I'm Afraid I Cannot be a Good Catholic

I'm Afraid I Cannot Be a Good Catholic

Nor should you say as some do: "I'm afraid I will not be able to live up to the high standard of morality that shall be expected of me." If that were true, God would not be calling you. For he would not be calling you if it were impossible for you to live up to the morality of the Catholic Church with His grace. God expects the impossible from no one. There is no excuse that is a valid excuse for not answering His call.

Christ came as the divine physician. He came as a physician comes, not to those who were well and needed Him not, but to those who were sick. He came to save sinners. It is true that the Church like Christ condemns sin, but it is also true that the Church like Christ, loves the sinner. And in the Church you will find those plentiful helps that Christ left us, precisely for this, that we might be enabled to rise above our sinning. God, as we have said, does not expect the impossible from any one of us, but He does expect that each one of us, with the help of His grace, will make a sincere attempt to live up to His commandments and to follow His inspirations.

To embrace the Catholic faith means, of course, a certain amount of investigation and study. But life in the Church means much more than the mere cold study of its doctrines. It means the everyday practice of religion. It means prayer and union with God. It means the reception of the sacraments. It means worship and sacrifice. It means the fulness of the Christian life, such as you in your heart at this moment aspire for. Christ, your Savior, living again upon your altar, will also live again in your heart, so that you can then say with the great convert St. Paul: "I live now, not I, but Christ liveth in me." And all this is not only possible but relatively easy with the grace of God.

Photo: Under the Streetlight, Alfred Eisenstaedt

Location: Montmartre (Sacred Heart Basilica) Paris, France, 1963

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Perhaps I Ought to Wait a While

But perhaps I ought to wait a while. Perhaps my relatives and friends will give their consent later on to my entering the Church. Perhaps I'm not ready. Perhaps this and perhaps that. It is dangerous however, to put off God. It is risky to make God wait, once He has made plain His invitation. If God calls, it is folly to take his invitation lightly. It is dangerous to temporize with your Creator in the matter of the salvation of your immortal soul. The inspiration to embrace the Catholic faith is a grace that God now gives you. If you do not correspond with it now, it may not be given again. How many there are who lost the grace of conversion to God's Church, because they put off answering it until it was too late!

Photo: Farewell Embrace, 

Location: New York City, 1943

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What Will My Friends Say if I Become Catholic?

But if I enter the Catholic Church, you may say, I may have to make sacrifices. I may encounter difficulties. My friends may not like it. My relatives may object to it. Yes, it is true, some of your friends may not like it, and they may be less friendly with you for a time. And your relatives may object to it. But if you lose the company of earthly friends, you shall gain the friendship of God Himself. If your relatives object to it, never-the-less it is God who commands before whose judgment seat you will one day appear, when neither your relatives nor your friends will be able to answer for you but only you yourself.

Nor are there any sacrifices too great to make in return for receiving the gift of faith from God Himself.  "The sufferings of this time are not to be compared," says St. Paul, "with the glory that shall be revealed in us."  For no sacrifice is too great when the sacrifice of your immortal soul is concerned.

Jos. Frederick Kinsman was a Bishop in the Episcopalian Church, Bishop of the diocese of Delaware, one of the highest ranking officials of that church in the United States. But like so many other Bishops and ministers of his church, when at length he realized after study and prayer that only one Christian Church had the right to exist, and that one was the Church founded by Christ upon Peter, he did not hesitate to put off the robes of his office, renounce his rank in the Episcopalian church and become a simple Catholic layman. It meant for him the loss of many friends. It meant the loss of his position in society. It meant the loss of a fixed income coming from his office, when he was no longer a young man. Like the Apostle however, he counted all as lost if he could not gain Christ. He knew, as we all know, that we must not put relatives or friends, social position or wealth before the call of Christ. He knew, as all men should know, that man's first and most solemn duty is to God.

Christ Himself has said: "Unless you hate not father and mother, you cannot be my disciple." Christ did not mean that one should hate his father or his mother. That would contradict the fourth commandment which commands us to love our parents. That would be contrary to Christ's own example, who showed by His actions, the great love He bore His own mother. These words do mean, however, that no matter how deeply we love our parents, our relatives and our friends, we should not love them more than we love God; we should not put their wishes before God's commands.

