I don’t think St. Petery Julian Eymard would be very impressed with our churches today…

St. Peter Julian Eymard, I think, would be most disappointed with the design and decor of the vast majority of Catholic parishes today.  From Volume 1 of the Eymard Library, The Real Presence:

Yes we feel the need of seeing and feeling our Lord near us, and of honoring Him with our gifts.

If our Lord required of us nothing more than interior homage, He would fail to satisfy one of man’s imperious needs; we cannot love without manifesting that love through outward signs of friendship and affection.

That is why the strength of a people’s faith may be easily rated from its gifts to the churches.

If the altar candles are numerous, if the sacred linen is clean, if the vestments are neat and in good condition, oh! that is a sign of faith!

But if a church is without proper vestments for the service of our Lord and looks more like a prison than a church, faith is lacking. [Ahem.  I can think of more than a few Catholic churches today that look more like an auditorium or a gymnasium than a church, if not a prison]

How miserably we fail in our country in this respect! [And this, in the land of Chartres and Notre Dame]

People give to every form of charity, but beg something for the Most Blessed Sacrament and they do not know what you are talking about.

……Is the King then to go in rags………..?  We have not the right kind of faith, a faith that is practical, a faith that loves; we have only a negative, speculative faith. We are Catholic in name but protestant in practice.  [Wow.  If he said thus in 19th century France, what would he think of the state of the Church today.  Indeed, what would all the great Saints think of the Church today?  What do they think?  Do they weep, or do they know that what we are experiencing is part of God’s plan, that the final end is near and this mass apostasy is the great falling away prophesized in the Apocalypse of St. John?]

Our Lord is on the altar. We are continually asking Him for favors, health, and a happy death, but we do not honor HIs proverty with the slightest gift. We should then hold our tongue. We are insulting Him!

Saint James says that if a poor man asks you for an alms and you send him away without giving him anything and say to him, “Go in peace,” you are mocking him and you are homicidal.

Our Lord has nothing and expects everything from you. You come and say to Him: “I adore Thee and acknowledge Thee as my King. I thank Thee for being rpesenti n the Most Blessed Sacrament.” And you do not give Him anything for the honor of His worship. You are insulting Him

When a parish priest is obliged to wear torn and worthless vestments because he has no others, his parishioners are responsible for it. It is scandalous! [It is not always so today. Many parishes continue to use very tired vestments from decades ago because of attachment to what they represent, or because the priest does not feel comfortable with the more refined vestments of the past which are making a comeback]

For everybody, yes, everybody can give to our Lord. And experience proves that it is not the great of the wealthy, but the poor that maintain the splendor of Eucharistic worship.

On day our Lord saw the Pharisees cast large sums of money into the treasury; their gifts did not seem to affect Him in any way.
But a poor woman came and cast in a farthing, which was all she had. Our Lord stood in admiration, His heart was moved, and he could not help telling HIs Apostles so. The poor widow had given more than all the others because she had given of her very substance.

In the same way he who denies himself something in order to give a candle or a flower, gives more than he who can easily make a large offering. Jesus looks much less to the quantity of the gift than to the heart that gives it.

Gvie therefore, and give often to our Lord! Console His abandonment!  Help his poverty!

————————End Quote——————————

I have remarked before, and will do so again, that one aspect of the Church that most surprised me when I became familiar with it years ago, was the paucity of support most parishes receive from their parishioners.   Parishes with, we are told, thousands upon thousands of families on the membership roles struggle with budgets much less than protestant churches with membership a fraction as large. But, then again, given how the money is frequently spent, at least in terms of Church design and decor, with cold modernism and iconoclasm so predominant, I can understanding some of that unwillingness.  If only our parishes would be designed to raise heart and soul to God, to glory in the Saints, to provide a suitable setting for our Eucharstic Lord and King!

Even in parishes where you can find the tabernacle, where it is not tucked away in some closet, is the setting what it should be?  Is the altar regal, the aura that which should be associated with the King and Creator of the Universe, our Lord and God, the One who will judge us at our death?

There has been an immense shift in Eucharistic thinking, which is mirrored in the appearance of our churches.  The center and focus on the Blessed Sacrament – Our Lord literally present with us – is either entirely absent or is so vague and modest that it can be easily overlooked. In many parishes even today, souls do no genuflect when approaching the tabernacle (again, if it can be found) and do not even kneel during the Consecration.  Is it any wonder belief in the Real Presence has collapsed?  But, we are told, we are a “new” Church, we don’t need all those old superstitions. And the souls, so unnourished, fall away in their millions.  And we are surprised at this?

Almost all the old Cult of God has been lost, replaced by a nebulous cult of man.  It is spiritually unfulfilling. Souls can be entertained, given humanistic “enlightenment,” or behave and believe like liberal protestants much better, much easier elsewhere.  Why remain Catholic? Without constant emphasis on what makes the Catholic Faith unique, the True Faith, the experience of the last 40 years show that many souls can’t be bothered to remain.  And that is the truly devastating part of all this, the price paid in souls lost from the Church and lost in the misery of sin.

When will it change?  When we start providing the Cult of God again, and treat Christ like the King He is, in our very presence?