Why Your Body Matters for Prayer

Christian prayer is embodied prayer. In C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters we discovered an experienced devil giving lessons to a young temptor. At one point, the veteran orders his young charge to encourage his 'client,' a budding Christian, to envision prayer as something very 'interior' and 'mystical,' having little to do with posture or the position of the body. He wants the poor Christian to think that whether he stands, slouches, sits, or kneels is irrelevant to the quality of his communication with God. This, of course, is the Cartesian voice, the belief that our bodies and souls are independent and have little to do with each other.

But then consider the view of William James. In his Principles of Psychology, James writes that it is not so much sadness that makes us cry as crying that makes us feel sad. The body in a significant sense precedes the mind.

The same dynamic occurs when we pray. It is not so much keen feelings of devotion that force us to our knees as kneeling that gives rise to keen feelings of devotion.

If you're having difficulty in prayer today, try kneeling, or bowing, or making some sort of reverent gesture. The body often leads the mind into a deeper spiritual space. - Fr Robert Barron

Urged On By Love Of Christ To Proclaim The Good News Everywhere In The World

Those who with God's help have welcomed Christ's call and freely responded to it are urged on by love of Christ to proclaim the Good News everywhere in the world. This treasure, received from the apostles, has been faithfully guarded by their successors. All Christ's faithful are called to hand it on from generation to generation, by professing the faith, by living it in fraternal sharing, and by celebrating it in liturgy and prayer. - CCC 3

The Mass Is A Biblical Event

The Bible is a liturgical document and the Mass is a Biblical event.

God Enriches The Soul Which Empties Itself Of Everything

God enriches the soul which empties itself of everything. - Saint Padre Pio

It is in The Liturgy That The Work of Our Redemption is Accomplished

For it is in the liturgy, especially in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, that "the work of our redemption is accomplished," and it is through the liturgy especially that the faithful are enabled to express in their lives and manifest to others the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church. - Sacrosanctum Concilium

The Ecclesial Crisis in Which we Find Ourselves Today Depends in Great Part on The Collapse of The Liturgy

"...The drastic manner in which Pope Paul VI reformed the Mass in 1966 provoked extremely serious damage to the Church...Some changes were needed, but the suppression of the old Mass marked a break in the history of the liturgy, the consequences of which could only be tragic...I am convinced that the ecclesial crisis in which we find ourselves today depends in great part on the collapse of the liturgy." - Pope Benedict XVI From La Vita Mia, ("My Life")

People Are Seeing Through The Banality and The Pathetic Homemade Liturgies

"...we can...explain the fundamental change that has come about in the understanding of ritual and liturgy...: the primary subject of liturgy is neither God nor Christ, but the 'we' of the ones celebrating. And liturgy cannot of course have adoration as its primary content since, according to the deistic understanding of God, there is no reason for it. To an increasing degree people are seeing through the banality and the childish rationalism of the pathetic homemade liturgies with their artificial theatrics; it is becoming obvious how trivial they are. The authority of mystery has disappeared..." - Pope Benedict XVI

Let Your Religion be Less of a Theory and More of a Love Affair

Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair. - G.K. Chesterton

The Traditional Liturgy Orients The Soul to God

The traditional liturgy in fact gives acute expression to the Sacrifice of the Cross made present on the altar, orients the soul toward God, and witnesses our adoration of His Real Presence. Clearly the Mass should not be viewed as a theology lesson, but its prayers express a doctrine eloquent indeed, including the four finalities of the Holy Sacrifice: adoration, thanksgiving, propitiation, and petition. - Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, FSSP.

St. Thomas Aquinas on Eucharistic Ministers

As the consecrating of Christ's body belongs to the priest, so likewise does the dispensing belong to him. - St. Thomas Aquinas (i.e., no Eucharistic ministers)

Only Consecrated Hands Should Touch the Blessed Sacrament

Out of reverence for this [Blessed] Sacrament, only consecrated hands should touch it. - St. Thomas Aquinas on Holy Communion. (i.e., no Eucharistic Ministers)

Our Blessed Lord Founded One Church: The Catholic Church

There is no such thing as “other Churches.” We, the Catholic Church, are not one of a number of denominations. Protestant ecclesial communities are denominations, we are not. We are the original Church that goes back to Jesus Christ Himself, founded on Peter… [You] cannot equate Protestant groups with the Catholic Church. Our Blessed Lord founded ONE Church and it is the Catholic Church, everything else is an ecclesial community. - Michael Voris

The New Mass is “Fabricated Liturgy.” - Pope Benedict XVI

The new Mass is “fabricated liturgy.” We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over the centuries and replaced it – as in a manufacturing process – with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product. – Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)

Can it be That the Pews are Filled with People who Don't Know What They are Doing?

One reads that large numbers of Catholics do not understand or accept the teaching of the real presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Can it be that the pews are filled with people who don't know what they are doing? I have heard homilies on the real presence so tentative it is unlikely they would enlighten or strengthen the faith. But copies of the Catechism are available in bookshops everywhere, even in greeting card shops. Maybe tongue-tied pastors ought to buy a copy for every parishioner. What will turn things around is the growing practice of exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. At Notre Dame, a group of undergraduates has established this practice in one of the hall chapels, supplementing the Friday afternoon Eucharistic adoration in Sacred Heart Basilica.

It may well be that liturgical changes, scheduled and unscheduled, have drained the Mass of its awe and reverence. My wife, never easy prey to nostalgia, recently attended a Tridentine Mass and was reminded what it felt like to pray in church. Romper room music and bushels of bonhomie don't prepare one to receive Jesus in the sacrament, delivered with a mindless smile by an extraordinary eucharistic minister who might as well be offering cheese samples at the supermarket. With so little sense of the real presence being exhibited during the sanctuary mob scene that precedes communion, it is perhaps less surprising that belief has seeped away. - Ralph McInerny


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None Will Miscarry or be Barren in Your Land

Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span. - Exodus 23:25-26