One of the most touching lessons taught in the Gospel, is woven around this distinction between the love we should bear God and the love we should bear our parents. On a certain occasion Christ had been preaching to the multitudes and so moving were his words that a woman in the crowd cried out: "Blessed is the womb that bore Thee, and the paps that gave Thee suck." Yet though Christ loved His Mother dearly, He replied: "Yea, rather blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it." (Luke11. 28) Our relationship to God is our first and our highest relationship. It takes rank above all others. Hence when I stand before the judgment seat of God, I shall not be asked to answer for the soul of my parents or my friends. I must answer for my own. Nor can they answer for me. Neither should they then interfere with the affairs of my soul upon this earth. They must not stand in the way of my following out what my conscience tells me is the will of God. Nor must I allow them to stand in the way. For other reasons, too, one must not be too dismayed by the objections of relatives or friends. If you embrace the Catholic faith and live up to the Catholic faith, your good example will shine forth before their eyes. It often happens that relatives who begin by objecting, end up by not only consenting but by following your example and they themselves following your lead back home.

Photo:  Friends, 

Location:  France, 1956

Photographer:  Thomas Mcavoy

On The Way Back Home - Chapter 30

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The Peace in The Heart of a Catholic

We live in a world today in which the most widespread war in the history of the human race is being waged. The spirit of peace seems to have abandoned the haunts of men. And yet Christ came to bring peace to men. It was the song the angels sang in announcing His birth. "Peace on earth to men of good will."

Peace then should be one of the first fruits of religion. It is one of the first things you will experience upon going home. "My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth do I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled nor let it be afraid." (Matt. 14.27)  Christ spoke these words when He was taking leave of His Apostles the night before he died. It was as if He said: in the midst of a troubled world, you need not be afraid; you need not be troubled for my peace will dwell in your hearts, my peace which surpass all understanding. That is the peace that will be yours if you generously and sincerely return to Christ. Peace comes when the human feels secure. But there is no more secure ground upon which to stand than upon the rock of Peter, the rock upon which Christ built His Church. Peace comes when the hunger of the human heart for spiritual food is satisfied, as it can only be satisfied by receiving the bread of angels, the Body and Blood of our Lord. Peace comes when the light and the warmth of Christ's faith floods the soul, expelling all doubt and fear. Peace comes when one experiences that freedom from sin that comes to the soul after one has made a humble and sincere confession of his sins. When the words of absolution fall from the lips of the priest, it is like hearing Christ Himself say: "Thy sins are forgiven thee; go now and sin no more."

 

Photo:  Women kneeling for Corpus Christi procession in Andorra, France, 1947.

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All Men are Brothers in Catholicism

The first and the greatest commandment of God is the command to love God with one's whole heart, one's whole soul and with all one's strength. By this love we are united with God in this life, in a manner that bears a faint resemblance to the manner in which we shall be one day united with Him in heaven. The Catholic Church promotes the love of God in every possible manner, and in every possible manner she keeps the love of God first in the lives of her children.

The second commandment of God is like unto the first. It teaches us to love our neighbor as ourselves. God's love like the sun in the heavens reaches out to all human beings. Not only does He Himself the infinite God love every human being and will their salvation but He commands every human being to love all other human beings. You can show your love for Me, He says implicitly, if you love one another. Nowhere is this union with God and one's fellowmen exemplified better than in the Catholic Church. She was meant for all nations because men of all nations were meant to be children of hers, gathered in one Fold and under one Shepherd under Christ.

The Catholic Church teaches us that God is our Father. All men were created by Him and in His image. Moreover we all have the same end in life, to possess God eternally in heaven. The Church teaches further that we are all descended from one human couple, the parents of the human race, Adam and Eve. In reality then we are all blood brothers, though we may seem to be separated by color and language, by custom and tribe. Furthermore we have all been redeemed by the blood of Christ, not Catholics alone but all men. Christ's saving Blood was meant to redeem every child of the human race. Not only were we all redeemed by Christ, but we are all brothers of Christ, and hence brothers of one another in Him. Having taken upon Himself our flesh, He became a brother to us all. Having given us all rebirth spiritually, he becomes the head from which we spring to spiritual life, just as Adam was the head from which we spring physically. The Church Christ founded was meant to promote that brotherhood by gathering all mankind into the living union with Christ, making them members of His Mystical Body. By the reception of His living Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist and by the grace that flows into the souls of men, we are united with Christ in a living manner so that as St. Peter tells us; "we become partakers of the divine nature." Amid all the turmoil of today and plans for the reconstruction of the world, there is only one real salvation for the human race. That salvation is to recognize again the living unity in which Christ mean't all nations and all men to live in His Church. You will be realizing that unity yourself, once you embrace the Catholic faith. Once again you will be a living member of Christ's Mystical Body. 

