A Reading and Prayer Regarding the Angels

from 'Devotion to the Nine Choirs of Holy Angels' by Bouden (www.saintsbooks.net)

Our churches, and even altars, have angels who guard them; and they gather in troops around the tabernacles where reposes the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, to pay their court to their Sovereign. Many Saints have beheld them paying their adoration to their great King and ours. A holy hermit was told by an angel himself that he had the guardianship of an altar, and that he had never left it since its consecration. It is to these angels we ought often to have recourse, that they may supply for our negligences, our tepidity, and our want of respect in presence of a God of Infinite Majesty in the Most Blessed Sacrament; that they may appease His anger, justly irritated by so many irreverences committed in our churches, and that they may open the eyes of Christians, and those the greater number, who give such little heed to the veneration due to our temples. It is good to associate ourselves with these heavenly spirits, uniting our reverence and love with theirs, and, after the example of the Psalmist, sing the praises of God in their sight.

And here, O my Lord and my God, suffer me to sigh and pour forth my heart before Thy Divine Majesty, because of the deplorable blindness of Thy people, who are the people of light. Is it, then, Thou, O God, Infinitely Adorable, who art hidden with all Thy perfections under the veil of the Eucharistic species? Is it Thy Body, Thy Blood, Thy Soul, Thy Divinity which is really and truly present in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar? Is it possible that men still retain any faith in these most indubitable truths? Or is it an illusion — this that is so visible and palpable to us every day in the treatment Thou receivest in this august mystery? Our hair stands on end, and our whole body trembles with dread, when we consider the abominable profanations of this Sacrament of love committed by sorcerers, and the impieties practised by heretics towards this adorable mystery. But who could have conceived the irreverence of the faithful, of those who believe and who fear, and who declare themselves ready to die for this truth, that Thou, O my God, O Adorable Jesus! art most truly present in the Divine Eucharist! Ye angels of Heaven, what a spectacle does such blindness present to you! Ah! we may well say that your patience takes its rule from that of the meek Saviour, for you to be able to endure such irreverences. No; we must declare it before the face of Heaven and earth: we cannot recover from our astonishment, we are lost in amazement, when we consider darkness so appalling. O my God, O my God! are we living in a Catholic country? Are our churches and altars in the possession of the faithful? Have these people, whom we see trooping in crowds to them, any vestige of faith? Is there anything to give us pleasure in what we there witness? And if there be any truth in all we believe, can we live, can we possibly continue, in a place where our Master is so unworthily treated?

Listen, O Christians! and listen attentively. It is an indubitable truth that in the minutest particle of the Most Holy Sacrament the great God of everlasting ages is really present. All Catholics confess this. But what care is taken to prevent the profanations which hence may occur? Oh! how many priests are there, little instructed in the holy rubrics, or little intent on the care of the Adorable Body of a God, who give scarcely any heed diligently to collect the particles which may remain on the paten, or on the corporal! The generality of portable altars are so small that the sacred chalice cannot be moved a little on one side or backward, in order to allow the paten to be placed further on the corporal, and the corporal itself to be raised, so that the particles which adhere to it may fall easily on the paten; hence it frequently happens that the Body of the Son of God remains there, and falls to the ground, or is carried away with the corporals when they are taken to be washed. How often may one see corporals so ragged or so dirty as to send a revulsion to the heart! Experience shows that in religious houses, where a paten is used at the grate in time of communion, or some red or green taffety — because upon linen the particles of the Sacred Host, being also white, would be undiscernible — experience, I say, shows that often many particles are imperceptibly detached from the Blessed Sacrament; consequently, in places where there is only an ordinary linen cloth, they either fall on the cloth or on the ground, unless the priest takes extreme care to carry the ciborium in such a manner as that it shall always be underneath the Sacred Host, which is often almost impossible. If they fall on the cloth they also fall to the ground; for at each fresh communion the cloth is dropped, and no further attention is given to it; it is afterwards folded up without being examined, and were it otherwise, these little particles, which are well-nigh imperceptible, could not be discovered on account of the linen being white. Here, then, is the Body of a God trodden underfoot and sometimes under the shoes of a vile creature!

How many tabernacles are there in which spiders and dust are allowed to harbour, and which are so imperfectly closed that people would not endure to have in their houses wardrobes containing the most trifling things so in- secure and so dirty! How many priests leave the tabernacle key in the church, instead of locking it up by another key, and carrying that key away, which they ought to do, if they do not take away the key of the tabernacle itself! And how many profanations result from this want of care! We speak advisedly. How often are miserable rags shamelessly employed to cover ciboriums in which are contained the Divinity, the Soul, the Body, and tbe Blood of the Adorable Jesus! And yet Christians know and see these things, and scarcely any one thinks of providing a remedy. You hear people say — O my God! how often have I heard it! how often has it been said to me — "We have no money to buy a little linen to make corporals and purificatories;" the poorest peasants will contrive to have enough for their shirts and collars; but as for Thee, my God, Thou hast not credit enough to raise as much!

