Leave it to Fr. McBrien to actually write:
Eucharistic adoration, perpetual or not, is a doctrinal, theological, and spiritual step backward, not forward.
Fr. Z fisks Fr. McBrien’s latest article.
Yes Fr. McBrien looks around at the Church and of course what is worthy of attack is people praying to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. I mean adoring and talking to Jesus, what could people be thinking? Fostering devotions with prayers before our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament will only produce vocations for priestly and religious life of people actually in love with our Lord – can’t have that happen. I mean what did Blessed Mother Teresa, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, and a large number of saints think they were doing spending time in worship before our lord in his Eucharistic presence. Surely they would have better spent their time inciting disobedience in a national dissenting paper.
Though of course we probably realize what Fr. McBrien actually wants. Yes a “Dick McBrien Adoration Chapel” filled by adoring dissenters.
Blessed be Dick McBrien
Blessed be his collarless Shirt.
Blessed be his NCR and Tidings dissenting articles
Blessed be Notre Dame for hiring and retaining him
Though next time I take a step backward and spend some time in front of the Blessed Sacrament I will be sure to say a prayer for Mr. McBrien in my backward spiritual way.
27 comments
IN
THE
CRADLES
OF
LATIN
Fr. McBrien –
In your suit and tie-silk
Thank heavens you’re old
Soon to die with your ilk.
For I’m Catholic Mother
Nursing legions breast milk
In the cradles of Latin
Where their souls you’ll not bilk!
I am utterly flabbergasted by this. Does he really think that he’s that much smarter than the Holy Father, the Magesterium, and millions of Catholics for 800 years?
In what sense is this man still a Catholic? Much less a priest?
And when he says Eucharistic adoration is a step “backward, not forward,” I have to ask what he thinks it’s a step away from, and what he thinks we should be moving towards. But I’m not at all sure I’ll much like his answer.
I am speechless….
Father Z’s response with the Divine Praises was … inspired.
As I have said often and elsewhere, “Don’t be a Dick (McBrien).”
“The Church and the world have great need of Eucharistic adoration. Jesus waits for us in this sacrament of love. Let us be generous with our time in going to meet Him in adoration and contemplation full of faith. And let us be ready to make reparation for the great faults and crimes of the world. May our adoration never cease.” (Dominicae Cenae: Letter to Priests, Holy Thursday, 1980)
Maybe what Fr. McBrien fears is that Adoration and prayers before the Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament will rid the Church of the scourge of dissenting theologians such as he. NOW that would be a GIANT step forward!
THE
(Real “Fightin'”)
IRISH
KNEELERS
We are St. Joan,
Philomena, Campion.
The Faith in its whole
Is what we do champion.
We are St. Margaret,
Pearl of York,
Where the bowels of the Faith
They tried to torque.
We are Sir More,
That’s Thomas, the Saint,
Whose reputation
They could not taint.
We are vocations,
In Ireland, kneeling,
Adoring His presence,
It’s not just a feeling.
We are descendents
Of Irish and beggin’
To stop all the men
Who are turning us pagan!
We are the poor,
Uneducated ones,
But in faith, well-informed,
The heretic shuns.
And when we are told,
“Don’t kneel anymore.”
Since we don’t hold doctorates…
We kneel and IGNORE!!
Just the act of adoring Him is a spiritual experience. I don’t do it enough but I always love doing it on Holy Thursday. The church sets aside time and a special place for it to happen. I know they do that more often that Holy Thursday but the truth is I only do it a couple times a year at best.
That guys statement just proves anyone can be an idiot.
Just the act of adoring Him is a spiritual experience. I don’t do it enough but I always love doing it on Holy Thursday. The church sets aside time and a special place for it to happen. I know they do that more often that Holy Thursday but the truth is I only do it a couple times a year at best.
That guys statement just proves anyone can be an idiot.
I wonder sometimes how much God allows this kind of nonsense to go on as a reminder that if no such priest can destroy the Church from within, no honest enemy would be able to do so from outside, either; and how much is a sort of inoculation against more dire and more silly forms of dissent in the future.
