Satanic Mass

---Disclaimer:  I don't even pretend to be an amateur theologian.---

There is a group in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma that intends to "stage" a Satanic Mass on September 21, 2014.  The Oklahoma City Civic Center has been retained to serve as the venue for this event.

Emotions are running high.

My first thoughts, upon hearing about it, was to weigh the relative merits of napalm, air-fuel bombs and Claymore mines. 

The climax of the ritual is to "desecrate" a consecrated host.  As a Roman Catholics, we believe that the consecrated wafer is, in ways that are beyond human understanding, the physical presence of Jesus's flesh.

Why is "desecrate" in quotes?

God cannot be unclean.  God cannot corrupted by humans.  In fact, Jesus tells us that humans cannot be defiled by that which is imposed from the outside.  There is nothing we can eat, or that others can say to us that make us unclean.

"Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”  When he got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable. He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile,  since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?”  “But what comes out of a person, that is what defiles.  From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.”  Mark 7:15-21

If eating "unclean food" cannot make a human unclean, how can piling excrement on a consecrated host make it not-sacred?  Repulsive?  Yes.  Inappropriate?  You bet.  Inflammatory?  Attention seeking? Absolutely!

Pray always...

Pray for those who are promoting this event.  They are broken in some way.  They are sadists who get their jollies by humiliating and degrading their victims.  Unlike physical abuse, we have the ability to not give them energy.  We can pray that they are healed.  And we can deny them the energy.

Very bad things can happen when this bead is broken.  Don't ask me how I know.  Sometimes it is the smallest things that throw the longest shadow.

Pray for those who find some attraction for this event.  They have no idea of the forces they are embracing.  Appeals to Satan cannot defile God any more than a hand grenade can destroy a cell made of reinforced concrete.  But like the hand grenade, those appeals to Satan will cause grievous damage to the people within the cell.

Starve them of the attention that they crave.  Starve them of the attention that feeds their behavior.

I invite you to show your solidarity against this spectacle.  Stay home.  Say a prayer of thanks for the "whole" people in our lives.  Say a prayer that God might heal what is broken in those who seek Satan.  If it is not against your religion or bad for your health then drink a glass of red wine and eat some good bread.

And make a point of doing at least one good thing on that day.  We are the lens for the light of Christ.