Sacrilege in Manila

An article published for the Winter/Spring 2015 edition of “The Latin Mass: Journal of Catholic Culture and Tradition” featured the visit of Pope Francis last January but it also carried critical comments on how Filipinos relate to the Holy Eucharist.

While the author praised the visit of the Holy Father that gathered an estimated 6-7 million people, the largest ever seen the writer, Joseph de la Rezierewas also critical of what he calls “a too familiar sacrilege.” He pointed out several instances of this sacrilege that should make our Catholic pastors and lay people ponder on and meditate deeply not to react adversely but to consider the value of his points for a review of our practices related to the Holy Eucharist.

According to the writer,several video footages beamed around the world were “Extraordinary Ministers of the Holy Communion (EMHC) (who) gave communion to people who were reaching out for the Sacred Host with their hands and then passing it on to others behind them who wanted to receive. This was repeated many times: the Eucharist was passed around from person to person, hand to hand broken into smaller pieces, handed out like a snack.”

The article continues: “There were even reports that the Sacred Host could be seen fallen in the mud! One of the most striking features of the video shows an EMHC and the crowded people justnonchalantly handled the Eucharist with straight emotionless faces giving the Body of the Lord to fingers outstretched and grasping. A video of this abuse was posted…showing broken pieces of the Eucharist being ostensibly raised by a lady in order to give the pieces to someone who would want it. Is this not the Magnum Mysteriumbefore whom we adore on our knees, which is now being treated like a ‘beachball' as the blog described?”

Indeed, how many EMHC who give out the Host have with them a sense of sacred privilege? I have received communion from EMCH who could hardly be heard saying “the Body of Christ” and who gave out the Host with poker and emotionless faces like counter waiters selling burgers. I know they undergo training but it seems they have yet to fully appreciate the great and sublime honor of holding the Body of Christ which in times past was, and still is, an exclusive privilege of consecrated hands.

The writer traced this sad situation as “rooted in the milieu where the liturgies of the Philippines have suffered much banalization and secularization over the years. At some parish churches there will be dance performances after the Mass accompanied by Christian pop music in front of the sanctuary, or a commentator will ask the worshippers to ‘clap their hands for Jesus'. Silence is gone; the offering of the Sacred Sacrifice has become quite casual.”

This practice which includes a dance performance like in ancient vestal offering of the Greeks or the Druid maidens in England has actually begun to disappear and we hardly see them now. The solemnity and sacredness of the Mass is now the exclusive focus of the faithful as it should be for centuries.

Here is another criticism that is now banned in the Diocese of Bacolod by the Second Diocesan Synod but is still practiced in other places that I will not mention. Our readers probably have experienced them.

“Many people in Metro Manila have become accustomed to the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice within the confines of a shopping mall. It would seem that the convenience of going to Mass is equated with…getting a bite to eat and shopping, especially if the chapel is situated within a hallway of fashion boutiques.”

I once attended Mass at a shopping mall in Cebu and while the celebration was going on, people walked by with nary a look or indication of deference or respect. Even during the consecration people just passed by. Of course we cannot expect non-Catholics to extend the basic courtesy but how about Catholics who went on shopping? If there was disrespect, who are we to blame but Church authorities who allowed this banality?

I am happy and proud that our Bishop and pastors have already decided on this matter over ten years ago when it was a vogue, including celebrating Mass in private homes or funeral parlors unless it is for the dead in corpus presente.

Of course there was opposition but in the end, the Holy Spirit guided our diocese and preserved the sacredness of the Mass.

More next week.*

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