CHURCHES WITHOUT TABERNACLES-IS THIS POSSIBLE?

As a wise mother, Our Lady at Garabandal led us gently and gradually into the fullness of her message. She began by feeding us milk. Only later did she feed us food that was hard to digest. Her first message of 1961 was so simple that people were greatly disappointed and felt let down. Her message of 1965 shook them up so much that they found it hard to accept.

We find this contrast between the two Eucharistic messages of Garabandal. In 1961, Our Lady simply spoke of visiting the Blessed Sacrament. There was nothing earthshaking in this. But what she said in 1965 about bad cardinals, bishops and priests, who are all ministers of the Eucharist, and what she implied in her statement that “less and less importance was being given to the Eucharist,” is quite another matter.

What did she mean by that statement? One of the things that she was quite surely alluding to was new theological teachings about the Eucharist, teachings that began to appear in magazine articles and in books in the mid-sixties and that so disturbed Pope Paul VI that he wrote an Encyclical on the Eucharist, Mysterium Fidei. In it he reaffirmed our faith and traditional teaching on this fundamental dogma. This displeased certain theologians who criticized the Encyclical and watered down its authority.

One of the modern theories on the Eucharist would have us believe that Jesus does not remain in the consecrated bread after the Communion of the Mass. If Jesus is no longer present, why should this bread be kept in a tabernacle? And why should we have tabernacles in our churches? This new and unorthodox teaching has affected and disturbed more priests than the average Catholic realizes. Is it utterly unrealistic to say that the day may well come when some priests will no longer keep the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle of their church or will even remove the tabernacle? Who would have dared predict that the day would come when a priest would rip apart a rosary in the pulpit or take prayer beads from people as they leave the church? Yet, both have happened.

Pray and offer sacrifices for priests who are presently being tortured with doubts about the Eucharist because of these new teachings. Pray much and offer many sacrifices that the day may never come when your tabernacles are empty or your churches are without tabernacles.