Is Holy Communion a Right?

okay this is the follow-up oh man all right here we go [Music] hi my name is father mike schmitz and this is ascension presents last week we put out a video that talked about um how we have to be prepared to receive holy communion that there's actually some things that can prohibit us from receiving holy communion in fact if we're aware of mortal sin if we're standing outside the church if we're like in not living a congruent life with christianity if we're not a practice another way to say it is if we're not a practicing catholic if i'm aware of mortal sin and i have not yet gone to confession another way to say it another one i didn't even mention this but if i've not fasted an hour before holy communion i can't receive all the communion i mean that's another one that's not a mortal sin that's why sometimes people will say like oh you know father i want to go up and receive a blessing but everyone's going to think that i committed a mortal sin well a that's their problem because they shouldn't be watching and they shouldn't be making conclusions drawing conclusions b it also could just be that you accidentally bit into a cookie before you went to mass right ultimately what it comes down to when it comes to the mortal sin thing or i'm standing outside the church i'm living a life in opposition to the lord um i need to go to confession i need to repent before receiving all the communion so we already said that we talked about that it was a longish video but here we are because i want to clarify some things i was talking with a parent about this topic uh before the video even came out and at one point they said that you know their adult child their grown child had said you know because they had told their child you know you need to go to confession um if you haven't haven't been practicing catholic you need to go to confession before we receive holy communion um because as the lord himself well as god's word speaks through saint paul if you don't you're guilty of murder of jesus okay so and this young man said um oh so you're saying the church doesn't want me oh so i get it there's i'm not welcome in the church the church doesn't want me i had to um even as this parent was relating this to me i had to like push down some of the emotions i'm not a very i don't think i'm very hot-headed and i had to like nope and i was like that is that is and i was just like are you kidding me i'm not welcome because the church actually has standards i'm not welcome because jesus himself what does jesus say jesus is he's not welcome he's not just welcome for everybody he he invites people he says come follow me but keep in mind when it came to following jesus there were conditions in fact the gospels have this conditions for discipleship if you want to be my disciple says the lord deny yourself pick up your cross and follow me that it's not just do whatever you want think whatever you want act however you want and then we're fine we're all good and of course we have to understand this right so every single one of us and this is not one particular sin this is not one particular way that we we we fail to follow the lord this is every single one of us is in need of repentance right every one of us including the person talking to you right now is in need of saying okay lord what parts of my life are are what i want to do and they're not conforming to your will we have the online masses right on this platform ascension presents um so there's a homily on the online masses but i also do a podcast of the homilies and that's at like umd newman i think on spotify and itunes and all that stuff one of the points i was making was it's ephesians chapter five and it's you know it talks about how saint paul says submit to one another out of reverence for christ and then says why submit to your husbands husbands love your wives right everyone's favorite reading surrender to each other basically marriage in in saint paul's view should be a race to see who can submit to the other that husbands submit to your wives surrender to one another out of reverence christ why submit to your husbands it should be a race to submit a race to surrender now how good of a spouse would you be would one be if they said oh no no of course i i surrender to my my spouse all the time like whenever they want me to do something that i was already planning on doing i will do it right away like you know right that doesn't make any sense every time oh man i i completely i race to submit to my spouse um whenever they ask me to do something that i was already planning on doing i do it so fast we realize that's that's not the same thing like we realize that that is completely different but that's how many of us approach our faith we say that yeah as long as i already agree with christ's teachings we're good as long as i already agree with the church's teachings then i have no problem with that whatsoever as long as it was something i was already planning on doing i have faith but that's not what it is to have faith that's just trying to find like a spiritual reason to do what i was already gonna do faith is faith really comes into play when faith comes into play when i actually have to do what's with saint jesus what jesus said to do which is to deny myself pick up my cross and follow after him to say actually i'm not gonna do what i wanted to do because lord your word trumps my will father in heaven your will trumps my will even jesus prays this in the garden of gethsemane he says you know father let this gut pass from me but not my will but your will be done so so we realize this right so i'm not welcome in the church yes you are but you and i both we all have to repent and go to confession in order to be reconciled with the lord and with the church in order to receive holy communion so someone could go on and say well why do i need to go to confession for that you know like i can have mortal sin