Author Topic: Fr. McBrien: Adoration Is a "Step Backwards" (Read 1766 times)

stevusmagnus · « **on:** August 30, 2011, 12:03:19 PM »

http://ncronline.org/blogs/essays-theology/perpetual-eucharistic-adoration

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The practice of eucharistic adoration began in the 12th century, when the Real Presence of Christ was widely rejected by heretics or misunderstood by poorly educated Catholics. The church saw eucharistic adoration as a way of reaffirming its faith in the Real Presence and of promoting renewed devotion to it.

However, as time went on, eucharistic devotions, including adoration, drifted further and further away from their liturgical grounding in the Mass itself.

Notwithstanding Pope Benedict XVI's personal endorsement 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, the Mass is in the language of the people (i.e, the vernacular), and its rituals are relatively easy to understand and follow, there is little or no need for extraneous eucharistic devotions. The Mass itself provides all that a Catholic needs sacramentally and spiritually.

Eucharistic adoration, perpetual or not, is a doctrinal, theological, and spiritual step backward, not forward.

© 2009 Richard P. McBrien. All rights reserved. Fr. McBrien is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.

s2srea · « **Reply #1 on:** August 30, 2011, 12:10:28 PM »

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Now that most Catholics are literate and even well-educated, the Mass is in the language of the people (i.e, the vernacular), and its rituals are relatively easy to understand and follow, there is little or no need for extraneous eucharistic devotions. The Mass itself provides all that a Catholic needs sacramentally and spiritually.

Eucharistic adoration, perpetual or not, is a doctrinal, theological, and spiritual step backward, not forward...

Really.. when "according to a Gallup Poll, "only 30% of Catholic still believe in the Real Presence."

Baskerville · « **Reply #2 on:** August 30, 2011, 06:15:08 PM »

Back when I was an NO'er I tried to get our Pastor to allow Adoration. His reply: "We eat the bread we don't stare at it".

Daegus · « **Reply #3 on:** August 30, 2011, 08:56:28 PM »

Quote from: Baskerville

Back when I was an NO'er I tried to get our Pastor to allow Adoration. His reply: "We eat the bread we don't stare at it".

Normally I would be shocked at such a blasphemous, apostatical statement, but your "Pastor" is right. The Novus Ordo "Mass" isn't a valid Mass, nor are the "priests" even validly ordained. By going to the Novus Ordo "Missae", they're trying to trick you into committing the horrible sin of idolatry. Rightfully he has said that you eat bread and don't stare at it. The Novus Ordo is truly an idolatrous sect that worships a piece of bread. You can tell they are bread worshipers by the very that they're completely faithless.

stevusmagnus · « **Reply #4 on:** September 06, 2011, 07:57:15 PM »

On another forum..

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The easterners don't have eucharistic adoration, for instance.

So Fr. McBrien is not that way off.

Reaction?

stevusmagnus · « **Reply #5 on:** September 06, 2011, 08:06:48 PM »

The innovators at VCII LOVED to hold up and use the Eastern Rite as an example for their liturgical experiments. In the East they do not kneel to receive and do not have adoration, etc. Does anyone know if this is true and, if so, the reasons for it? This appealing to the East to justify NO practices is a bit annoying.

ServusSpiritusSancti · « **Reply #6 on:** September 06, 2011, 08:52:22 PM »

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Now that most Catholics are literate and even well-educated, the Mass is in the language of the people (i.e, the vernacular), and its rituals are relatively easy to understand and follow, there is little or no need for extraneous eucharistic devotions. The Mass itself provides all that a Catholic needs sacramentally and spiritually.

This statement from Father McBrien couldn't be more off. First of all the Mass is never "easy to understand". You're never going to understand everything about the Mass no matter how much you study it. It's a mystery, if it wasn't it wouldn't be the Mass. Just like God. If He wasn't a mystery He wouldn't be God.

Most Novus Ordo priests have this same wishy-washy attitude regarding the Eucharist and other things. They view it as nothing but being practically symbollic. It's no wonder so many people don't believe in the Real Presence. The NO attitude is "Worship God and go to Mass and you're a-ok". It's this kind of disgrace that has made the Novus Ordo nothing but, as Archbishop LeFebvre said, "a poison harmful to the Faith". Christ is Present in the Holy Eucharist, and we adore Christ. So how is it a step backwards to have Eucharistic adoration?

You hear about bizzare and heretical comments such as this all the time from the NO clergy. And yet Benedict lets most (if not all) of those comments slide by without even the slightest correction. As do their local bishops, who probably side with them on most of their beliefs since they themselves are full of modernism.

Furthermore, the Novus Ordo does not provide "all that a Catholic needs sacramentally and spiritually". Actually not even a TLM provides ALL that a Catholic needs, much less the NO. The Bogus Ordo is nothing but a Protestant service created by Freemasons with a Catholic name-tag slapped on it. It is an outrage and apostasy. Priests just don't receive the amount of graces from the NO that they would from the Traditional Latin Mass, and the comment from this priest only proves that.

Sigismund · « **Reply #7 on:** September 06, 2011, 08:54:31 PM »

Quote from: stevusmagnus

On another forum..

Quote
The easterners don't have eucharistic adoration, for instance.

So Fr. McBrien is not that way off.

Reaction?

The Eastern Churches have never developed this particular devotional practice. They also don't have massive numbers among their faithful unable to recognize the most basic Catholic faith about the Eucharist, so perhaps they need it less. Even the Orthodox have no problem with this practice. To quote Greek Orthodox bishop Kallistos Ware, "The Orthodox don't bless the people with the Mysteries outside the Liturgy, but there is absolutely no theological reason we should not."

