The John-Henry Westen Show - Why are pro-lifers concerned about Communion in the hand？

Pro-Life advocates all over the world spend their lives defending the reality of hidden life, the life of the child hidden in the womb of his mother, and that life is not recognized, not valued by most of society. Many fail to recognize the inestimable value of their child, precisely because these children are not seen. The truth of their lives, even though they are very much there and very much alive, is concealed in the wombs of their mothers. In the same way, Jesus, truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, is not seen and thus not recognized for who he truly is in the sacred host. Our Lord and our God conceals himself under the appearance of a wafer of bread. And yet it is he, the creator of the universe, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords in the flesh, whom we are called to receive in Holy Communion. That same Savior who sacrificed himself in the terrible passion and crucifixion to save you and me from eternal damnation, is right there before us in Holy communion.

00:00:00.000 Have you ever wondered why pro-life advocates are making such a big deal about receiving Holy

00:00:04.980 Communion on the tongue and kneeling and not receiving Holy Communion on the hand?

00:00:08.660 Doesn't that seem strange? Why would they be doing that? Why would they risk the credibility

00:00:13.480 they have to push for something so seemingly obscure? I'm going to tell you why so many of

00:00:19.960 them are ready to sacrifice themselves and their reputations for this. Stay tuned.

00:00:30.000 Let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father,

00:00:46.120 and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Pro-life activists all over the world spend

00:00:52.660 their lives defending the reality of hidden life, the life of the child hidden in the womb of his

00:00:58.060 mother. And that life is not recognized, not valued by most of society. Many fail to recognize the

00:01:05.440 inestimable value of the child in the womb precisely because these children are not seen. The truth of

00:01:11.800 their lives, even though they're very much there and very much alive, is concealed in the wombs of 0.98

00:01:17.080 their mothers. In very much the same way, Jesus, truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, is not seen

00:01:23.360 and thus not recognized for who he truly is in the sacred host. He's our Lord and our God. Our Lord

00:01:30.380 and our God conceals himself under the appearance of a wafer of bread. And yet, it's he. It's the creator

00:01:37.440 of the universe, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords in the flesh whom we are called to receive in Holy

00:01:43.520 Communion. That same Savior who sacrificed himself in the terrible passion and crucifixion to save you

00:01:50.580 and me from eternal damnation, is right there before us in Holy Communion. If we truly recognized him,

00:01:58.660 how could we fail to show him the reverence he is due? If we bow before the princes of this world,

00:02:04.560 you know, the kings of this world, we salute the powerful, we make acts of self-effacing love towards

00:02:10.240 those on earth to whom we're most devoted. How can we not be on our knees before Almighty God,

00:02:17.060 our greatest love, compared to whom we are to disdain all other earthly loves?

00:02:23.780 Now, what I'm about to say may be very controversial, but it's a thought that came to me while praying and

00:02:30.800 meditating about this subject. It's that kind of inspiration that makes you feel that you have to

00:02:35.040 share it, even though it seems very socially awkward and you worry about it being offensive to some.

00:02:40.560 It relates to the pro-life struggle, and it relates the pro-life struggle directly to the issue of

00:02:48.200 communion in the hand. Of course, the primary reason for not receiving Holy Communion in the hand is the

00:02:53.600 awe and reverence due to our Lord, the need to have the consecrated hands of the priests and the

00:02:58.420 ordinary ministers of Holy Communion be the only ones that handle our Lord in the Eucharist with

00:03:03.300 consecrated hands. However, from the most ancient times of the Church, the Fathers spoke of the

00:03:10.500 need to guard the fragments of the Eucharist from being lost. In fact, the most well-known quote used

00:03:17.640 to promote communion in the hand is attributed to St. Cyril of Alexandria in the 300s. That quote,

00:03:24.780 however, is used most often when it's taken out of context. While he did speak of receiving communion

00:03:33.240 in the hand, St. Cyril's main emphasis was to warn against losing the fragments. Here's what he said in

00:03:40.060 full, and I quote,

00:03:40.720 Approaching, therefore, do not come forward with the palms of the hands outstretched, nor with the

00:03:46.540 fingers apart, but making the left hand a throne for the right, since this hand is about to receive

