These supplications, taken from the daily text of the Extraordinary Form of Mass, are replete with emotion, with beauty, with mysticism, with elation. They tell the story of union between man and God. With the priest standing as Bridegroom – In persona Christi Capitis – in union with his bride the Church, it is mysterious and beautiful. If one were to write a book about right relation and intimacy with God, why could he not fill unending volumes with the mystical nature of the holy sacrifice of the Mass?
In fact, but one section is necessary.
“He blessed it, broke it and gave it to His disciples saying: Take and eat ye all of this, for this is My body. Take and drink ye all of this, for this is the chalice of My blood.”
Where to begin? The sacrifice of Christ to offer himself to us as food is not just language but the reality of the Incarnation. This is all the mysticism and intimacy we long for. This expression alone is what made the Crucifixion on Friday the sacrifice of deicide, rather than just a Roman execution. The sacrificial nature of Christs love is mysticism. It is intimate, and sublime and miraculous. What more is there?
What more is there, indeed. There is eroticism. There is perversion. A mystical passion is not the same as an erotic mystical passion. Cardinal Fernandez didn’t want to write a book about the Mass. He didn’t want to write an interpretation of the Song of Songs or the Ecstasy of St Teresa. He wanted to write a different book. He wanted to write a book in which he could use the word orgasm.
In the aftermath of Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández’s book, The Mystical Passion: Spirituality and Sensuality, commentators more qualified than this writer have weighed in with opinions. In fact, for fear of temptation, I have not read this book, not even, nor especially, the chapters which could have been included in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, or submitted to Penthouse Forum.
The work includes a detailed depiction of an imaginary erotic encounter with Jesus Christ on the shores of Galilee which Cardinal Fernández said was based on a spiritual experience disclosed to him by a 16-year-old girl. Three years before writing The Mystical Passion, then-Father Fernández wrote another book that raised eyebrows, Heal Me With Your Mouth: The Art of Kissing, which was also directed at teenagers.
Why he would write this particular book gives us a sense of the kind of man he is. The kind of perverted mind with which Pope Francis chooses to surround himself. If his goal was to explore the mystical, mysterious and intimacy with God, his mind could have been filled by the Traditional Latin Mass. He did not need to invent text which discusses “the possibility of reaching a kind of fulfilling orgasm in our relationship with God, which does not imply so much physical alterations, but simply that God manages to touch the soul-corporeal center of pleasure, so that a satisfaction that encompasses the entire person is experienced.” Our spiritual fathers would have called this trash blasphemy. His language suggests an awareness of the physicality that is only appropriate between a man and his bride. Not among the targeted youth nor among two men for that matter.
Fernandez is no ally to traditional and conservative Catholics. This book, and his warped way of thinking are part and parcel of why. My commentary comes late to the party piling on Cardinal Kissy. But this should not be forgotten. It should be highlighted and it should fester as it is the conversation which will eventually purify the Church. We should not move on from this. It is part of the struggle for the soul of Catholicism on earth. Our righteous anger at this offense is justified. We are honor bound to take offense on behalf of Holy Mother Church and come to Her defense.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen said about the laity: “Who’s going to save our Church? It’s not our bishops, it’s not our priests and it is not the religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes and the ears to save the Church.”
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