Catholic Apologetics #23
I’m asking you to personally make a Holy Hour of Reparation each week (at least once a week) and to encourage others to make a weekly Holy Hour of Reparation as well.
On June 16, 1675, Our Divine Savior appeared to St. Margaret Mary and in this apparition (later approved by the Church) He said to her:
“Behold this Heart which has so loved men that It has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love. But what I feel most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me, that treat Me thus. Therefore, I ask of you that the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi be set apart for a special Feast to honor My Heart, by communicating on that day, and making reparation to It by a solemn act, in order to make amends for the indignities which It has received during the time It has been exposed on the altars. I promise you that My Heart shall expand Itself to shed in abundance the influence of Its Divine Love upon those who shall thus honor It and cause It to be honored.”
This moving plea by Our Lord Himself is the origin of the annual Feast of the Sacred Heart. Devotion to the Sacred Heart and Eucharistic Adoration are very intricately linked. Our Lord asked not only for this annual feast but for routine acts of reparation for sins – particularly in reparation for offenses against His Heart. And this reparation can take place most appropriately before the True Flesh of the Heart of the Son of God Who is immolated on our altars and present under the external appearance of bread.
More than two centuries after the apparition to St. Margaret Mary we have the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Fatima. On July 13, 1917, the three child-seers were shown a vision in which “an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand” cries out in a loud voice: “Penance, Penance, Penance!” Then in August 1917, Mary said to the three children: “Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because they have no one to pray and make sacrifices for them.”
Pope Pius XI echoed these sentiments when he wrote, “If during His Sacred Passion the soul of Christ became sorrowful unto death because of our sins, which were as yet in the future but were foreseen, it cannot be doubted that then too He derived some comfort from our reparation which was then too foreseen.” He continues, “And so now, in a wonderous yet true manner, we can and ought to console that most Sacred Heart that is continually wounded by the sins of thankless men.”
In our world today, we have radical assaults on Jesus Christ and His Church. We have the most pro-abortion world we have ever seen. We have open assaults on the Sacrament of Matrimony. Divorce – once unthinkable for Catholics – has attacked the foundations of the family. We have all kinds of sacrileges, doubts, and attempts by secularists, atheists, communists, freemasons, modernists, and other enemies of the Church to eradicate Her teachings and to use public education to discredit and remove from history all that Holy Mother Church has done for the world.
Truly, there has never been a more important time in history for acts of reparation. There is an absolute need for devout Eucharistic Adoration and fervent Communions for the monstrous ways Our Lord is mistreated so openly today.
What are these ways by which He is offended? First and foremost, unworthy Communions (also known as sacrilegious Communions), when someone who is not in the state of grace receives the Blessed Sacrament. The Catechism of the Council of Trent states, “As of all the sacred mysteries bequeathed to us by our Lord and Savior as most infallible instruments of divine grace, there is none comparable to the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist; so, for no crime is there a heavier punishment to be feared from God than for the unholy or irreligious use by the faithful of that which contains the author and source of holiness.”
St. Cyril of Alexandria explains further the gravity when he says, “They who make a sacrilegious Communion receive Satan and Jesus Christ into their heart. Satan, that they may let him rule, and Jesus Christ that they may offer Him in sacrifice to Satan.”
That’s a sacrilegious Communion. That’s why it is so grave and evil, and truly few sins offend the Lord’s heart as much as this. Indeed, Our Lord told St. Bridget in a vision, “There does not exist on earth a punishment great enough to punish it sufficiently.”
So how can we possibly make reparation for the countless sacrilegious Communions taking place every Sunday? How can we possibly make reparation for all irreverent behavior in the presence of the Lord? People talking with each other like they are at a dinner service. Or how many people fail to genuflect to the Lord in the Tabernacle? Or how many people fail to treat the Lord worthily and allow themselves to neglect the Humble Lord who has deigned to come down to be eaten by us?
In the presence of the Lord’s tabernacle, there must be a quiet, reverential silence out of respect for the Lord Who is present before us. And yet how few parishes still maintain this silence in the actual church building where the Lord Himself is.
In one story, I heard about a man that was genuinely interested in becoming Catholic. After some conversation with a Catholic, he attended Mass for the first time at a rural parish in Montana. When the Catholic asked him a few days later how it went, the man remarked, “Why did you make up everything you told me?!” The Catholic said, “What do you mean?” The man exclaimed: “You told me that Jesus Christ is present in a Catholic church. That’s utter nonsense. If that was the case, there is no way the people would have worn what they were wearing. Or chit chatted and talked like they did. Or received Communion like they were in a line for a sample from the bakery at a supermarket. No, I can see from the way they behave that no one in that place believes a word of what you said a Catholic believes. I can’t believe a word you told me.”
And in our world now, there are even worse things done against the Lord. In a 2011 conference, the Chief Exorcist of Rome talked about how active occult and satanic practices are today. He said that on the Saturday before every major feast and on the day before every Marian feast, these Satanists in Rome gather from midnight until 3 AM (the hours furthest from those during which Our Lord was hanging on the Cross), and they celebrate the most heinous and horrible Black Masses of which I will not describe the details.
These Satanists steal consecrated Hosts and offer them to Satan during their diabolical acts. One of our acts of reparation must be specifically to make reparation for these heinous acts. Father Gruner once said (fully eight years ago, and undoubtedly the situation is even worse now) that demonic activity was worse than it had ever been in the whole history of the world.
Our priests and future priests need to be prepared for these demonic activities. I’m asking all of you to pray specifically that our priests receive the training and the graces they need to fight these battles. We have the Prayer of the Angel at Fatima as ammunition in this fight:
MOST Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee profoundly.
I offer Thee the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity
of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world,
in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges, and indifference
by which He is offended. And through the infinite merit
of His Most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary,
I beg of Thee the conversion of poor sinners. Amen.
The Chief Exorcist of Rome emphasized the power of this prayer for the purpose of reparation. We can also pray the Rosary in reparation. And we can make reparation by making a Holy Hour of Reparation. If you can, please make it a practice of making a holy hour at night during the time of midnight to 3 AM on Saturdays or on the vigil of great feasts and of Marian feasts.
For times when you can’t make it to an adoration chapel, please at least in prayer during those times ask your guardian angel to go before you and remain before the Lord in the tabernacle during those times. Your angel can do that. And yet how few times we think to send our angel to Mass or to the adoration chapel during the week when we can’t be there.
And finally, request Masses to be said solely for the intention of making reparation to the Lord. And if you can, attend that Mass and receive Communion with the intention of making reparation. The Raccolta specifically mentions an indulgence for such a meritorious act.
In summary:
- Make a Holy Hour of Reparation.
- Pray often the Prayer of the Angel at Fatima.
- Encourage others to make holy hours of reparation for the attacks against Our Lord in the Eucharist.
- Do all you can to encourage devout and sincere Eucharistic Adoration.
- Request Masses to be said for the sole intention of making reparation.
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