00:03:52.180 the King, making the palm hollow, receive the body of Christ, adding, Amen. Then carefully sanctifying

00:03:58.780 the eyes by touching them with the Holy Body, partake of it, ensuring that you do not mislay any of

00:04:03.880 it. Be careful that you do not lose anything of the body of the Lord. If you let fall anything,

00:04:10.440 you must think of it as though you cut off one of the members of your own body. Tell me, I beg you,

00:04:15.940 if someone gave you kernels of gold, would you not guard them with the greatest care and diligence

00:04:21.400 intent on not losing anything? Should you not exercise even greater care and vigilance so that not

00:04:28.260 even a crumb of the Lord's body could fall to the ground, for it is far more precious than gold or

00:04:33.820 jewels? End quote. So you might be asking, where does this tie into the pro-life movement? Well, one of

00:04:41.060 the things that has been most distressing over the last 50 years has been the deception that has gone

00:04:47.100 on in the medical field, concealing the grim realities of abortion. And one of the biggest

00:04:52.700 deceptions was actually over the abortifacient nature of the birth control pill. For decades,

00:04:58.500 women were unaware that the birth control pill could cause abortions. For decades, women were 0.99

00:05:03.540 inadvertently aborting their children and had no clue about it. They were told by doctors the pill was

00:05:09.840 healthy, even good for their ability to have children when they wanted them. Yet, the grim reality was that

00:05:16.440 the pill caused the lining of the uterus to be inhospitable to life, such that when there were

00:05:20.980 breakthrough ovulations resulting in conception of a new life, that newly conceived child could not

00:05:26.460 implant in the uterine wall, leading countless women on the pill to lose their babies to abortions

00:05:34.720 that they knew nothing about. It wasn't even their fault. They knew nothing about it. They were told,

00:05:40.500 even by doctors and sometimes, sadly, by priests and bishops, that it was just fine to take the pill.

00:05:46.340 Well, it struck me that this is very, very similar to what we've experienced in the church for the

00:05:53.260 last 50 years, where with communion in the hand, our bishops and priests, for the most part, never told

00:05:58.760 us of the danger of the fragments of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist falling to the floor, never explained

00:06:04.980 the reality of Jesus being present in those small fragments as he is in the full sacred host. We have

00:06:11.580 for 50 years been counseled to receive our Lord in such a way that has us participating inadvertently

00:06:19.640 in the trampling of our Lord with our feet at Mass. We were told communion in the hand was a better way

00:06:27.060 to receive, a more dignified way, a superior way for mature Christians. And now we have had some 0.80

00:06:34.140 bishops and priests suggesting, despite contrary opinion from some physicians, that communion in the hand

00:06:39.620 is healthier, it's safer, a way to receive our Lord due to coronavirus. And never, in all that time,

00:06:47.700 even now, do they explain about guarding the fragments. These thoughts were germinated with

00:06:54.200 the statement of Bishop Athanasius Schneider, written in his most recent book-length interview

00:06:59.240 with former LifeSite correspondent Diane Montagna, called Christus Vincit. And I quote it for you.

00:07:05.720 There is the grievous fact of the loss of Eucharistic fragments because of communion in the hand.

00:07:13.300 No one can deny this, he wrote. He continues, fragments of the consecrated host fall to the floor

00:07:19.540 and are subsequently crushed by feet. This is horrible. Our God is trampled on in our churches

00:07:26.560 and no one can deny it, end quote. That part about our Lord's body in Holy Communion being crushed

00:07:34.820 via the practice of reception of Holy Communion in the hand is really struck home for me. Pro-lifers,

00:07:41.360 you see, seek to stop abortionists from laying their hands on the child in the womb and violating them,

00:07:45.980 literally stop them from crushing the precious child in the womb. And that's exactly the same with

00:07:52.480 the Holy Eucharist when received in the hand, has fragments and particles scattered on the floor

00:07:57.740 and trampled and crushed by the feet of parishioners. Even though each particle is Jesus himself.

00:08:04.560 The awe and reverence due to our Lord and this desecration of the Holy Eucharist are exactly why

00:08:10.600 Holy Communion in unconsecrated hands was banned for over a thousand years in the church until it was

00:08:16.460 introduced in 1969, around the same time, by the way, that abortion came to most of the world.

