Are you reverent in church? Are you respectful toward Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament? Are you aware that even in ancient times, even way back in the Old Testament, God commanded sacred silence in His presence? “But the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.” Habacuc 2:20. His holy temple, God’s house on earth, He says, to keep quiet, no unnecessary talking, as if you were in a courtroom and the judge orders silence! It is out of respect. This is why, when little Jacinta of Fatima, now St. Jacinta, was hearing people chattering in the chapel, she told the Mother Superior, “Don’t allow that.” Then the Mother Superior went down and tried to get them to quit talking, but they were stubborn, and wouldn’t listen to her. When she went back up to the choir where St. Jacinta was praying, she told her they wouldn’t listen, and Jacinta said, “Our Lady does not want us to talk in church.”
“Our Lady does not want us to talk in church.” Those of you who are older, do you not remember when you were young, we were taught not to talk in church, except when necessary, and then, only a whisper? Jesus Our Lord, when ascending into heaven, told his disciples that he would remain with us until the consummation of the world, St. Matthew 28, at the end of the chapter. Now Jesus is not just a spirit. He is a divine person with a body, so when He says He will stay with us until the end of the world, He’s talking about His whole person, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, and how does He stay with us? Under the form of the Host, reserved in the tabernacle. That’s why, when we enter a church or chapel with the tabernacle present, we genuflect towards the tabernacle to show reverence to Our King dwelling there. Many people are not even aware of Our Lord’s real presence there. You can tell that by the way they act, and by the way they carry on conversations as if they were in a social hall. It is really sad and heartbreaking to see such irreverence and disrespect in the holy places, and to see our Lord constantly offended. I think I was taught that when I was small, but it wasn’t drilled into me, so when I got older, I forgot what I was taught, and fell into ignorance. When I became an adult, I didn’t even know about Our Lord’s Real Presence in the tabernacle. I did not find my way back to the truth until I started praying the rosary every day and wearing the brown scapular. Mary our good mother taught me, “And I preferred her before kingdoms and thrones, and esteemed riches nothing in comparison of her…Now all good things came to me together with her, and innumerable riches through her hands…For she is an infinite treasure to men! which they that use, become the friends of God, being commended for the gift of discipline….For in her is the spirit of understanding: holy, one, manifold, subtile, eloquent, active, undefiled, sure, sweet, loving that which is good, quick, which nothing hindereth, beneficent, gentle, kind, steadfast, assured, secure, having all power, overseeing all things, and containing all spirits, intelligible, pure, subtile. For wisdom is more active than all active things: and reacheth everywhere by reason of her purity. For she is a vapour of the power of God, and a certain pure emanation of the glory of the almighty God: and therefore no defiled thing cometh into her. For she is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and the image of his goodness…For she is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of the stars: being compared with the light, she is found before it.” Wisdom, chapter 7. “For it is she that teacheth the knowledge of God, and is the chooser of his works.” Wisdom 8:4. Blessed is the man who is taught by the Mother of God!
Now she is the one from whom Jacinta learned we are not to talk in church. “Our Lady does not want us to talk in church,” she said. Now remember, little Jacinta, with Sr. Lucy and Francisco, now St. Francisco, had visions of an Angel in 1916, who taught them to bow their heads to the ground, and say a prayer to the Blessed Sacrament, while a Host was bleeding into a chalice suspended in the air, (a Eucharistic miracle), for all the outrages, sacrileges , and indifference by which God is grievously offended! The same children whom the Blessed Mother told a year later, “Man must stop offending God, who is already too much offended.” The same children who in July the Blessed Mother showed them a horrible vision of the fires of hell, demons and human souls screaming and crying in pain. God is very much offended by our indifference to thgis sin, disrespecting Him in His own house. The sin of indifference is a sin of lukewarmness. Although it’s usually only a venial sin, nevertheless venial sins the saints caution us, can lead to mortal sins, according to the Scripture, “He that contemneth small things, shall fall by little and little. ” Ecclus. 19:1. St. Alphonsus said that St. Teresa of Avila never committed a mortal sin, but at one point in her life, she was lukewarm, and God showed her, her place in hell if she did not shake off her tepidity. She said it was one of the greatest graces God ever gave her. So if we take these warnings lightly, we most likely won’t stay in the state of grace, and run the very real danger of damning ourselves forever.