Oh! ye gentlemen and ladies, who have so much fine linen, so much handsome furniture, so much silver plate, and that sometimes even for the meanest uses, what will you say at the day of judgment? Ye pastors, who are entrusted with the care of this Adorable Body, what will you answer Him ? Will it be a sufficient excuse for you to allege on that dreadful day that the Church was too poor to provide corporals, or to pay for a decent ciborium or chalice? The retrenchment of a banquet, of a few dinners, or of some other expense, would more than suffice — I mean, for ciborium and chalice, to the corporals, two crowns or less would be enough and indeed they are sometimes so narrow that the priest after consecration, can scarcely keep his hands on them. You will see a pewter chalice in a gentleman's chapel; and in the chapels of not a few ecclesesiastics who are in the receipt of good revenues, we see the same thing, and a very scanty supply of linen and ornaments for the sacred altar. But is it possible that what we are saying is true ? Is there any faith in the Holy Sacrament still surviving among Christian? Is the thought not enough to rend the heart in twin with grief? Who will give me a voice of thunder, may call aloud to the children of men throughout the whole earth, and reproach them with their hardness and deadness of heart?

O angels of Paradise! I turn to you, knowing the insensibility of men: do you take charge — I conjure you, I entreat this favour of you, prostrate at your feet in the bitterness of my heart, and bathed in tears you take charge of the Body of our Sovereign, over every particle of the Sacred Host; inspire with a holy solicitude to preserve them in perfect cleanliness before consecrating them, and to use every means to prevent the profanation of those that served after consecration. Stimulate all prelate; deacons, and other visitors of churches, to give diligent heed that the Body of a God may be treated and preserved with all possible respect. Enlighten more and more the minds of those who have the training of ecclesiastics in the seminaries, that they may give the necessary instructions in a matter of such importance. Order it so that the subject may be introduced and discussed in clerical conferences, and taken concerning the needful remedies to be applied. Touch the hearts of such as are possessed of the means, that in the different dioceses associations may be formed for collecting funds to provide ciboriums, chalices, and corporals. I know from my own personal experience, derived from the great number of visitations which my office obliges me to make in the course of the year, that with a little zeal it would be easy in a few years, through the exertions of the bishop, the archdeacons, the parish priests, the nobility, and a few other persons in easy circumstances, to provide decent tabernacles, ciboriums of silver, or, in places liable to be robbed, ciboriums of copper, into the interior of which a sort of silver cup might easily be fitted with perfect exactness, wherein to deposit the Sacred Hosts: the cost would be small, two crowns or thereabouts sufficing. This sort of ciborium is quite as suitable as the little silver boxes commonly employed, and is better adapted for use, because it holds a larger number of Hosts, which are not exposed, as in the little boxes, to sundry risks which occur when they are used for giving communion at Easter and other solemn festivals, at which times a great concourse of persons approach the Holy Tabl ; it would be easy, I say, to have decent tabernacles as well as ciboriums, to make use of none but silver chalices, and to furnish every church and chapel with proper corporals and purificatories.

Sublime intelligences, loving guardians of chapels, make known the miserable state in which they are left; cause them to be carefully visited, for very often they are quite neglected, and it is the parish church alone which is visited; the consequence of which is, that the very names of the incumbents are scarcely known, who frequently never set foot in them, eat up the revenues with impunity, disregard the charges attached to them, or acquit themselves only of a part of them, and expend nothing on the maintenance of these chapels or priories but leave them in a lamentable condition, without ornaments, without furniture, so that they look rather like barns or stables than sanctuaries appropriated to the consecration of the Body and Blood of a God.

Oh! what a reckoning shall prelates have to give of these places, where the most august of our sacred mysteries is treated with such habitual irreverence through their want of care: and here I must not omit to mention a circumstance which I have observed during my visitations. If a church lacks a banner or a pall, great eagerness is shown to obtain the money to provide one; if the subject be mentioned, everybody listens, and is ready to lend his aid; all exclaim against the disgrace; and although the expense may be pretty considerable, means are found to meet it. But let a couple of crowns be wanted to put a ciborium in decent order, after the manner described above, or to purchase corporals, every one is silent, no one cares to listen. Such is the utter blindness of Christians, proof sufficient of the hardness of hearts and the want of faith. Sometimes people will object to having a ciborium or chalice of silver; they will insist that a pewter one will answer the purpose very well, that it has been hitherto deemed sufficient; and a wish will be expressed to convert the church plate into money. I earnestly commend the matter to pious souls, that they may devise some means of remedying such a deplorable state of things; and I conjure with tears all whose hearts are touched with zeal for the glory of the Adorable Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament, to practise frequent devotions in honour of the holy angels, and especially of those who abide in our churches, who encompass the Most Holy Sacrament, and who keep watch over altars, that they may ask pardon of the Divine Majesty for our irreverence, our coldness, our blindness, our insensibility; and that they may inspire us with the knowledge of the suitable means to obtain for this Mystery of Love the respect which is Its due.

...

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!