The Orthodox Roman Catholic

Whoever wishes to be saved must, above all, keep the Catholic faith. For unless a person keeps this faith whole and entire, he will undoubtedly be lost forever. Creed of St Athanasius

Whoever wishes to be saved must, above all, keep the Catholic faith. For unless a person keeps this faith whole and entire, he will undoubtedly be lost forever. Creed of St Athanasius

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“BETRAYAL OF CHRIST AND COMMUNION IN THE HAND”


"Betrayal and Communion in the Hand and the Novus Ordo Missae"

In the past forty years with the reformed liturgy known as the “Novus Ordo Missae” (New Order of the Mass), nothing eclipses the endless abominations in the Temple of God like communion in the hand, an innovation promulgated by Pope Paul VI’s reign and magnified exponentially throughout the Church universal under Pope John Paul II.

It is not an exaggeration to say this is the most widespread abuse of the “Novus Ordo Missae” or reformed liturgy of the Mass, for it has contributed everywhere it has been introduced to the exterior and interior collapse of personal piety and the reverence due to the Sacred Species and, nowhere is this more obvious, than in the rite of the “Novus Ordo Missae” itself. Moreover, here it is necessary to refer, particularly, to the very arrogance of human touch so presumptuously reaching out to touch what is so untouchable by human flesh, the Infinite Spirit of God. What can be more unimaginable and arrogant than to touch what is so utterly unapproachable by fallen human nature, the Infinite Perfection of the Godhead, and to reach out boldly with hands so soiled and impure from a lifetime of sinning for Infinite Purity Itself?

For the profane to defile the Most Holy, for the mundane to belittle the Celestial or the finite to be arrogant before the Infinite is the worst form of detraction of the Glory of God because this sacrilege is perpetrated by creatures visibly more audacious than the rebellious angels themselves, since it has been effected by beings created not from pure spirit as the angels, but from mere dust-- and that makes the offense more hideous.

What is being advanced in the “Novus Ordo” reformed liturgy of communion in the hand is one of the most egregious attacks upon all Sacred Tradition in Catholic teaching, the liturgy, and the faith by everything the nether regions has to offer sinful human pride since the very foundation of Christendom itself in the Upper Room; for all the Catholic faith and its worship of God comes down to its belief and practice: its teachings, preachings and doctrine of the Most Holy Eucharist.


No ploy of Satan has been more effective and had more impact than utilizing human pride to achieve his nefarious ends and purposes since the fall of the angelic hosts, for this tactic likewise brought down our first parents in what was the second most precipitous fall in the war between the celestial realm and the infernal. It is this poisonous pride of self-worth that has manifested itself in a plethora of disguises of satanical false charity, most of which are extraordinarily subtle, seemingly transparent but, nevertheless, most lethal to souls. And where does this attack by Satan and his fallen angels strive for its greatest triumph than against the Most Holy Eucharist Itself. Some aspects of this false charity of self-esteem out-of-control may be more recognizable and overt in secular society today with the endless barrage of infernal enticements to the human ego for gratification of every capital sin, justifying by endless specious arguments why the human ego ought to be gratified with every kind of human lust be it gluttony of food or drink or sexual excess of every kind, a so-called right to vent one’s anger at one’s neighbor, reasons why one ought to receive a wage for doing absolutely nothing, and envious arguments aplenty why one ought to have more than one’s neighbor by inundating oneself with material possessions. All of these offenses, while serious enough against God from the perspective of self-adulation, pale in respect to Satan’s ultimate attack of false charity on the Church, the liturgy, and the Holy Eucharist in particular-- his most subtle and pernicious assault of them all.


The Great Imitator sallies forth in disguises most appalling, alluring, and enticingly pointed to make what is profane in liturgical matters appear holy. His invasion of the sanctuary of God has become more deleterious now in salvation history than ever before, for he has opted to capture the ultimate gift of grace to mankind from God Himself, the very cult of His worship: the pinnacle of all sacramental love on earth, the Most Holy Eucharist Itself. This, undoubtedly, is the most insidious and pernicious attack of them all, one that even Pope Paul VI, after allowing this innovation of communion in the hand came to vociferously regret only a few years later: “The smoke of Satan has entered the sanctuary of the Church.”