McBrien is an idiot.

Sigismund · « **Reply #8 on:** September 06, 2011, 09:01:03 PM »

Quote from: stevusmagnus

The innovators at VCII LOVED to hold up and use the Eastern Rite as an example for their liturgical experiments. In the East they do not kneel to receive and do not have adoration, etc. Does anyone know if this is true and, if so, the reasons for it? This appealing to the East to justify NO practices is a bit annoying.

That is true for the most part, although there are times of the year when kneeling during the Liturgy is allowed. The also celebrate the Liturgy "Ad Deum" (I hope my Latin is right here), show great respect for the Eucharistic Species, and their churches look like churches, not post offices. I don't see liberals who want to use "But the Eastern Churches do it" to justify things that are aberrations in the Latin rite crying out for those things. The Byzantine and Latin rites are different. They have different histories, different liturgical sensibilities, and different devotional practices. Just as it would be foolish (as some Eastern Catholics have) to suggest that to remove Iconostases from Byzantine churches and put Latin style tabernacles with six Latin candles on the altar and instal holy water fonts and Stations, it is foolish to appeal to Eastern practices to support dismantling of the Latin Liturgy.

Gregory I · « **Reply #9 on:** September 07, 2011, 01:24:07 AM »

It depends on the Church. In my past, I attended a Greek Orthodox Church, and they DID kneel at certain times...I can't remember which, it MAY have been after the priest circles the room with the mysteries while the people sing the Cherubikon. Also, the Greeks are latinized more than they like to admit, as are some Russians.

The Greek Catholics typically do not have any other kind of devotion to the holy mysteries other than at the Divine Liturgy: However, it should be noted that they CLEARLY adore the mysteries before receiving them.

Yes, one of the first things I noticed about Vatican II and the CCC is the radical shift in Emphasis from Scholastic Understanding and terminology, to a modernist TERMINOLOGY, and an ATTEMPT to approach an Eastern mindset, which is typically one of "communion." However, such hybridization does neither of the Churches any favors.

A good example of this is original sin. In the East, Original sin is not the stain of sin we are born with, and the objective guilt we all have inherited from adam from the moment of our conception. Rather, it is "mortality" and "infirmity" and "Sickness of body and soul." The EFFECTS of original sin are death and mortality and infirmity. But, for them, we have no participation in Adam's guilt, for it belonged to HIM ALONE to sin, and therefore, the guilt is HIS ALONE.

Obviously this leads to pelagianism and semi-pelagianism.

It is for this reason that the Orthodox deny the immaculate conception: For NONE are born with a stain of guilt. Therefore, Mary was conceived positively holy, and full of grace, yet she was not at the same time, conceived free from a stain of sin, because they ACKNOWLEDGE NO SUCH STAIN.

On the contrary, because the BVM DIES they see her as subject to the effects of sin, which are corruption. Therefore, she must have been in bondage to sin, or at least commited a slight sin, of some type at SOME time.

My point is that the CCC espouses this view of original sin, and it is manifest that the Vatican is finding multiple ways to be more "eastern" for the sake of the Schismatics and heretics.

"Orthodox" my foot.

TKGS · « **Reply #10 on:** September 07, 2011, 06:46:20 AM »

Quote from: stevusmagnus

The innovators at VCII LOVED to hold up and use the Eastern Rite as an example for their liturgical experiments. In the East they do not kneel to receive and do not have adoration, etc. Does anyone know if this is true and, if so, the reasons for it? This appealing to the East to justify NO practices is a bit annoying.

Indeed it is. The only time anyone ever justified a new and improved Novus Ordo practice to me directly (I don't even remember what it was) because of the Orthodox, I suggested that we should build a fence around the altar like the Orthodox do.

The nun just stared at me. I think my status in the parish started to go way downhill from there.

Nishant · « **Reply #11 on:** September 07, 2011, 08:01:29 AM »

St.Augustine said:

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"No one eats of this flesh without having first adored it . . . and not
only do we not sin in thus adoring it, but we would be sinning if we
did not do so".

St.John Bosco, in a now famous prophecy, said:

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"There will be an Ecuмenical Council in the next century, after which there will be chaos in the Church. Tranquility will not return until the Pope succeeds in anchoring the boat of Peter between the twin pillars of Eucharistic Devotion and Devotion to Our Lady.

I believe original sin is more properly termed a "privation" than "guilt". Although the effects of both are similar, viz. the loss of divine grace, there is a slight difference. I do not think the Church has declared that original sin ought to be styled "guilt. As the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia puts it,

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Original sin is the privation of sanctifying grace in consequence of the sin of Adam. This solution, which is that of St. Thomas, goes back to St. Anselm and even to the traditions of the early Church, as we see by the declaration of the Second Council of Orange (A.D. 529): one man has transmitted to the whole human race not only the death of the body, which is the punishment of sin, but even sin itself, which is the death of the soul [Denz., n. 175 (145)]. As death is the privation of the principle of life, the death of the soul is the privation of sanctifying grace which according to all theologians is the principle of supernatural life. Therefore, if original sin is "the death of the soul", it is the privation of sanctifying grace.

In this context, the salutation of St.Gabriel kecharitomene "full of grace" takes on a special significance. Moreover, even the Greek and Syrian Fathers speak of a stain of sin, and some like St.Ephraem even mention specifically that the Blessed Virgin was free from it. They further compare her with the purity of Eve before the fall, which is what the Catholic doctrine is.