Desecration of Hosts: The body of Christ picked up from the ground.
(Paris) A man received Holy Communion at Sunday Mass, crushed it and threw it on the ground. The sacrilege happened on January 17 in Paris. The priest's exemplary response and what is not said.
The serious incident took place in the Saint-Esprit parish church in the 12th Arrondissement. Built between 1928 and 1935, the Church of the Holy Spirit is called the "Byzantium of Paris" because it is modeled on the famous Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, now Istanbul. Nothing of this can be seen from the outside, as the church is integrated into a row of houses.
When Parish Vicar Simon Fornier de Violet, the youngest of the four priests serving in the parish, was administering Communion that Sunday at 11 a.m. Mass, a man also came who received the Body of Christ through Communion in the hand. Instead of putting it in his mouth, he raised it in front of his face, demonstratively crumbled it and dropped it on the floor.
The man, the priest later confirmed, was crushing the consecrated Host in his hand. When the priest caught himself, he grabbed the man's jacket. He replied: "For Nadia" and disappeared into the crowd. "So it was planned. It was premeditated," the priest told Aleteia .
The young priest then asked the other believers to stand back and keep their distance. Then he picked up the crumbled body of Christ from the ground.
“The desecration of the body of Christ is far more serious than desecrating a statue or stealing church property. It is the most serious thing that can be celebrated liturgically and sacramentally,” said the priest.
The year 2022 began in France with several church desecrations. Père Fornier de Violet speaks of a "wave of attacks from the devil". Such wave movements have repeatedly occurred in history. The priest seems convinced that such a wave is underway today:
“The powers of evil are unleashed, it is a way of testing the church to trust in God and to remember that the devil was defeated by Christ. This man who crushed the host was under the influence of the devil.”
At the end of the Mass, Father Fornier de Violet explained to the faithful gathered in the church what had happened. He did it for those who had not seen the event themselves, but also for the children who were preparing for First Communion and who, in the first pews, could observe everything closely, but perhaps did not understand.
He then carried the gleaned body of Christ with him on the exodus:
“We walk among the people of God with the broken body of the Lord. There is something prophetic and dramatic about it.”
In the sacristy, Father Arnaud Duban dissolved the broken communion in water. After the prayer provided for this purpose, “let us mix this water with the earth”.
On January 19, a Mass was celebrated in reparation for the sacrilege. This was also used "to help believers and children to get a proper understanding of the sanctity of the body of Christ."
“Evil must be met face to face. You have to call a spade a spade,” says Père Fornier de Violet.
The “tragedy” that occurred, the priest said, “should also help us to worship and respect more the body of Christ”.
However, the young vicar did not go into detail about naming those responsible, namely the bishops. In 1969 in France, they introduced .[sacrilegious] hand Communion by means of a dispensation in addition to Communion on the tongue. Paul VI had made such a dispensation possible with the instruction Memoriale Domini of the Congregation for Worship in May of that year . Under the pretext of an alleged pandemic, categorical communion in the hand was imposed on the dioceses by the French Bishops' Conference, including the Archbishop of Paris, although they have neither the right nor the authority to do so.
The Parisian Church of the Holy Spirit is modeled after the famous Hagia Sophia in Constantinople.
Abuse of the eucharist is bad
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