There was a time when all Europe was united in the one Faith, when all the nations of Europe were united in one family of nations under God. That unity is broken now and today Europe is in tears. But the unity that binds all men together as sons of God and brothers of Christ was never mean't to be broken. To the end of the world it shall be the endeavor of the Church of Christ to reunite all men into one grand human family linked with God. This grand human family shall comprise all human beings who have lived in the past and died in the grace of God, all human beings who now live upon the face of the earth, and all human beings that will ever live in this world until time is no longer. A league of nations is only a faint shadow of the living unity in which all Catholics live united to one another and in which all men should live.

Photo: Eucharistic Congress
Hungarian schoolboys in white caps & uniforms parade past crowd gathered for the Budapest Roman Catholic Eucharistic Congress, 1938.

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Mary, The Mother Of God and My Mother

If you lose a friend, you are sad. If a child loses its mother, it is desolate. The one all-consoling human relationship in life is gone. And yet you, my non-Catholic friends, have lost a Mother, in the Mother of Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary. She it was, who of all the daughters of Eve, was chosen to be the mother of God. She it was who bore the infant Jesus in her womb nine months. He who honors and loves the mother pays honor to the Son. You a non-Catholic know this as well as I a Catholic. The honor and love and respect and devotion paid to the Mother of God is one of the most reasonable and comforting practices of the Catholic Church.

You cannot think of the Blessed Mother of God without thinking of her divine Son. She is associated with Him always, from the moment of His birth in Bethlehem to the moment of His death on Calvary. When Christ, your Savior, hung upon the Cross, she stood beneath that cross. His sacrifice, she made her own. It was a complete sacrifice in which the divine Redeemer of the world gave everything he possesed, even life itself, to save mankind. But when He hung there, stripped of all earthly possessions, He still found something He could give to the children of men. Looking down from the Cross upon St. John, the beloved disciple, Christ said: "Son, behold thy Mother." And then transferring His gaze to His Mother Mary, He said: "Woman, behold thy son" He did not make use of the fond title mother in addressing His Mother on this occasion. He called her 'woman', to signify that He was giving us also the right to call her Mother, in order that henceforth she should consider herself in a special way, the mother of mankind.

Christ, you know, was our Brother. He made Himself our Brother when He took upon Himself our flesh becoming a man like us. Now again by another title he makes us all His brothers, by sharing the love and affection of His own Mother with us. In these little chapters I hesitate to argue. My sole intention was to put before you the great blessings you will reap by embracing the Catholic faith. Yet there is a constant temptation to point out how reasonable are the practices of the Catholic faith, what a tragedy it is for anyone to abandon them. Now one of the most reasonable and tender of all the practices of the Catholic faith, is its devotion to the Mother of God.

Oh! how ardently did all the English people love her in days gone by when Merry England was Mary's England. How warmly and tenderly did all Germany and France and Norway and all Christendom love her and sing hymns in her praise. It is said that many of the Protestants in Holland and in Germany in recent years have begged their pastors to restore to them the practice of honoring her, the privilege of resting once again under the mantle of her motherly love. That privilege will be yours again once you return home. You will again be a child of Mary, with her love and protection hovering over you. You need not fear that you will love her too much, that she shall love you too little. This Mother, who was Mother to the Son of God, you cannot love too much to suit her divine Son. You will know as Catholics know, that she is human like yourself. She is but one of God's creatures and precisely because she is human like we are, you will have greater confidence in approaching her. There is an infinite distance between God and the Blessed Mother; hence we cannot give her the worship we give God Himself. But we can praise her for the high office she, of all womankind, was chosen to fill. We can love her for the Son she gave us. We can feel comforted in this vale of tears for her heavenly protection. The mark of the true Christian should ever be a love and veneration for the Mother of Christ.

I like to ponder at times over the Gospel that narrates the story of Mary Magdalene. I like to consider how even after a life of sin, when at length she did find Christ, out of a sense of shame and sorrow she shed copious tears, and with her very tears, she bathed the feet of her Lord and with her hair she dried them. I like to remember at the same time, the scene I once witnessed. A convert had just been received into the Church. The practice of devotion to the Mother of God had just been explained to him. And when he realized the loving devotion he could have given to the Mother of God and the loving care he could have expected from her in return, he also wept tears of mingled grief and joy, to think as he exclaimed: "that I have missed the love of the Mother of God for so long."

