I was horrified, since this is the deliberate mishandling of the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. The professor believed that the "cracker" had no power, but the reason he was so easily able to desecrate the Host is the same reason that Our Lord allowed Himself to be led like a Lamb to the slaughter, the same reason that He allowed Judas to betray Him to the Sanhedrin of his time, and the same reason that countless Christian martyrs have given their lives to witness to the reality of God's presence in the Holy Eucharist. When Pontius Pilate boasted that he had power over Jesus Christ, Our Lord's response was that he would not have it except that it was given to him from above.
Yet my husband’s response to this desecration was, “Ho Hum, more of the same.” He said calling the Host a “cracker” was common in anti-Catholic sources. I never came across this stuff before. But recently, I have been reading “The Devotion to the Sacred Heart” by Fr. John Croiset, S.J., a book published in 1691 and written during the lifetime of the visionary St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, published by Tan Books. Fr. Croiset is angry about the desecration the Holy Eucharist in his time, and before. “The first distribution of Holy Communion at the Last Supper was dishonored by the most horrible of all sacrileges (Judas reception of Communion and subsequent betrayal of Jesus Christ, which is deicide.), and this horrible sacrilege has been followed during the ages by all the outrages and profanations that Hell could invent. Not only have people lost all respect for Jesus Christ on our altars, not only have they treated Him as a mock king and ridiculed His divinity (Crowning of Thorns), not only have they pillaged, demolished and burned the churches where He had condescended to remain constantly for the love of men, and the altars on which He immolated Himself every day for them; not only have they broken, melted down, and profaned the sacred vessels which have a thousand times served for the dread Sacrifice of the Mass; but they have even dragged on the ground and trampled under foot His adorable Body in the Consecrated Hosts and -- what should horrify devils, and even monsters worse than devils – they have pierced these Consecrated Hosts with knives thousands of times.”
Do you remember the story in the Old Testament of King Belshazzar, who ordered the vessels of gold and silver which his father, King Nebuchadnezzar, had pillaged from the Temple in Jerusalem to be brought into the king so he, his wives, his servants and his entertainers might drink from them? They were praising their gods while drinking from the vessels, which was a sacrilege, and suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the wall. This terrified the king, and no one could read the message until they called for the Jewish prophet Daniel. Daniel gave him the message, “Mene, Tekel, and Peres.” Sorry king, you have not humbled yourself before God, and you have profaned the sacred vessels of God’s Holy Temple. “Mene: God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it. Tekel: you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting. Peres: Your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.” (Daniel 5: 26-28) And that very night Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was slain.
Let us pray for our biology professor. However, less we become complacent, Fr. Croiset goes on concerning the outrages against the Holy Eucharist, “O my Savior, how many Catholics there are who treat Thee scarcely less insultingly! Abomination penetrates even into the Holy of Holies. It is difficult to say which of the two treats Jesus Christ with greater impiety and ingratitude, the heretic who profanes our churches in which he believes that Jesus Christ is not really present, or the Catholic who, while making profession of believing, presents himself before Jesus Christ with so little respect.” “People discuss news and business matters even at the foot of the altar, and must we confess, O my God, to the shame of our age, that there are even Catholics who are guilty of abominable and impious conversation in the church? Some people assist at Mass as they would at a profane show . . . After a perfunctory genuflection, they sit down and often talk. Behold the homage, the gratitude, the return of love which Jesus Christ receives from a large number of Christians!” He goes on at great length, but you get the idea. And all this happened in 1691. Déjà Vue.
Now we have the matter of the hatred that has been shown to Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin. People wonder why the media is so mean to her. They have said she should stay home with her five kids and not work. One man called into a talk show and made this point. The host asked if he wanted Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate Sen. Biden to have stayed home with his small children after his wife died. The answer was, “No” because Sen. Biden didn’t have a Down’s syndrome baby." Ah, the root of the problem with Sarah is that she didn’t kill her handicapped son, Trig Paxson Van Palin, when he was completely helpless in the womb and could not defend himself. So Trig is much like that “cracker” stabbed with a rusty knife by a biology professor from the University of Minnesota (don’t send your kids there.) Except that he was given to a family who made the decision to cherish and love him. Catholics, let us cherish and love Our Lord Jesus Christ in the same manner, and seek to see and serve Him in our children, friends, family and enemies. Susan Fox