So the love of self through the ruse of false charity, the very cult of Satan himself, has brought the battle for souls to a boil with an attack on the heart of man’s salvation, the Most Holy Eucharist. By advancing his philosophy of false charity and self love and by attacking the Holy Eucharist, God’s throne of grace for mankind in this world, Satan launches his worst battle for souls conceivable. Anyone with the least spiritual vision can verify the lethal results on souls of this vicious attack by Satan, most notably in the decline of exterior piety and reverence of those receiving Holy Communion as well as the precipitous drop in numbers of worthy communicants and, finally, the rise of unworthy ones. Clearly, this all stems from the catastrophic innovation of Communion in the hand out of the reformed rite of the “Novus Ordo Missae.”

Love of self, self adulation, and self-esteem are the wicked tools of false charity used by Satan to attack reverence due the Holy Eucharist caused by the “Novus Ordo” innovation of communion in the hand, a veritable reversal of the traditional teaching of ‘holiness of demeanor and humility and unworthiness’ advocated by the Church for centuries in approaching the Holy Eucharist.


Nothing exhibits one’s love of Christ in the Eucharist more or less than one’s exterior piety and comportment towards this sacrament, especially in the very receiving of Our Divine Lord Himself. Because of the suppressed sense of one’s unworthiness and sinfulness in the “Novus Ordo Missae” as compared to the “Missa Latina Tridentina” (Tridentine Latin Mass) which is so evident even at first glance from the single streamlined “Confiteor” in the “Novus Ordo Missae” to the much longer and more supplicatory “Confiteor” repeated three times over during the “Missa Tridentina Latina”, one sees how the door has been opened wide to all kinds of errant rationalizations of false charity in the face of sin before Almighty God.


The most egregious example of false charity is the very notion of communion in the hand itself --an outgrowth of the “Novus Ordo”-- where a false sense of priestly self-worth pervades the laity, alluring the unordained to take up Christ’s Body and Blood for oneself in Communion just like a priest at the altar. Self pride and a failed sense of sinfulness feed all kinds of other egalitarian liturgical improprieties of exterior demeanor too: casual dress, shorts, t-shirts, unfolded hands, distracted and unprayerful expressions of the face, standing posture instead of kneeling before the Lord, lack of thanksgiving after Mass for the Holy Eucharist in silent prayer, dropped particles of the Sacred Host, everywhere; all because of the very liturgical aberration of communion in the hand itself. Any of these abominations of the Most Holy Presence could, clearly, be venial or mortal sins of disrespect--reckless violations of the First Commandment. All of these sins deprive the Trinity of the adorations He so rightly deserves.


Each and every one of these liturgical aberrations derives from an inflated pride of one’s self-worth and moral equivalency with God and the fallacious notion: ‘I am really worthy for You to enter under my roof, O Lord, because you love me no matter what I do’ --truly a Protestant notion that is now enshrined in the hearts and minds of the vast majority of “Novus Ordo” Catholics; notwithstanding clergy, be it bishops, priests, or deacons.


It is this philosophy of false charity that is essential to the survival of Protestant worship and that has now become the very life of the “Novus Ordo” liturgy and Mass since Vatican II. In fact, this false charity of Protestant worship has become the very heart and soul of the “Novus Ordo Missae”, especially with communion in the hand. This false charity not only pervades liberal Protestantism (all Protestantism being liberal vis-a-vis Roman Catholicism) and the “Novus Ordo Missae”, but also consumed the very heart and soul of Judas Iscariot, Christ’s betrayer. Modern day Protestantism and the Liberal Catholicism of the “Novus Ordo Missae”, just like Judas Iscariot in Christ’s own day, have diminished, downplayed, and degraded the divine and supernatural of Christ's Infinite Presence in this world to the humanistic and mundane, a fact that has had the most deleterious consequences upon personal piety since Vatican II.

--to be continued--

j hughes dunphy
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