I have more than a couple of Fatima articles to post, but I am starting with this one, because it is not just about Fatima – even if the event took
place in Fatima. I know the pope is unlikely to have had anything to do with the monstrance that the keepers of the Fatima shrine gave him to use
during the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, but Mons. Guido Marini generally makes a preliminary visit beforehand to check out all the liturgical
arrrangements and preparations before the pope’s actual visit. Did he not protest at the choice of the monstrance to be used by the pope? Surely,
the Shrine in Fatima has other more appropriate – and historical - monstrances to choose from.
I wouldn’t have known about this, of course, if Mundabor had not written about it, and the first question that came to my mind when I saw the
picture was: What would Francis of Assisi have thought about the monstrance – even assuming the monstrance were made of
pure platinum? He might well have thought it monstruously inappropriate.
Banalizing God:
A monstrance that looks
like an Ikea wall clock
MAY 16, 2017
Forgive me if I am saying something wrong here, but I always thought that a Monstrance had to be splendid. Not nice. Not beautiful. Splendid.
This is, very obviously, because the fact that the Monstrance is destined to carry the Blessed Sacrament has as obvious corollary that no material can be too precious, no design too elaborate, no expenses can be deemed excessive.
In the end, the Monstrance – even the most elaborate – will always be the palest attempt at conveying the Preciousness of its content. Still, the more precious it is, the less unworthy the attempt.
I now see on Father Z’s blog the photo reproduced above, of the “propeller-monstrance” used in Fatima last weekend and carried by the Evil Clown himself.
What immediately strikes me as evident is not the ugliness of the design, but the banalisation of the object and, by reflection, the downplaying of its sacred content.
Vatican II and, the more so, its latest version on steroids, aims at taking the divine out of the Church. In the same way as Francis keeps insulting the Blessed Virgin as an ignorant girl of the people, which not only banalises but outright protestantises the way the Church sees the Blessed Virgin, he does the same with this monstrance; which, though certainly made of silver, could be any frame of a domestic clock for people who never learned subtlety.
The design is appropriate for everyday decoration. The material wants to look like everyday metal. There is nothing here of the exceptional effort, immediately visible to the onlooker, that says “the importance of what is contained here is such that no container could be too precious”. No, this here looks like an Ikea wall clock that has been dismounted to put a huge host in its place.
The sabotaging of everything that the Church is and believes is not only done through off-the-cuff speeches and heretical homilies. It is also visual, as visible symbols can convey theological meanings, a fact out of which the Church has made the most wonderful use during the centuries.
These visual symbols are now demolished one by one: banal and horrible croziers, the demise of the tiara or the sedia gestatoria, the refusal to wear appropriate papal garments and accessories; and, now, the extreme banalisation of even the monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament. It starts with communion in the hand, it ends with the Ikea monstrance.
To Francis and his people
[that is, in Bergoglianism] nothing is sacred
[except perhaps Bergoglio in the eyes of his idolators]. Everything must be banalised and reduced to your everyday experience. The Blessed Virgin didn’t really know what was happening. She was, perhaps, angry at God under the Cross. 'Laudetur Jesus Christus'
[or the simple Sign of the Cross and the words that go with it!] must be replaced by ‘Buonasera’. The Blessed Sacrament is displayed in a department-store clock frame.
But woe to the one who builds a wall to keep illegals and criminals out.