When my father began Eucharistic Adoration in our parish a decade ago, a young priest told him that this movement toward adoration originated from a “scary element in the Church”.
He replied angrily, “you mean like Mother Teresa, Mother Angelica, Pope John Paul II, you mean?”
At that time, the priest was a homosexual actively abusing young men in the rectory.
His anger against the Blessed Sacrament probably originated in his sense of guilt.
Pray, pray, pray for our priests while in adoration.
Heretics do us the favour of lighting fires so we can enjoy the warmth of the flame that illuminates the Truth which consumes and destroys their fiction.
That, and me thinks Fr. McBrien missed the cue to retire.
I will never understand why people like Fr. McBrien are allowed to remain preists since they obviously do no believe what the Church believes. It is a scandal tot he Church that renegade preists and religious are not dealt with.
Color me stupid.
With a hat tip to C.S. Lewis:
‘Progress. Yes, we have seen it in an egg. We call it “going bad” in Narnia.’
Fr. Z has a new entry about how even Fr. McBrien’s fans are taking him to task for shooting off his mouth. I wonder if this is the turning point?
I should endeavor to be the stupidest man on the planet.
It’s not difficult. Whatever Fred McBrien says, believe the opposite.
Indeed! Kneel and ignore persons who believe such rank stupidities that only other intellectuals could believe.
Post-christian, heretical, schismatic, hedonistic, secular, progressive, marxist, etc. are not to be believed.
The headline should have been:
“Richard McBrien finds Eucharistic adoration vaguely embarrassing to explain to his non-Catholic peers, so you working class ignoramuses should knock it off.”
Darn those public-school teachers.
Sad commentary during the Year of the Priest when Fr. McBrien has to denigrate one of the most helpful ways Catholics have to appreciate the presence of God in the world. What is going on in this man’s soul?
Fr. Eric, loved your post! Made me laugh. God bless.
Some good has come out of this with some of his readers questioning his beliefs. For some of us, we have known about it for years. For others, the light is shining thru the darkness.
well folks, no matter what you want to say about richard mcbrien, there was no monstrance at the last supper and the Lord said: “take and eat”, “Take and drink”–if that matters to anyone on this blog
Richard,
what is your point? No one is saying that the Body of Christ should be adored in lieu of receiving Him in Holy Communion; no one is advocating replacing Communion with Adoration.
Remember the woman who was healed by touching the hem of Jesus’ garment? Did He accuse of her superstition? No, she was healed because of her faith. Far less would Jesus disapprove of the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, which is approved and encouraged by the Church.
“There was no monstrance at the Last Supper”? There was no “you” at the Last Supper, literally. Nor was there a Fr McBrien. So does that mean that you should never receive Jesus in the Eucharist?
well, there were no women there and that means no women priests; what is wrong with prayer before the Blessed sacrament in the tabernacle? what does “exposition” “show” do? sacraments are by definition “mysterium”, I don’t think, and the first millenium western church, and the eastern church, don’t think that it is something for “display”…..furthermore, where is the Precious Blood?….why isn’t it on display?….how can we “divorce” one species from another? and don’t tell me that Christ is entirely present in both species; that is true, but was only delineated when the western church began to refuse the cup to the faithful
“Eucharistic adoration, perpetual or not, is a doctrinal, theological, and spiritual step backward, not forward.”?
Sounds like a good idea. When you’ve gone the wrong way, finding the right way again usually involves going backward, yes?
As Franz Werfel penned in his beautiful book, The Song of Bernadette, “To those who believe no explanation is necessary. To those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.” Fr. McBrien and his followers are not believers and no amount of explanation, argument, logic, sound reasoning or recourse to authority will ever suffice. Only the Holy Spirit can help him now and barring that he may meet the same fate as his brother Judas. While there is still time (life) let us pray for his soul for Christ suffered and died even if it were for him alone.
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