CHRISTIANS BELIEVE CRAZY THINGS, BUT OPEN THE CHURCHES, PLEASE

13 Aprile 2020 Pubblicato da Marco Tosatti

Marco Tosatti

But God can be prayed everywhere – my fifteen year old daughter answered me – who was for years in school at Pius IX on the Aventine, a school run by religious brothers (!). (And it was there that she made her First Communion).

So what do you care if you can’t go to church?

She’s right. God can be prayed everywhere, and that’s what fortunately many people do.

His words were providential in a certain way.

I realized how difficult it is to explain to people how strange, different, particular Christians are; and Catholics in particular.

Christians believe astonishing, and absurd things: that a virgin has become pregnant with the Holy Spirit, and that she has given birth to a son, man and God.

Christians believe that this man-God performed incredible miracles: he resurrected the dead by four days, gave sight to the blind, legs to the crippled, and brought back to life the dead girls, not to mention some facts reported by the Gospels.

Christians believe that this man-God, tortured and put to death on the cross, rose from the grave after three days, leaving behind him an incredible object, the Shroud, which science still cannot explain, let alone replicate.

But Catholics (and Orthodox) go even further.

They believe that during Mass, – every Mass! – an incredible miracle is performed (incredible, if they were not there, to strengthen their faith, Eucharistic miracles, which still happen now); and that is that the host and the wine become (not a symbology, they BECOME) Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

And they believe that He – IS – sacramentally in person in all the consecrated species on the surface of the earth, at the same time as He is always in heaven, at the right hand of His Father.

But He is also in the Host, and in the wine; that they, the faithful, can eat and drink.

They believe that in the consecrated Host, kept in the tabernacle, there is Jesus, and that by going to a church in whose tabernacle consecrated Hosts are kept, they go to see Jesus; and then I can spend time in his company, because – He is – there at that moment, in person, before me.

And that is why Catholics know Eucharistic adoration, and they practice it: they keep company – company, physically, personally – with Jesus Christ, who is not something that is sprayed on the earthly orb, but is there, in person, a Person.

Strange things, Catholics believe. And because they believe these strange things they have died, and they are dying, and they will die as martyrs. Because for many of them these things are more important than physical life.

Madness for the Gentiles, scandal for the Jews…

A religion so physical, so bodily, so carnal, so unspiritualistic.

And so uncomfortable for the world.

But – I go back to the initial words – yes, it’s true, God can be prayed everywhere.

But Jesus the Christ, in person, you can meet Him, – and consume Him – there, in the churches.

Which for this reason should be open, always.

With intelligence, with caution, with caution, with masks and safe distances.

But open.