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The Companionship Of The Saints

What more can I gain if I enter the Catholic Church? I can assure you that you will gain blessings you never dreamed of. Concerning heaven St. Paul says: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the mind of man to conceive what God hath prepared for those who love Him." This is, of course, said of heaven. But in a very true sense Christ has enriched the Church upon earth with such treasures that it is a foretaste of heaven. For instance, you will gain among other things a real escape from the loneliness of life. Never more need you feel desolate if friends or relatives abandon you. Now you will have the personal love and the companionship of Jesus Christ and His Saints to comfort you. A whole world of new friends will be yours.

Religion means fundamentally a bonding of man to God. In the Catholic Church you will experience the perfect binding of man to God that you never felt before. You will experience this through every hour of your everyday life. In Catholic countries of old the very greetings of the day were: God go with you: Thanks be to God. God touched, as it were, every action in the life of man. 

You will experience this in the warm friendship you will enter into with the close friends of God, men and women like Mary, the Blessed Mother of God, St. Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, the great Apostles Peter and Paul, the gentle St. Francis of Assisi, the magnificent St. Francis Xavier, St. Theresa, the Little Flower of God and a host of others. The Saints were men and women like you who lived lives of great sanctity while on earth, who now live close to God in heaven. We know they are only human beings like ourselves, but they were God's great servants while on earth and are now God's great friends in heaven. We do not worship them, it is true, but we give them reasonable veneration. In all humility and confidence, we beg them to intercede for us, to give us the help of the protection of their prayers. Our lonely earthly pilgrimage is less lonely and less earthly because of their friendship.

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What Converts Have to Say of The Church

In the fourth century after Christ, one of the greatest minds in history embraced the Catholic faith. He had led a remarkably full life. He had plumbed the depths of the philosophies of Greece and Rome. He had tasted of their religions. The prayers of his saintly mother, however, finally led him to see the light of Christianity which meant then, as it should now, the Catholic Church. What were his feelings once he had come home. He expresses them in one poignant sentence. "Too late have I known thee, O Beauty ever ancient and ever new; too late have I loved thee."

The words of Augustine are echoed centuries later by the great Cardinal Newman. "O long sought after, tardily found desire of the heart, the truth after many shadows, the fullness after many fore-tastes, the home after many storms. Come to her, poor wanderers, for she is it, and she alone, who can unfold the secret of your being and the meaning of your destiny."

The convert Carl Ernst Jarcke, formerly Professor of Jurisprudence in Berlin and Rome, stated on his death-bed: "When I am dead, say to all who will hear, that I found my supreme happiness in the infallible Roman Catholic Church."

John L. Stoddard, celebrated American, has this to say of his experience after entering the Church. "When I am asked what I have found within the Catholic Church superior to all that Protestantism gave me, I found that language is unable to express it. One must enter it to understand its sanctity and charm. It is the bread of life and the wine of the soul, instead of the unsatisfying husks; the father's welcome instead of the weary exile in the wilderness of doubt. It is true, the prodigal must retrace the homeward road, and even enter the doorway of the mansion on his knees; but within, what a recompense!"

Ralph H. Metcalfe, famous negro sprinter of a few years ago, expresses his feelings thus on becoming a Catholic. "I have found a new happiness in my religion, an undreamed of consolation in my prayers. Catholicity has opened my eyes. It has consoled me and heartened me. My plea to heaven at this moment is that I may ever remain faithful to the Church."

Dr. Samuel Atkinson says: "In the Catholic Church I have found how little I am, but how wonderfully great our Savior is."

The Reverend Owen Francis Dudley, a convert from the Anglican Church, has this to say of his conversion. "Well," he asks himself "and what have I found?" "I will tell you. I was told that the Catholic Church always places the Church before Christ. I have found, on the contrary, that she places me in a personal relationship with Christ that can never be attained outside. I was told that if I become a Catholic my mind would be fettered, my reason stifled. I have found, on the contrary, that the Catholic Church placed me on a platform of truth, from which even a poor mind can rise to fathomless heights. I was told that that in the Catholic Church, it was all decay and stagnation. I have found, however, the very life of God Himself pulsing through every vein of His Mystical Body. It was like coming out of a small, stuffy room with all the windows closed, and striding up to the top of some great hill with all the winds of heaven roaring round. I have found life."

A. R. Burgess Bayly, an English convert says: "And now, after twenty-three years have passed, I am able to look back and thank Almighty God from the bottom of my heart, for having bestowed upon me the greatest of all blessings, that of being a member, although an unworthy one, of the true Church of Jesus Christ."

