On Monday, September 14, he celebrated the Holy Mass for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross at St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church in Hopkins, MN.
Present were Chesterton Academy students, faculty and staff and parishioners.
During the Mass, he had a private spiritual experience while praying the Eucharistic prayer over the bread and wine and humbly shared and clarified what he experienced all for God’s glory and praise.
In doing so, he also want to correct any misinformation as the Mass recording is being shared online.
Fr. Father Brent Bowman’s experience was this:
During the consecration prayer over the wine at the altar, as he spoke the words, he was given what he believes to be internal knowledge of the power of these words being spoken and the reality of their effect to the point that he had difficulty speaking.
With each word, he became more physically overwhelmed as seen in the video.
At the same time, he was given sensory knowledge of the weight of God’s power coming down upon the altar, and felt the heaviness of Jesus’s substantial presence in the chalice in my hands.
The chalice became too heavy to hold as he felt it pulled down to rest upon the altar.
He felt his hands fixed to the chalice of the Precious Blood, and could not physically move it.
Attempting to elevate the Precious Blood, which he was not able to do for a period of time, he believed he was given grace to understand more deeply the bittersweetness of Our Lord’s Passion and how much blood Christ shed for the immense weight of all our sins.
He believes that he experienced this weight in the chalice.
This spiritual experience emotionally and physically overwhelmed him as evident in the Mass recording.
Lastly, private spiritual encounters with God like these are completely unmerited gifts and signs of God’s abundant love for all his people. They are not necessarily signs of any person’s holiness.
He prays this brief testimony moves all our hearts to contemplate more deeply the mysteries of the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and the Precious Blood.
The primary Bible passages used to support the doctrine of transubstantiation—the teaching that the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Christ—are found in John 6:53-56 and the Words of Institution at the Last Supper in Luke 22:19-20 and Matthew 26:26-28.
For full video coverage of the Mass, you may access it here.
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