00:08:23.200 And sure, sometimes, totally inadvertently, fragments of the sacred host will be lost,

00:08:29.360 despite the best efforts of priests and altar boys and the faithful not to let that happen.

00:08:35.040 But to me, that's the same as miscarriages, where the death of the child in the womb happens,

00:08:40.140 despite all of our best efforts for that not to happen.

00:08:42.860 But why? Why? Why would priests and bishops who knew of this reality not tell the faithful about it?

00:08:50.540 Why have we been left in the dark for 50 years? How many of us would never have dreamed of

00:08:56.220 receiving Holy Communion in the hand had we known the risk of losing the fragments of the sacred host?

00:09:02.980 We in the pro-life movement defend the reality of hidden life. We're accustomed to defending life

00:09:08.920 hidden in the womb. And now we're being called to defend the divine life hidden in the sacred host,

00:09:18.100 who is being abused by many of those who should be the first to love him. Catholics in the pro-life

00:09:24.440 movement are actually uniquely prepared to counter these offenses. You know, I don't believe it's mere

00:09:31.260 coincidence that communion in the hand that obscures the dignity of divine life was introduced about 50

00:09:36.740 years ago, just as abortion in many Western countries that denies the dignity of human life

00:09:42.820 was introduced about 50 years ago. Today, we reap the bitter fruits. Human life has lost its value

00:09:52.080 in human society. And the body of Christ has become abused in his churches, his real presence doubted by

00:09:58.560 a majority of those who call themselves Catholic. And just as it is impossible to calculate the

00:10:05.260 countless desecrations of the body of Christ in the sacrilegious treatment of the Holy Eucharist

00:10:10.460 brought about by the practice of communion in the hand, so it is impossible to number the unborn 0.77

00:10:15.720 children made in the image and likeness of God killed worldwide not only under permissive abortion

00:10:22.040 legislation, but also those killed as a result of abortifacient contraceptive drugs and devices and through IVF

00:10:29.720 procedures. So many times I've been asked why, as a founder of one of the largest pro-life news sites in the

00:10:37.340 world, I would be talking about this matter and matters such as this going on in the Catholic Church. Many

00:10:43.020 suggest that these painful developments that trouble us as Catholics do not relate to our noble work of saving

00:10:48.160 babies. However, I don't think that's the case. In fact, on the contrary, to be fully pro-life means

00:10:54.680 being pro-eternal life. What sense does it even make to save the body if we lose the soul? In fact, that

00:11:02.720 thought was our Lord's. He said, if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away, for it's

00:11:09.920 better for you to lose one of your members or one of your limbs than for your whole body to be thrown into 0.96

00:11:14.620 hell. It was that same Jesus who told us, quote, do not be afraid of those who will kill the body and

00:11:21.760 are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell, end

00:11:27.980 quote. The gift of eternal life comes only through Jesus Christ and the saving truth he has confided to

00:11:35.700 the Catholic Church. How can we say that we care deeply about an unborn child, his mother, or anyone 1.00

00:11:41.800 and not offer them the possibility of eternal life? The most convincing statement about this I've

00:11:47.920 ever come across came in 2008 from a famous atheist named Penn Jillette, who's actually still very popular

00:11:54.480 and well-known on television. Penn Jillette said in 2008, and I quote, if you believe that there's a

00:12:00.320 heaven and hell and that people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life or whatever, and you 0.67

00:12:05.400 think that it's not really worth telling this because it's socially awkward, how much do you have to hate

00:12:10.960 somebody not to proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is

00:12:15.740 possible and not tell them that? For this reason, Voice of the Family has organized an online conference

00:12:22.440 for this Thursday, July 16, to mobilize our fellow lay Catholics to offer the love and reverence to our

00:12:29.300 Lord truly present in the Holy Eucharist. I hope to see you online at this free event, which you will find

00:12:36.200 right here on this show channel, on the LifeSite News channel, and on our Facebook page.

00:12:41.380 Out of the love and reverence due to our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, please commit to receiving Him

00:12:46.540 worthily, kneeling if possible, and on the tongue. I'm John Henry Weston, and may God bless you.

The John-Henry Westen Show - July 14, 2020

Why are pro-lifers concerned about Communion in the hand？

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