Turning Students Into Saints With St. John Bosco

We cannot make kids love Jesus in the Eucharist. Only God can do that. Pope Paul VI said that people are going to listen to a witness more than they are going to listen to a teacher. The only reason they will listen to their teacher is if their teacher is a witness.

If someone were to sit in a class and say "we believe that this is really, truly, and substantially the Body and Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ - under the form and the matter of bread and wine..." that's good - we need to teach them that - but that is not going to change their hearts and it is not going to change their lives.

A witness is somebody who challenges those individuals to go and see and test it out for themselves. Our Lord is not going to say "Oh, the kids came to see Me and they're really open right now, I'm not going to speak to their heart, I'm going to let them walk away saying 'He's not really here.'"  That's not going to happen. People shouldn't believe what we say. People who believed in Jesus had some type of experience with Him. What we need to be witnesses first and foremost of, is daring them to [seek that] encounter. Constantly asking them:

• "Well, why don't you try it?"
• "You try everything else, why not try this?"
• " Wouldn't it make a huge difference if God was really there?"
• "I mean...if God was really there...wow. That would really change a lot of things."

And then allowing them to see that what we are teaching, we believe, by the way we act.

There are going to be consequences to this. There are going to be consequences for living our Faith. And the consequences are going to be very positive. 

If we look at our children, especially in the middle school age: they are coming from broken families, they're coming from schools where it is very rough and very tough...there's fighting and there is bad language all around them. They are not going to read the [religious] text books for the most part. 

They are coming from situations where God isn't even important and [we] don't even know why their parents decided to put them in CCD. Maybe they wanted the evening off or something. 

So, what they are going to have to see is light. And it is going to be easy for them to see light because they are in darkness...

Our witnessing is not so much, "yeah...this is what we believe and it's worth living" but it is also "It is worth giving everything to. It is worth throwing down your life."

There are four main things that we should be witnesses of:

1. Christ is really present in the Eucharist. That He is really God and that He is really a person and we need to make regular visits to Him. (Our goal is to make our students saints. We only have an hour [or so] to do that...how are we going to do that? That is God's responsibility. We just do the best we can and God will work with that. He will.)
2. The Sacrament of Confession...Satan has managed to desecrate all of the Sacraments with false teachings and half truths, so that most people - especially young people - go to the Sacrament of Confession and commit sacrilegious Confessions. So, their Confession doesn't help sanctify them - it further damns them. Because in order for your Confession to be valid, you have to list the kind and the number. So, what exactly did you commit? "I looked at pornography four times and committed masturbation four times." They have to be specific. A lot of times, young people will say things like "uhhh...I did some bad stuff....with my girlfriend...and uhhh...you know...I lied to my mom..." and they will leave one or two things out. Like "Oh, I told him the majority, I told him the gist." But that is not a valid Confession. That is a sacrilegious Confession. Instead of getting any of your sins forgiven, now you've piled on more sins for mistreating the Holy Sacrament that can have everything erased. It's like you're not really sorry. When you are really sorry you say what it is you are sorry for "I'm sorry I backed into your car," "I am sorry I called you a name..." You are specific when you are sorry about something. And then you promise not to do it again.  A lot of our Confessions are sacrilegious. 
3. Authentic Marian devotion. DAILY ROSARY. The Rosary is a mini-Bible. If they do it correctly and are meditating on the life of Jesus...wow. 15 minutes a day thinking about Jesus's life. That would be a dream come true if a kid did that every single day. It would change his life. We have to be praying it ourselves. Mary will help convert their hearts.
4. Follow the Pope. 

 -- transcribed from this video by Gabriel Castillo:

Desecration Of The Eucharist & Sacrilegious Communions

It is a bedrock Catholic truth, taught by the Church since the time of the Apostles, that Our Lord Jesus Christ is truly present in the Most Holy Eucharist: Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.

The Council of Trent defined dogmatically that Our Lord Jesus Christ is present in every part of the Blessed Sacrament. The Council taught infallibly: 

“If anyone denieth that, in the venerable Sacrament of the Eucharist, the whole Christ is contained under each species, and under every part of each species, when separated; let him be anathema.” 

This means that Our Lord is present even in the smallest particle of the Host, and in the smallest particle that may fall to the ground. Thus the reverence that we owe to the Blessed Sacrament demands that we take every precaution that no particle of the Host — not even the smallest — is left open for desecration in any way...

This reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, and even for the smallest particles, was incorporated into the traditional Mass — the Old Latin Mass — which contained strict rubrics on this point: 

1. From the moment the priest pronounces the words of the Consecration over the Sacred Host, the priest keeps his forefinger and thumb together on each hand. Whether he elevates the chalice, or turns the pages of the missal, or opens the tabernacle, his thumb and his forefinger on each hand are closed. The thumb and forefinger touch nothing but the Sacred Host 
2. During Holy Communion, the altar boy holds the paten under the chin of those receiving Communion, so that the slightest particle does not fall to the ground. This paten is cleaned into the chalice afterwards 
3. After Holy Communion is distributed, the priest scrapes the corporal (the small linen cloth on the altar) with the paten, and cleans it into the chalice so that if the slightest particle is left, it is collected and consumed by the priest 
4. Then, the priest washes his thumb and forefinger over the chalice with water and wine, and this water and wine is reverently consumed to insure that the smallest particle of the Sacred Host is not susceptible to desecration.

...what happens with Communion in the hand? 

The Host is placed in the hand, which is not consecrated. The communicant picks It up with his own fingers, which are not consecrated. The sacred particles fall to the ground, are stepped upon and desecrated. -- J. Vennari

We can see with our human reason that when receiving Holy Communion in the hand, particles are left stuck to the hand and after the communicant makes the sign of the cross are then brushed onto the floor. The communicants behind them do the same and then step on the particles that are brushed onto the floor in front of them. 

If a communicant chooses to receive on the tongue out of reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, they are still walking behind those who are receiving on the hand, and therefore stepping on the particles which contain Jesus Christ whole and entire. This is widespread, weekly - often daily desecration by the parish community. Even though most of them have good intentions and have no idea they are desecrating the Eucharist, this is what is happening.

St. Teresa of Avila tells us that desecration of the Eucharist and/or receiving a sacrilegious Communion can result in a complete loss of the theological virtue of faith. Also, it can result in diabolical possession. This is not only happening with lay people but with the clergy.  

When people hear what St. Teresa of Avila said about diabolical possession, desecration of the Eucharist, and receiving sacrilegious Communions, they think "well that's not going to happen, that's not possible." 

It's not like when you receive Communion unworthily the devil is going to come out drooling all over the place. That's not the case. Signs of spiritual infestation are not [drooling and convulsing] - those are rare circumstances. 

The real signs are: 

1. hardening of heart
2. denial of the truth 
3. resistance to the truths of our faith

Where do we see these? Everywhere! -- Gabriel Castillo

We have an obligation to encourage our parish community to carefully examine their hands for particles if they insist on receiving Communion in the hand. We cannot say they cannot receive in the hand, because the bishops have allowed this, but we must point out that desecration is occurring and therefore the faith of the parish community is at stake.

The hardening of heart, denial of truth, and resistance to the truths of the faith can already be seen in the phenomenon of cafeteria Catholicism and rejection of Divine teaching revealed to us by God.

Undeniably, there is a prevalent spirit of "picking and choosing" infallible teaching and dogma. I believe that this is a direct result of desecration of the Eucharist.

Your Light Found My Bottle In The Night; Gave Me Second Life. You Found Me Once And For All; I Laid It Down In The Sinking Ground

You woke the morning up
Running off my darkest night
The longest fight I've seen
Here goes a chance I know
Cashing in on all my chips
Let all my ships come fly

These days, a little bit longer than the last
And all of His ways, a little bit stronger than the past
And Your light, found my bottle in the night
Gave me second life, kept me in this fight

And I won't back down
I won't turn around and around
And I won't back down
Doesn't matter what comes crashing down
I'm still gonna stand on solid ground

You found me once and for all
I laid it down in the sinking ground
The hopeless undertow
Singing out the gentle sound
Rattling through my smoking screens
My broken dreams last night

These days, a little bit longer than the last
And all of Your ways, a little bit stronger than the past
And all of Your light, found my bottle in the night
Kept me in this fight and gave me second life

And I won't back down
And I won't turn around and around
And I won't back down
Doesn't matter what comes crashing down
I'm still gonna stand my solid ground 

Hallelujah ripped through my veins
I heard the hammer drop
My blood in the rain
Hallelujah came like a train
When all is lost
All is left to gain

I won't back down

And I won't turn around and around 

And I won't back down

Doesn't matter what comes crashing down

I'm still going to stand my solid

Hallelujah, Hallelujah...