Dr. Edward Schaeffner tells us: "For seventeen years my wife and I have been enjoying the blessing of being members of the all-embracing Church. Would to God that all our brethren might find the way from banishment into the Church."

Dr. Robert Braun declares: "As time passed, I discovered more and more the hidden treasures of my Faith, which is such an inestimable blessing for our miserable existence that there remains really nothing else to do than to thank God unceasingly for this great gift."

These are but a few of the millions of sincere souls who have found their way back to the Church where dwells Christ in His fullness, where they have found the fullness of Spiritual life, the satisfaction of the soul's desire. For the sincere human soul yearns for God. It seizes with gladness upon everything that will bring it into closer union with God. Like a child crying for food, it hungers and thirsts after the very things the Catholic Church has to offer, the Sacraments of the Church that Christ instituted in order that the thirst of the soul might be quenched, the hunger of the soul for God satisfied. Hence it is that the galling spiritual hunger, which results from abandoning the Sacraments Christ instituted, has led many an earnest soul back into the Church.

Let the following incident bear this out. In the first world war, there was a certain Anglican minister acting as Chaplain for the English forces. But when the war was over he made haste to resign his ministry and join the Catholic Church. "I felt so useless," he said. "in the presence of death, I, an Anglican minister, could do so little. And yet I saw the Catholic Chaplains administering the Sacraments of Extreme Unction right on the battlefield and under fire. I saw them hear the confessions of the soldiers on the eve of battle. I saw the soldiers in the most incredible situations reverently and solemnly and joyfully receive the Holy Eucharist. Yet when my soldiers were dying, I had little more to offer them than pious, comforting words. I then realized that my faith has so little to offer; theirs so much."

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CONFIRMATION, HOLY ORDERS,
EXTREME UNCTION

Let me remind you, these are intended to be simple chapters. In them it is not my intention to give either a lengthy discussion or a complete proof of the doctrines of the Church. If, however, these chapters open your eyes to the necessity of further investigation of the Catholic Church, a more lengthy discussion and a complete proof may be had from any standard work on Catholic doctrine. So I need say little regarding the remaining Sacraments of the Church beyond mentioning them briefly.

By the Sacrament of Confirmation Christ gives His followers special strength by which they become steadfast in the faith, soldiers of Christ as it were, ready to confess Him before all the world.

By the sacrament of Holy Orders, Christ ordains His priests. He selects them from among men and He puts a special mark upon them, giving them special graces by which they may be assisted in living up to the obligations of their high calling.

By the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, Christ gives His followers special graces at the most solemn moment, the moment of death. He anoints their hands, their feet, their eyes, their lips, their ears as they set out upon the last stage of their journey back to the Hand that created them. He prepares them before they are ushered into His presence to stand before the judgment seat of God.

These are the seven Sacraments of the Church, Sacraments Christ instituted for you and meant for you. They follow you through life to be your comfort and your strength. They meet you in Baptism and make you a child of God. They are ready if you sinned with a pardon for your sinning. They give you strength to lead the Christian life. They offer you spiritual nourishment. They sanctify your married life. They ordain priests that shall administer these same sacraments to you and worship for you at God's altar. They comfort and console your dying hour. They are seven deep channels by which grace shall flow into your soul, once you re-enter that Church Christ established for you, in order that you would have all the helps you would be so desperately in need of to work out the salvation of your immortal soul. They are like hidden springs of the waters of life, ready to gush forth with the waters of everlasting life once you have tapped the rock of Christ with the rod of faith. Hence the universal testimony of converts to the Catholic Church is, that once they entered it, what they found there far exceeded their fondest expectations. 

Marriage is A Sacrament

MARRIAGE IS A SACRAMENT

We read in the Book of Genesis: "Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh. " God, in giving this injunction to Adam and Eve, instituted marriage. It is apparent to all reasonable men how important the union of husband and wife is to the welfare of the human race. It was instituted by God in the beginning. Jesus Christ, the Son of God further dignifies it; he pours His grace over it; He puts the seal of His Church upon it; He raises it to the dignity of a Sacrament. "This is a great Sacrament; " says St. Paul, "but I speak in Christ and in the Church." (Eph. 5.32)

The bonds of matrimony are holy then because they have the touch of God upon them. If you are a parent, you may have thought that the little child in your home was your creation. It is yours but it is also God's. Or rather it is God's and yours for, in begetting your child, you were cooperating with God in the further production of the human race. You were cooperating with God in bringing into the world another human being stamped in His image, a little child it is true, but a child possessed of an immortal soul. Because of that immortal soul, your child is of immeasurable value and dignity. He is a creature of God destined to live out the span of his earthly life in this world, but destined likewise to live with God for all eternity. It is in keeping with God's great plan then that He should raise marriage to the dignity of a Sacrament. By means of this Sacrament God confirms the natural right of the child to the love and care of both parents, of father and mother. By it he confirms and strengthens the love and care of the parents for one another, giving them special graces that they may live together in a holy and permanent union. It is in the one, true Church that the Sacrament of Matrimony stays a Sacrament, a holy and permanent union. 

