Yesterday I had a pretty upsetting experience with a liberal trendy nun during Mass in the hospital chapel (it’s actually taken me 1.5 years to realize that she is a nun (she dresses in normal clothes & the cross round her neck is easy to miss.) (I actually only realized for definite because her hospital chaplaincy badge says “sister…” on it)
Anyway, the reason for telling this tale is not to insult her, poor woman, she needs lots of prayers, but as an illustration of the lack of reverence and respect people have in their hearts for the Eucharist, and their lack of faith that it is truly Jesus.
So let us strive to love Him as much as we can, make sure we always do His will, and ask Him to help us with our own lack of faith and love…..all you have to do is tell Him that you really want to believe and love…or even that you want to want to! And He will help you.
Mary is especially gentle and loving at leading people to more perfect love for her son.
So yesterday during Mass the liberal trendy nun was the Eucharistic minister distributing the blood of Christ. Before communion she went up to the altar to receive the host and then the chalice.
The priest handed her the host, and it was half of his own big host which he had just consecrated (so it was a semi-circle shape).
He placed it in her hand, and then she took it, held onto it with both hands and really quite aggressively snapped it hard in half….and a big piece broke off and fell to the floor!
Oh how awful awful.
Thank God I was sitting on the front row; at the sound of the loud ‘crack’ as she broke the host in half I looked up and saw the piece of host falling to the ground….so I leapt forwards, picked it up and consumed it.
(I have seen enough accidental spillages of the blood of Christ, and dropped hosts in my time that I now don’t bother waiting to see if anyone else will sort it out, I just leap up and do it myself…but let’s not talk about spilled blood of Christ and other neglects of the body and blood of Christ, it gets me so upset).
So during communion I was thinking about what happened and realized that I couldn’t not say anything to the trendy nun after Mass…
I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe it was an accident and she was really upset that it happened…maybe she has some kind of medical problem and so *has* to break the host into a smaller piece (…but why so aggressively & violently? Couldn’t she be more careful?)
Anyway, after Mass I went straight up to her and said something like;
“Hi. I don’t know if you realized, but when you snapped the host in half a big piece broke off and fell onto the floor….please, be careful next time…if I hadn’t seen it it might’ve just been left there and someone might’ve stood in it….I don’t think you should be snapping the host in half anyway, but if you have to please please be more careful….that’s Jesus…”
As soon as I said “that’s Jesus” her mouth twitched upwards into the start of a smile…almost as if she was about to laugh at me because I said “that’s Jesus”.
Honestly, I’m not joking!
Her reaction was as if she couldn’t believe that I actually accept as true that “nonesense” and believed ‘that bit of bread’ was Jesus…and not just that, but that I’d actually SAID it out loud.
It was as if she couldn’t believe that I was actually so bothered about a bit of bread…
Her eyes even changed as if they were laughing…and then her mouth started twitching downwards as if she was still trying to suppress an uncontrollable laugh, as if I had just said something hilarious….
The immediate thought that flashed through my mind was “she doesn’t believe the host is truly Jesus. Keep talking about the Real Presence of the Eucharist because she doesn’t believe you…”
So then I said a bit more about why she should be careful, and how the host is really Jesus. I then said something about “love for Jesus” and she replied with “Oh trust me, I do love Jesus, I’m just not scrupulous.”
Not scrupulous?!!
What she means is that a bit of broken host isn’t important, it isn’t worth bothering about…it can fall to the floor, be stood in, be vacuumed up, who cares? It’s just a piece of bread; she’s ‘not scrupulous’ about things like that.
Not scrupulous?!
ABOUT JESUS’S BODY?!
HOW is it possible to be too careful, and too reverent and too respectful with God Himself?!!
That’s probably why she also broke the host so violently too.
How terribly terribly terribly sad. It’s beyond sad
Poor sweet Jesus, truly present for us as the most holy Eucharist and how neglectfully and indifferently we treat Him. Like He’s just a nothing.
We have to make up to Him for all the lack of love of the rest of the world; we have to love Him with our whole being, and love our neighbour profoundly, as He asked us to.
Let Him be proud of us, and let our heart be a place where He finds joy to dwell in because they are brimming over with joy.
Anyway, after this conversation I waited around in the Chapel and then I saw the Priest walking by so I decided to go and talk to him about what happened.
I couldn’t help myself but I soon as I started talking to him I burst into tears and just started crying. I was so upset at such lack of love. He said something consoling like “I know, it is awful.”
So let’s try extra hard this Lent to show Jesus EXTRA love, love that goes beyond our own selfishness; love that does MORE than just what we ‘feel’ like doing, what is ‘convenient’ and easy to do, and love that always always always places others first, before ourself….just as Jesus did, but putting US before His own life.
And let’s say a prayer for this nun, and the vast sea of people like her, and for our own lack of faith.
God’s mercy is infinite, and He always listens when His children call.
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10 comments:
Sadly Antonia this one of the many problems on the Church today. The worldyness of nuns/sisters. This is why vocations are suffering.
I am confused. Why did she break the host? Was she in the Communion line? How bizarre. I wonder why she would do that. Even worse is that she was not upset when she discovered what had happened. Bizarre. I should be careful what I say, but suffice it to say I have met some pretty atheistic nuns. It never ceases to disturb me. I just wonder, why, why do you want to pretend to be a nun if you don't even believe in it? Is it to cause more scandal?
I offered up a prayer for her, so now I feel I can comment.
We once had a parish priest who thought that I was being scrupulous about things in confession. You'll have to trust me, I'm NOT. It was more that I was suffering from mistakes I'd made before coming back to the Church.
The experience upset me for quite a while, and still makes me hesitant whenever I face a new priest in the confessional.
But, now I look at it as a way to identify with the mocking Jesus received during the "crowning with the thorns" or when He mentions being persecuted for the faith in the beatitudes. I'm in good company.
FWIW, THANK YOU for doing what you did, both in talking to the woman and in not failing to hesitate when you saw the consecrated Host fall to the ground!
You were absolutely right. Not only to prevent desecration of (part of) the sacred Host, but to speak to the nun concerned. Well done. Personally I probably would have picked up the Host off the ground; I probably would have hesitated first expecting someone else to do it.
And it's not just you and her Antonia; you were also setting example to the other people there at the Mass by picking up the sacred Host.
I can see why you were upset, I would have been too :(
Thankfully, not all Nuns are the same. As an Oblate, I am attached to a small convent of 11 Benedictine Nuns, most of whom are elderly, definitely NOT trendy, wear the full habit and scapular, with veil and wimple...and they are the most loving, reverent, humble and beautiful Nuns I have ever come across.
I too will pray for this Sister, with all my heart, and others who do not reverence the body and blood of Christ as they should.
AutumnRose xx
Antonia: I know you won't post this, but you are nuts. I work for "trendy" nuns and they are the greatest. Their concerns are for the poor and indigent and they carry that with them all the time. I feel very sorry for you.
Hi annonymous,
I'm sure that the vast vast vast majority of (so-called) 'trendy nuns' are wonderful holy women who have dedicated their lives to caring for others.
I wasn't suggesting otherwise in this post.
I was merely commenting on the objective actions of one nun, who happened to be a 'trendy nun'.
God bless you for your great concern for the Real Presence. I hope that if I were ever in a similar situation, I would perform as well as you did.
Another reason to ban communion in the hand. Disterous idea. And get rid of Communion under both species and then there won't be need for dissenting fools like this trendy nun, that also want to be extra-ordinary ministers of the Eucharist.
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