The Blessed Mother continually told them to pray the rosary daily, because the rosary has great promises attached to it, and one is, it will decrease sin in us, help us to grow in virtue, and keep us in the truth faith, it will help us overcome heresy. St. Louis de Montfort quotes Our Lord reprimanding Blessed Alan de Roche for not preaching the rosary because it would help people overcome their sins, and therefore, Our Lord told Blessed Alan that he was guilty of the sins they were committing. Kind of like the clergy who allow immodest women to come into church, and even to receive Holy Communion, contrary to the Decree on Modesty issued by Pope Pius XI in 1930, tinyurl.com/tdakwyaj. This is another big sin allowed in the House of God. Why is it a big sin? Because St. Paul said, “The immodest…shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Ga;. 5:19-21, drbo.org. And how many millions of sin are committed each week by Catholics who carry on conversations in church? “But the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.” Habacuc 2:2. “Let all the earth keep silence before him.”
Recall also, Our Lady of Fatima showed the children a terrible vision of hell, “where the souls of poor sinners go”, she said, as if to drive home the point, that God truly is “too much offended.” The vision was terrifying, and they felt they would have died from it if the Blessed Mother had not have been there. They saw both demons and lost souls in hell, screaming in horrible pain, darting about like sparks in stubble, down in the earth. Now you might say, “Talking in church is not a mortal sin, is it?” and the answer would be, “No, it is probably only a venial sin,” but the saints tell us that if we pay no attention to little sins, they will eventually draw us into mortal sins. “He that contemneth small things, shall fall by little and little.” Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 19:1. St. Alphonsus relates the story of St. Teresa of Avila, who never committed a mortal sin, but was shown her place in hell if she did not shake off her tepidity (lukewarmness).
From THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ST. MARGARET MARY: “One day, on account of some fault I had committed, my Divine Master gave me the following lesson. “Learn,” he said, “that I am a holy Master, and one that teaches holiness. I am pure, and cannot endure the least stain. Therefore, thou must act with simplicity of heart, and an upright and pure intention in My presence. Know that I cannot endure the least want of straightforwardness, and I shall make thee understand that, if the excess of My love has led me to constitute Myself the Master, in order to teach and fashion thee after My manner and according to My designs, nevertheless I cannot bear tepid and cowardly souls, and if I am gentle in bearing with thy weakness, I shall not be less severe and exact in correcting and punishing thy infidelities.” He has made me experience this all my life. For I can say that he did not allow the smallest fault to pass, in which there was ever so little wilfullness or negligence, without correcting and punishing me for it, although always with his infinite mercy and goodness. Nevertheless, I own that nothing was more painful and terrible to me than to see him ever so slightly displeased with me. All other sufferings, corrections and mortifications were nothing to me in comparison. Hence it was that I went promptly to ask a penance for my faults, for he was satisfied with those imposed on me by obedience. ”The faults he reproved me most severely were a want of respect and attention in the presence of the Most Blessed Sacrament.” So, as you can see, Our Lord does not take this disrespect to Himself lightly. For every idle word, he said. “But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the day of judgment.” St. Matt. 12:36. Remember that, ”The faults he reproved me most severely were a want of respect and attention in the presence of the Most Blessed Sacrament.”
St. Anthony Mary Claret once wrote, “What would you think, if you saw someone taken prisoner, a big fire started in the courtyard, and the man was thrown into it? And they asked you, ‘What did the man do?’ and you were told, “For having told a little lie, for having spoken an idle word.” He said there are many souls burning in the fires of purgatory for small sins such as these. “Would you then say, venial sin a small thing?’’
St. Peter Eymard said, “When we go to church, we know we are going to see Jesus Christ. The king is the only one honored. Friends should be as if they were not. We must observe a strict silence.” We go to church to honor God, and receive His graces. Yet instead, we offend Him and lose many graces, because instead of talking to Him and gaining graces all of us direly need (because we are battling satan unchained), we chat with one another like we are in a social hall. How has this blindness entered into our souls? It’s because of our tepidity, and also, because of the watchmen, the clergy, who have not been vigilant. St. Nilus, 1500 years ago, predicted in our time the clergy would become vain men, and would not be able to distinguish the righthand way from the left: The Prophecy of St. Nilus Concerning Our Time, 1900 Onward, https://tinyurl.com/2p92jyr4.
Our Lady does not want us to talk in church. Are you reverent in church? Are you respectful to Our Lord in the tabernacle? “Let all the earth keep silence before him.”