Sacrilege

Last night some persons entered the buildings of the sisters who live in Dulce Nombre, Las Oblatas al Divino Amor. There have been two previous forced entries into their building. The sisters enforced the bars on the windows, but this time they entered from the back of the buildings.

The intruders broke open the tabernacle in the chapel and stole the ciborium. They left the consecrated hosts on the floor in another room – on top of some folders.  The sisters recovered them and put them in their private chapel.

Thursdays in Dulce Nombre and in many other places in the parish there is adoration of the Eucharist all day long with a Holy Hour and Mass in the evening. We will have the Holy Hour in the room where the hosts were found, starting at 10 am, and adoration in the chapel where the tabernacle was forcibly opened. I asked the bishop to see if a priest could come for the 7:00 pm Mass, since our pastor is out of town.

The sisters are a bit shaken up – and I too feel saddened at this sacrilege. I wonder, too, what impelled the perpetrators to do this. How could they treat the holy the Body of Christ, as a mere thing, in order to get something that might bring them some money?

I do not want to undermine the seriousness of this but I cannot help think also about other cases where what is holy – a human person – is treated as a thing. In particular, I am thinking of cases of the violation of a thirteen-year old girl, the death threats a woman is receiving, and much more.

I find it hard to separate these atrocities. God is violated in too many ways.

Tomorrow, I’ll be at the Holy Hour and conclude it with Benediction and then placing the monstrance with the Eucharist on the altar of the chapel that was profaned. I will also be working on some efforts to protect children. 

I cannot help but keep them together in my heart.

I feel that this is another way to live out my vocation as a deacon. 

The chapel and the houses of the poor are related; both house the presence of God, in different ways. But God is there. The deacon can help show the connection – and open our hearts to God.

Eucharistic procession, Christ the King Sunday, 2019