Why Catholic Attend Mass So Frequently

WHY CATHOLICS ATTEND MASS 
SO FREQUENTLY

You may have wondered at times why Catholics attend Church so frequently. On Sunday mornings from early morning until noon, a Catholic Church may be filled with worshippers not once but several times. Its doors remain open not only on Sunday but on each day of the week. Mass is said each morning and each morning many of the faithful are present. There must be a weighty motive impelling the Catholic to attend Church so often. It is true that the Catholic religion obliges the faithful to be present at Mass on Sunday. But though the sense of obligation has its effect in church attendance, the sense of fulfilling an obligation alone would not account for the great numbers that attend Mass on Sundays and on all days of the week were there not something there awaiting them, something that is eminently soul-satisfying, something that satisfies the yearning of the human soul for the communion with its God.

The Catholic hurrying toward his Church on a cold, dark wintry morning knows that the living Christ is there waiting for him. He knows that it will be his great privilege to be present at the august and divine sacrifice of Calvary itself. If it had been possible, would you have been present beneath the Cross on Calvary? Would you have been eager to take your place there beside His Mother Mary, the Apostle John and Mary Magdalene? Would you have been happy to share with them the sorrows of your crucified Savior? Undoubtedly you would. Well, you can have this great privilege once you come back home. You can stand again with all your forefathers before God's altar while the sacrifice of Calvary is again consummated. You can experience that nearness to God, the same you would have experienced on Calvary with the eyes of the dying Christ upon you. You can lift up your gaze as the priest elevates the Sacred Host and see God, as surely as when the eyes of His Mother saw God as she looked into the eyes of her dying Son. "It is the Mass that matters," said a notable English Protestant. He meant that it is the Sacrifice of the Mass that makes all the difference in the world between the Catholic Church and those other churches that call themselves Christian, but whose altars know no longer have the Sacrifice of the Living God.

I do not fully understand the Mass, you may say. And that may be true now. But you would have understood the Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary had you been there. And once you have returned home, when you have pondered over the meaning of the Mass and have assisted the priest in offering up the Sacrifice of Christ, you will know that the Sacrifice of the Mass is but the renewal of the Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary. You will be overwhelmed with joy, and again to be united with Christ, your Savior, as He offers Himself up to His heavenly Father for the Redemption of mankind.

The Holy Sacrifice of The Mass

THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS 

What other blessing can I look forward to if I return to the Catholic Church? You can expect to obtain this blessing. You will be enabled to go back again to the heights of Calvary and to take your stand with your forefathers beneath the Cross of Christ, side by side with Christ's own Mother Mary and the beloved Apostle John. In other words, you will be able again to assist at the Holy Sarifice of the Mass.

Previously we have spoken of that moment in the Mass when the priest utters the words of consecration. At this moment through the power God has given him, the bread and wine in the hands of the priest become the living Body and Blood of our Lord. This is the most essential part of the Mass. "For this is My Body," said Christ. The priest says the same. "For this is the chalice of My Blood, which shall be shed for you and for many unto the remission of sins," said Christ. The priest says the same. For Christ and the priest are performing the same function.

Christ Living on Our Altars

CHRIST LIVING ON OUR ALTARS 

 
If you go into a Catholic Church seeking Christ, you will find Him. You will see a little red light burning before the altar. That is the sign that the living Christ is present in the tabernacle upon that altar. That is why the Catholic Church is truly the temple of the living God. It is not a meeting house. It is not a temple of worship where only sermons are given and prayers are said. It is the temple where the living God dwells, just as truly as He dwells in heaven. Here is the continued presence of Christ upon earth. That is why the Catholic looks upon his churches with so much reverence, whether they be the magnificent temple of St. Peter's in Rome or the humblest wayside shrine, where the little red lamp keeps its silent vigil before the tabernacle of the living God. That explains the holy atmosphere of the sacred place. That explains the awful difference between a dead shrine, no matter how beautiful, and the living house of God, no matter how plain.

