I've been asked to help publicise the Blessed Sacrament Procession this Saturday 20th October starting at Westminster Cathedral at 3pm and processing to St George's Cathedral at Southwark for Benediction at 4.15pm. A great thing for as many people as possible to go along to and give public witness to one of the great Truths of the Faith - Our Lord's Real Presence among us in the Most Holy Eucharist.
What a great thing this would be for all our cathedrals to put in in the Year of Faith. Here in my own diocese I understand that there was some suggestion of a large Blessed Sacrament Procession between the Blessed Sacrament Shrine in Liverpool city centre and the Cathedral for the Jubilee Year of 2000 but for some reason it never came to anything. Obviously, the presence of the Blessed Sacrament Fathers ministering in the heart of the city is a wonderful focus and witness to the Faith and a Blessed Sacrament Procession through the streets of Liverpool city centre with parishes from all over the diocese taking part would be a fine public act of devotion and witness for the Year of Faith.
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Ah, yes, the Year of the Faith. But which faith? My grand-daughter, who attends a Catholic school, threw some A4-sized papers from her school work into my waste basket. I picked them out to tear up into smaller parts and noticed written on one of the pages this text (spelling as in original).
"Dear Diary: I have just finished my pilgrimage through mecca, it was really tiering, but I was amazed how many people went. I was really clostrophobic when I went to kiss the kaba but it was worth it. Although the girls dressed simple it was still boiling hot we had to run in all our clothes."
So, I ask again, which faith is being taught to our children? How many of our children would join in a Blessed Sacrament Procession? Would they know what such a procession entails? Would they know what the 'Real Presence' means? I wonder if they would think it 'worth it' to kneel before the Blessed Sacrament? My grand-daughter's school is in the diocese of Hexham and Newcastle but I have no doubt that it is no different to many (most?) other dioceses in this country. Our children are being systematically denied the faith in the deliberate pursuit of ecumenism and multiculturism. A Year of the Faith is no good whatsoever if our bishops and priests continue to sanction the teaching of heretical and atheistic programmes to our youngsters. I wait with hope rather than expectation that one bishop, just one, will announce the reintroduction of the penny catechism to his schools as his contribution to the Year of the Faith.
Following on from the last comment a priest acquaintance of mine, and left wing and liberal in his views, also has a despair that the Faith, through its school syllabuses, (syllabi ?) is not getting across. I have taught in Catholic schools most of my career and have noticed that the children do not necessarily 'get' the Faith. So one does not have to be a right-winger, as are most of the respondents to this blog, to have a concern about the passing on of the Faith.
It is, of course, obvious that until one has knowledge of the Faith as it is, then and only then can one have a debate about it!!
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