What is the worst sin that afflicts the world today? Our immediate inclination might be to respond, Abortion. And we would not be wrong in identifying the sheer magnitude, done with impunity and under the legal protecting of the State, of the deliberate murder of the most innocent members of society. We most certainly cannot turn a blind eye nor remain silent in the face of such a grave evil. The murder of the innocent cries out to Heaven for vengeance prompting us to clothe ourselves in “sackcloth and ashes”—doing public penance for so public a sin—but, as evil as it is, it is not the worst sin.
Admittedly, all sin is evil because it is an offense against God first and foremost. Sins such as murder, abortion, adultery, and theft are direct offenses against love of neighbor. Other sins such as sacrilege, idolatry, blasphemy, apostasy, heresy, final impenitence, and the like are offenses directly against the love of God. The latter set always represent, objectively speaking, graver offenses for that reason. So as evil as abortion is, it is not the greatest evil. Instead, the greatest evil in the modern world, both in magnitude and frequency, is sacrilege against the Eucharist.
Sacrilege
Sacrilege is, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, “irreverence for sacred things.” A thing is sacred because it is been set aside for Divine worship. “Now just as a thing acquires an aspect of good through being deputed to a good end, so does a thing assume a divine character through being deputed to the divine worship, and thus a certain reverence is due to it, which reverence is referred to God…and is an injury to God” (ST II-II q.99, art.1). The worst acts of sacrilege St. Thomas says are committed against “the sacraments whereby man is sanctified: chief of which is the sacrament of the Eucharist, for it contains Christ Himself. Wherefore the sacrilege that is committed against this sacrament is the gravest of all” (ibid, art.3).
Considering the magnitude alone should give us great pause in both the manner and intention by which we approach the Eucharist. But in our time, it is the frequency by which this sin is committed that makes it the worst sin.
First of all, at least objectively speaking, Protestant services by which “Communion” is “blessed” and given represents an act of sacrilege against the Eucharist. This does not, to be clear, consider the subjective guilt of those who participate which may be relatively light. Still, simulation of a Sacrament, even when done by professing Christians who have no intent of offending God, still can be an act of sacrilege. I bring it up, not as an attack on Ecumenism, but for Catholics to be conscious of this fact when they are considering participating in such services, even if they choose not to actually partake of the communion wafers and grape juice. Regardless, it is still objectively an act of sacrilege and calls for those who do love Jesus in the Eucharist to do penance and acts of reparation. Perhaps the Ecumenical Movement would gain more steam if Catholics did not commit what St. John Paul II referred to as Eucharistic “duplicity” (c.f. Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 38) by ignoring the fact that Communion will never be achieved while these sacrileges are glossed over.
Then there are the sins of those who are professed members of the Catholic Church. By far these are most grave and frequent because “he who handed me over is guilty of the greater sin” (John 19:11). For a Catholic to commit any sacrilege of the Eucharist is akin to betraying the Son of Man with a kiss. The Eucharist is Christ’s gift of Himself to His friends. To betray a friend, especially when that friend is Christ Himself, is a diabolical deed. These sacrileges tend to happen in one of three ways.
Sacrilege in the Church
First, there are those who “eateth and drinketh unworthily” (1 Cor 11:28) by receiving when in a state of mortal sin. These sinners, according to St. John Vianney, crucify Jesus in their hearts:
He submits Him to a death more ignominious and humiliating than that of the Cross. On the Cross, indeed, Jesus Christ died voluntarily and for our redemption; but here it is no longer so: He dies in spite of Himself, and His death, far from being to our advantage, as it was the first time, turns to our woe by bringing upon us all kinds of chastisements both in this world and the next. The death of Jesus Christ on Calvary was violent and painful, but at least all nature seemed to bear witness to His pain. The least sensible of creatures appeared to be affected by it, and thus wishful to share the Savior’s sufferings. Here there is nothing of this: Jesus is insulted, outraged by a vile nothingness, and all keeps silence; everything appears insensible to His humiliations. May not this God of goodness justly complain, as on the tree of the Cross, that He is forsaken? My God, how can a Christian have the heart to go to the holy table with sin in his soul, there to put Jesus Christ to death?
Sermon on Unworthy Communion, Book IV, Sermons of St. John Vianney
When members of the Hierarchy either promote such sacrilege by encouraging those who are living in an objective state of sin to receive the Sacrament or by those who look the other way when a public sinner presents themselves for Communion, then they become complicit in the guilt. At least Judas kept his betrayal to himself and did not try to corrupt other members of the Apostolic College or the rest of Our Lord’s disciples.
Likewise, sacrilege can also occur when a sacred thing is treated as profane. This is, to use St. Paul’s terminology, a failure to properly “discern the Body of the Lord.” Faith is vitally important to receiving Our Lord in the Eucharist because it is our part in the exchange that occurs in Communion. Our Lord gives Himself completely while we give Him our faith that the Eucharist is. It is only by first believing that the Victim for our sins is truly and really present that we can identify with Him as Victim and join Him in offering ourselves to the Holy Trinity. This exchange cannot happen unless we first receive in Faith.
This profanation of the Eucharist can occur in the manner in which Our Lord is handled. I will not belabor the point that was made previously about how the unnecessary use of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, Communion in the Hand, and all of the sanitary abuses related to the pandemic have only served to increase the number of offenses against Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Still, I would like to point out that when there is mass sacrilege going on, we must have the zeal to receive Our Lord in the most reverent way possible. This means making acts of faith, hope and charity and self-offering (Suscipe) before receiving Our Lord on the tongue. It also means approaching Him after making a sincere act of contrition and an act of thanksgiving afterwards.
It also calls for acts of reparation and penance to repair the harm done to the Church by abusers of the Blessed Sacrament. This starts by committing to watching for one hour with Our Lord in Adoration in reparation specifically for sins against the Eucharist. But it continues by joining Bishop Schneider’s Crusade of Reparation to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus. He has a prayer (at the bottom of this link) that should be said at the end of every Mass and each of the acts contained within the prayer offers a concrete way in which we might offer Reparation.
In many ways, the sin of sacrilege against the Eucharist and abortion are simply parallels in the same failure of love of God and love of neighbor. Just as we fail to love the God Who hid Himself in the Eucharist we also fail to love our neighbor hidden in the womb of his mother. Out of sight, out of mind as the expression goes. But until we treat Our Lord in the manner worthy of us great gift, we likewise will not see an end to the mass killing of the hidden children in the womb.