"If the non-Catholic world did but know this gift of God by the hundreds of millions they would return home to partake again of the heavenly banquet that a loving God has prepared for them, and to live their lives bathed in the divine sunlight of His Presence.

Photo History:
Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church, 

Poughkeepsie, NY, 1953

The Holy Eucharist

THE HOLY EUCHARIST  

If you enter the Catholic Church you will have returned home into the Church of Christ, into the Church of your fathers. There an almost unbelievable privilege is in store for you. From that day forward, yours it will be to take your place at God's banquet table, to be nourished upon the living Body and Blood of Christ Himself, the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. This is the greatest of all the Sacraments of the Church for in it the faithful have the inestimable privilege of receiving the author of all grace, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity under the appearances of bread and wine.

Christ knew that men need food to preserve the life of the body. He knew too that men would need just as badly spiritual food to preserve the life of the soul. Hence the night before He died, He prepared a divine banquet for His children. Christ was the lover of men, who loved them with an inexhaustible love. Now the desire of the lover is to be with and be united with the object of his affection. Christ was the divine lover of the souls of men. Hence loving them, He loved them as the Scripture says 'to the end', and though returning to His Father in heaven, He determined to remain in reality with His children upon earth. In order to do this, He left His living Body and Blood upon our altars, that He, the living God, might always dwell in our tabernacles, that we might receive Him into our hearts in Holy Communion.

Let us listen to St. Paul speak of the institution of the Holy Eucharist. Writing to the Corinthians he says "Brethren, I have received of the Lord that which also I have delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread and giving thanks broke and said: "Take ye, and eat. This is my Body, which shall be delivered for you. This do for a commemoration of me." In like manner He also took the chalice after He had supped, saying: "This Chalice is the new Testament in my blood; this do ye, as often as you shall drink, for the commemoration of me." Taking Christ at His word, the Catholic Church rejoices in having the living Body and Blood of Christ upon her altars, and the same living Body and Blood of Christ as heavenly food for the souls of men. This is by virtue of Christ's own command who said: "Unless you eat my Flesh and drink my Blood, you shall not have life in you." (Jn. 6.54) God in His infinite love of men, exhausts the very possibilities of His power in giving us Himself. That is why Catholic Churches are temples of the living God, because the living Christ dwells in the tabernacle on her altar under the appearances of bread and wine. This is why Catholic priests are priests, because they offer up this same sacrifice for the people.

Certainly since Christ was God, He had the power to change bread into His Body. What nature by its ordinary powers could do, certainly He, the Author of nature, could do. And if God could create the world out of nothing; if Christ could turn water into wine, as He did at the marriage feast of Cana, why could He not if He so willed, change bread and wine into His own Body and Blood? On the occasion of the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes in the desert, the multitude that was there, having witnessed the great miracle, were in admiration at what Christ had done. On that occasion Christ promised them that He would later on give them an even better food to feed upon. "The bread which I shall give you," He said, "is my Flesh for the life of the world. Unless you eat my Flesh and drink my Blood, you shall not have life in you." Many of the Jews that were there found this hard to believe.

"This is a hard saying," they said, and they walked away. Christ knew what was in their minds. He knew that they did not believe He had the power to do what He said He would do, give them His very Flesh to eat and His Blood to drink. But though, He read their hearts and knew what was in their minds, He did not call them back. He did not say: "Come back, my friends, I do not mean that I will give you my real Flesh to eat and my real Blood to drink. I mean only that I shall give you bread that shall be a sign of my Body and wine that shall be a sign of my Blood." No! Christ did not call them back. He allowed them to walk away. Then turning to His Apostles, He asked: "Will you also go away?" The Apostles however gave Him the answer that is the only answer mankind can give to Christ the Son of God: "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life."

The Jews themselves knew well what Christ meant. They understood them so well that they said: "This is a hard saying. How can any give us his flesh to eat and his blood to drink?" They would not believe that Christ was God, and even if He were God, He would be so good to men that He would give them His own Body and Blood for nourishment. But the Apostles believed, and after the death of Christ, they did as He had commanded. They took bread into their hands, and through the power He had given them as His ordained priests, changed it into the Body of Christ, pronouncing over it the exact words of Christ: "This is My Body." Taking wine in turn, they changed it into His Blood, saying the same as Christ had said: "This is My Blood, which shall be shed for you unto the remission of sins."

