A few years ago, I received a phone call from my dear Aunt. She called to ask for my prayers and to share a story. She had been renting out a building to a local business, a small gift shop, and the gift shop owner decided it was time to retire. So my aunt advertised for a new tenant, and got a call from a lady who was very excited about the location and wanted to move in.
My aunt asked, well, what kind of business do you run. And the lady said, well, I offer “astrological services”—she does horoscopes, and palm readings, and crystal attunements. My aunt, said, “I’m going to have to call you back.” So, my aunt drove to church and made a holy hour and prayed before the blessed Sacrament, and asked the Lord’s help, to give her the words she needed to handle this situation with charity.
The next day, my aunt called the astrologer back, and told her that she was not going to rent the building out to her because astrology and occult practices are against her religion. The astrologer asked her, “well what religion are you?” My aunt said, “well, I’m Roman Catholic”. And all of a sudden, the astrologer explodes about how the Church is filled with hypocrites and bigots and unloads all this hateful stuff about Catholics. And my aunt says, “I’m sorry you believe but, may God bless you” and she hangs up.
I think she handled the situation quite well.
So, she calls me up her nephew, the priest, and asks for prayers for the astrologer and also for herself, that she may be protected from any sort of demonic attacks that might be coming her way. I said of course.
I told her about how I used to pray to the Blessed Mother every time I passed this other astrologer-psychic medium shop in my hometown, and, after five years it closed. My aunt said, I wasn’t alone: a couple ladies from the parish went in that shop with some blessed salt and holy water, and were also praying, for a number of years.
Astrology and horoscopes and occultism, are based on the idea that one can find guidance for which to order ones life by harnessing hidden knowledge—what scripture and the catechism call divining or divination. Thomas Aquinas says, “Divination takes its name not from a rightly ordered share of something divine, but from an undue usurpation thereof, as stated above.” Like Adam and Eve in the garden, divining is human grasping of what properly belongs to God.
So, The Catechism says, “All forms of divination are to be rejected: consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, recourse to mediums, recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead, contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.”
Adam and Eve thought the forbidden fruit would satisfy them, just as Everyone who steps inside of an astrologer’s shop is looking for truth—is looking for happiness. In a sense they go to the astrologer’s shop for the same reason enter the Church. GK Chesterton said, “Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God.” But the big difference, obviously, between the astrologer’s shop and the church is that God is really here! The bread of life that truly satisfies is here. God incarnate, feeds us with the bread of life, his flesh and blood, here.
Our Gospel reading this week continues from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, continuing Jesus’ teaching on the Bread of Life—the Eucharist. So, what does this story about occultism and astrology have to do with the Eucharist?
The astrology shop, the fortune teller only offer an artificial, demonic substitute to God, as do all of the sin peddlers of our culture. But the occult and every other sinful pursuit, in the end leaves us emptier, sadder, more damaged. Many people who have fallen into the occult have opened their lives to terrible dark forces and diabolical influence—disordered and damaged psyches and souls that come from cavorting with evil.
We do well to pray for young people to be kept safe from these things. For it seems like again occultism is on the rise. There’s a fortune teller on Lorain down the street, a witchcraft store in lakewood, a coven that meets in rocky river.
But in the Eucharist, the Bread of Life, God has given us the food that truly satisfies. Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
He knows that we long for Him, so he’s gathered us here. We long for God, and it is here, that our holy longing, our holy hunger is satisfied. Here at Mass we receive the true bread of life, not a diabolical substitute, but the real thing.
The difference between astrology and the Eucharist is the difference between divination and divinization. By divination man grasps out into the stars for the truth, in the Eucharist, truth has come from heaven to transform man from the inside.
The Eucharist is not the forbidden fruit, but the food given by God to satisfy our deepest longings. It is the source of Christian life because whoever shares in the Eucharist receives the strength to live as a true Christian.
Sometimes, people will say that they don’t like coming to Mass because they don’t get anything out of it. How can that be, when God feeds us with the Bread from heaven. This disdain for Mass, often comes from earthly attachments, having stuffed oneself throughout the week with those artificial substitutes. It can also come from failing to prepare well for these meal. Quality prayer through the week, meditation on Scripture, prayerfully recognizing one’s dependance on God, creates a hunger for the true God made flesh. We get more out of Mass, when we put more into Mass.
In the Eucharist, Our Lord has opened his heart for us, he gives us the bread of life at the cost of his life. Pray to recognize and appreciate his suffering, his sacrifice. For in the Eucharist we share the fruit of Calvary, the fruit of the cross, the new tree of life. “For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
At this Holy Mass, may our hunger and love for the Bread of Life be purified, that we may overcome all hardness of hearts or coldness toward the Eucharist, and be strengthened against our tendency to search for Him in all the wrong places, that we may come to the fullness of life through Him for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
No comments:
Post a Comment