and still go to mass and still receive all the communion hey you can go to mass please do but b not receive holy communion why because here's you you realize that the moment of receiving holy communion is mode of intimacy right it's a moment where here is god who gives him us his very body and blood it i don't want to be too graphic here but it is a moment that's akin to the most intimate moment in a couple's marriage relationship right so we recognize that that here is uh this the sexual embrace the most intimate moment where the husband says to the wife this is my body and the wife says to the husband and this is my body given for you at the mass at holy communion that is what's happening now how healthy would it be if this husband and wife had a rift right that the husband was living as if he wasn't really married his wife if the wife was living as if she wasn't really married if they had some kind of uh division between the two of them but they simply said well you know what we're married so let's enter the sexual embrace without any reconciliation first we'd realize that that's not that's not going to help anything like that's actually going to hurt things because why because we're simply in this moment we're willing to use each other in this moment of intimacy and so this moment of intimacy becomes a moment of devastation right this moment of intimacy becomes a moment of division and another rub by to interrupt this incredible deep moment i'm trying to make this moment of intimacy is interrupted and it's not just interrupted it's distorted and becomes a moment of division and the same thing happens if i'm not reconciled to the lord and to the church before receiving holy communion last thing you know that the priests priests have been given this uh ministry of reconciliation saint paul says in second corinthians we know that jesus also said um to the apostles he says those who send you he breathes on in john chapter 20 he says i breathes on them and says receive the holy spirit those whose sins you forgive are forgiven them those who sins you hold bound are held bound and so this is a question some people have asked me they've said father have you ever had to hold bound have you ever had to like someone's gone to confession you haven't forgiven their sins um because that's part of the job that's part of the ministry god has christ has given to his priests those who sin you forgive are forgiven those who sins you hold bound are hell-bound i'm not going to judge people's hearts but we must judge people's actions in certain situations certain situations we'd say nope i don't have to judge i don't even have to get involved but if someone's coming to me for confession and they're living a life contrary to the lord and they're not intending to change then basically it's saying hey can i come back without really coming back the example is i remember there was a couple times and it's almost always the same thing um talking to young man this wasn't actually in confession we were getting prepped for confession he wanted to go to confession for a number of things that he really genuinely felt bad about badly about it's an adverb and modifies the verb to feel anyways but he was living with his girlfriend and he had no intention of moving out he had no intention of of even beginning to kind of live his brother and sister and then to find their own places eventually there's no intention whatsoever he's like no i'm gonna go back to live with her. and so i'm like i i'm so sorry i tried to convince him like try to be like okay but this is part of what conversion is i can't say god i only want to forgive these sins but i'm going to continue living in this other sins and it was you guys it was one of the one of the most difficult moments for me as a priest like i've been with people as they're dying i've been with people in the midst of grief they've lost lost their loved ones i i mean just it there'd been a lot of difficult moments in my my life as a priest these times when i have to say to someone who wants to be reconciled for some some things but is not willing to let everything go not willing to actually repent i would say is the hardest the worst worst moments of being a priest because i want to be what saint paul says in second corinthians a minister of reconciliation but if someone doesn't want to come home i can't make them come home and so when it comes to like denying communion when it comes to denying confession i don't think i don't think anybody would ever take joy in it but at the same time it's part of the role that christ entrusted to his priests again not to judge hearts but to judge um actions to assess actions we'll say that and to be able to say um [Music] i forgive you in the name of christ or in the name of christ go and convert repent and then come come home that's what i got today and i hope it makes sense and i hope that you recognize like just the that heart of the father who wants all of us to come to him but if we're going to come to him we actually have to do what he's asked us to do as jesus said deny yourself pick up your cross and follow him which means all of us have to surrender and say god not my will your will be done anyways that's what i got from all of us here to presents my name is father mike god bless

Channel: Ascension Presents

Views: 130,162

Keywords: Fr. Mike, Fr. Mike Schmitz, Ascension Presents, Ascension, Ascension Youtube, Ascension Press, Father Mike Schmitz, Fr. Mike advice, Father Mike advice, fr. mike schmidt, abortion, eucharist, mortal sin, denied communion, excommunication, biden denied communion, bishops denying communion, denying holy communion, canon 915, pro-choice catholic, politicians denied communion, catholic politicians, receiving unworthily, supporting abortion, president biden catholic, Nancy Pelosi

Id: SSKOQF9Zw2M

Length: 10min 29sec (629 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 25 2021