lord in our hands. For that is the way, they told us, that people received communion in the early Church. What they failed to tell us was that Protestant Reformers mandated that people receive Holy Communion in the hand to destroy “superstition” and “idolatry.” They mandated people receive in the hand to destroy belief in transubstantiation.
Several bishops today are worried about the altar rails going back up and people getting on their knees to receive communion. And so, they are putting out documents telling people to stop kneeling. In what might appear to be declarations against transubstantiation, they are pronouncing that standing and receiving in the hand is the “normative” posture.
That is true, since the 1970s it has become normative to receive communion standing and in the hand. But what else has become normative at the same time? Contraception has become normative, decimating our fertility. The intentional killing of millions of unborn persons via abortion has also become normative. And people taking “pride” in unnatural acts that cry to heaven for vengeance has also become the norm.
Now, just because something has become normative does not mean it is a good thing, or the right thing, or the truth. It has become normative to scoff at the idea that Christ can transubstantiate bread and wine into His Body and Blood. It has become normative for sacred hosts to be dropped to the floor at Holy Mass. Yes, the holiest thing in the world is mishandled and dropped due to our normative ways of handling the sacred species.
All over the world at Mass, sacred hosts drop to the floor. And what is Our Lord’s response? I would say He is trying to get our attention—for Eucharistic miracles appear to be proliferating. In Poland in 2013, on Christmas Day, a host that was dropped later developed a red spot. Forensic studies identified the spot as human heart tissue in agony. In 2008, also in Poland, a dropped host formed a red clot, confirmed as human heart tissue. The same thing happened in Argentina in 2015. And I could go on. What is Christ telling us? He is telling us that the Holy Eucharist is His Sacred Heart, truly and substantially. And at Holy Mass your flesh and blood, your heart, can be joined to His.
In the silence at Mass listen to Christ tell you something—hear Him say: Religious beliefs have to be changed. So, you do your part to change them. Live your whole life as a declaration for transubstantiation. Live and die for the Holy Eucharist, which is my Sacred Heart, pierced by a lance and overflowing with Precious Blood out of love for you.
Photo by TJ Birnbaum on Unsplash