From that day forward, on every Catholic altar from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, the priest consecrates bread and wine and offers Christ's living Body and Blood up to His heavenly Father, just as Christ had offered up that same Body and Blood on the Cross. On the Cross Christ offered Himself up to His Father in a bloody manner; on the altar Christ is offered up in an unbloody manner. On the Cross Christ was offered up in reality and under the appearance of His own Body and Blood; on the altar under the appearance of bread and wine Christ is offered up as a sacrifice for man's sin but in the same reality of His own Flesh and Blood.

In the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass after the priest has performed the consecration, the faithful approach the communion rail. Communion for them does not mean however merely receiving a sign of Christ. It means they are receiving Christ. It does not mean they are receiving an imitation of Christ, a type of Christ or a symbol of Christ. It means they are receiving the living Body and Blood of our Lord in one exquisite moment of union with God, when the Son of God stoops down from the high heavens to give Himself as the kiss of peace to His earthly children. The Church does not let the overwhelming generosity of the gift paralyze her faith in the Giver. The goodness of God and the generosity of God should not be a stumbling block in the way of Man's salvation. It becomes a stumbling block only when man with his small mind refuses to believe that God is so good and so generous. We should rather expect an overwhelming gift from a divine lover, from Him of whom it was truthfully said: "Greater love than this no man hath, than that he lay down his life for his fellowman."

You a non-Catholic and I a Catholic have similar tastes and similar needs because we are both human. We do not want to be fed upon signs and symbols and figures and imitations. We want and we need what the good God has been willing to give us, His own Flesh and Blood. "Unless you eat My Flesh and drink My Blood, you shall not have life in you," said Christ. Hence when He further says: "This is My Body; this is My Blood. Do this in commemoration of Me," the Church joyfully accepts the gift of Christ, she dispenses the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist to the faithful and she adores the real presence of Christ upon her altars.

The Holy Eucharist is rightly called the 'wine of virgins and bread of martyrs,' since millions of faithful Christians, nourished on this food, have risen to the heights of sanctity, millions have gladly endured the pains of martyrdom.

This then will be your privilege if you reenter the Church of your fathers. Once again you will be able to approach and partake of the divine banquet God Himself has prepared for you. This, the incredible gift of God to man, will again be yours. If there were naught else for you to receive, this in itself should be enough to urge you to hasten back home.

Photo History: Princess Grace Kelly - Her Wedding

The Sacrament of Penance

 

THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

For thirty years Christ, the Son of God, lived at Nazareth, the quiet retired life of a carpenter's son. At the age of thirty He began His public life which lasted but for three years. In those three years that so changed the course of all history, the Redeemer of mankind was laying the foundations of His Church. Broad and deep must be these foundations, for they were the foundations of a Church that was to last till the end of time. For that reason He had said to His Apostle Simon: "Thou are Peter", meaning that He was changing Simon's name to that of Peter. Peter means rock, so Christ continues: "and upon this rock, I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." He was therefore building a Church that was not meant to be the salvation only of those who lived in the time of Christ, but for all men of all time. Hence He would leave with His Church the authority to deal with men of all time, to teach them and to administer the Sacraments that would be necessary for their spiritual life.

Entrance into the Church He made possible through the reception of the Sacrament of Baptism. This Sacrament would wash away from the soul any stain left upon the children of Adam through the sin of the disobedience of their first parents. That sin is called original sin. But Christ knew the weakness of men. He knew the temptations to sin that would surround them in this life, that might lead them to commit sin after their Baptism. He knew that they would need another source of forgiveness. He had come, as was said, not to save those who need not penance but to save sinners that were lost. Hence He gives to His Apostles and their successors the power to forgive sins. After His resurrection, He thus addresses His disciples: "As the Father has sent Me, I also send you. Receive ye the Holy Spirit, whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins ye shall retain, they are retained." (Matt. 18.18) Again the Church does not dispute with Christ. Rather she takes Christ at His word and knows that her priests have the power of forgiving sins in His name.

All of us must work out our salvation in fear and trembling while we are upon this earthly pilgrimage. What a wonderful feeling of relief and consolation it is, then, to know that if we have sinned, we have the means of reconciliation with God at hand. The Sacrament by which sins committed after Baptism are forgiven is called the Sacrament of Penance. The sinner kneels at the feet of the priest; with sincere sorrow for having offended the Almighty God, he humbly confesses his sins and resolves with a firm purpose relying on God's sure help to commit them no more. Then he hears the healing words of absolution fall from the lips of the priest who sits there in the place of Christ: "I absolve thee from thy sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Again we may ask why doubt Christ, merely because He has been so good to us.