Kim Davis – refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses to gay couples.

Vol 8 Issue 36 ~ Editor: Rev. Fr. Courtney Edward Krier
September 5, 2015 ~ Our Lady on Saturday

1. Baptism: Means of Salvation (32)
2.Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
3. Ss. Donatian, Laetus and Others
4. Christ in the Home (7)
5. Articles and notices

Dear Reader:

To the great shame and embarrassment of Catholics who have lost the prize (Truth, God and the Kingdom of Heaven), Kim Davis, a non-Catholic, has been imprisoned for refusing to offer even a little incense to the gods of this world while “Catholics” pour it on. The Pew Organization, an anti-Christ promoter of humanism that gleefully informs its readers of the conquests of secularism over Christians and negates any good Catholics have done but is quick to broadcast the news of a fallen or apostate priest and his deeds, is now trumpeting the fact of Catholics wholesale rejecting their faith as the Pew Organization posts in their latest biased poll (open the following link):

http://www.pewforum.org/files/2015/09/Catholics-and-Family-Life-09-01-2015.pdf?utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=f46f3172c9-Religion_Weekly_Sept_3_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3e953b9b70-f46f3172c9-399903989

In this study over 70% of those who claim to be Catholic see nothing wrong with living in sinful relationships, including sodomy. Over 60% say it is alright to receive communion while living in adultery or fornication and also over 75% that contraceptive use is acceptable to them. Since this will be used as proof that Catholics are not against sodomy, co-habitation, divorce, and contraceptives it means that in front of a judge a faithful Catholic (not the pagan Catholics just spoken of) will be denied that of calling on his faith that these acts are forbidden him. Nor will the Conciliar Church defend the faithful Catholic if it has not even defended its own institutions from being forced to do perverse actions, such as abortions, paying directly for abortions, teaching how to perform abortions and having sodomites in its own staff.

May our Guardian Angel (to whom this month is dedicated) watch over us and protect us—but if we must suffer imprisonment and/or martyrdom, that we also be given that grace to be faithful.

As always, enjoy the readings and commentaries provided for your benefit.—The Editor

____________________

Baptism

Means of Salvation

Preparation for Grace

Introduction (c)

Justification, Righteousness and Sanctifying Grace (6)

In the last section, the point was stressed that justification and sanctification are the same since they both bring one to the end for which God desires: A participation in His divine nature, adoption as sons of God. Here, it is well to have a clear understanding of Sanctifying Grace—the requisite to union with God and the Beatific Vision.

One learned with the Baltimore Catechism the following: Sanctifying grace is that grace which confers on our souls a new life, that is, a sharing in the life of God Himself. (Ch. 9, q. 108)

The Catechism of the Council of Trent (Part 1, art. viii), in explaining the words of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, the giver of life:

[B]ecause the soul lives more by its union with God than the body is nourished and sustained by its union with the soul. Since, then, the Sacred Scriptures ascribe to the Holy Ghost this union of the soul with God, it is clear that He is most rightly called the giver of life.

It is true that one cannot visibly see the workings of Sanctifying Grace, nor it cleansing the heart of sin (cf. Eph. 5:26: That he might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of life.) but the effects are there and was made manifest in Scripture as the various Sacraments were instituted. In the baptism of Christ one reads:

And Jesus being baptized, forthwith came out of the water: and lo, the heavens were opened to him: and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon him. And behold a voice from heaven, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matt. 3:16-17)

Saint Thomas, in commenting on this passage, declares:

Then is mentioned the apparition of the Holy Spirit: And I saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him. This is what befits the baptized, who receive the Holy Spirit within themselves: “He that is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). . . .

Note that the visible sending is always a sign of the invisible sending, and it signifies either grace newly received or an increase of grace: as in the apostles, when the Holy Spirit appeared in tongues, it signified an increase of grace. Furthermore, such a sending either signifies the grace then produced or previously produce. But in Christ it does not signify a new effect, because from the instant of his conception he was full of grace and truth; but the grace previously upon him was as man, not as God.

Then, when he says, And lo, a voice from heaven saying, he presents the Father’s testimony, This is my Son. Note that baptism makes men not only spiritual but also sons of God: “He gave them power to become sons of God” (Jn 1:12). (Commentary of the Gospel of St. Matthew, )

And which Thomas Aquinas brings out is expressing the Sacrament of Baptism:

It was appropriate for this baptism because the baptism of Christ begins and consecrates our baptism. Now our baptism is consecrated by invoking the whole Trinity: “Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28: 19). Thus, the ones we invoke in our baptism were present at the baptism of Christ: the Father in the voice, the Holy Spirit in the dove, and the Son in his human nature.  (Commentary on the Gospel of St John, 123, n. 268)

When the Holy Ghost comes down upon the Apostles at Pentecost one reads:

And when the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, they were all together in one place: And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them: And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they began to speak with divers tongues, according as the Holy Ghost gave them to speak. (Acts 2:1-4)

And this manifestation of the working of the Holy Ghost is seen in all who have been justified, i.e., sanctified, in the encounter Peter has with Cornelius as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles Chapter 10, wherein the following verses are quite direct in relating that justification has been obtained, even though baptism had not yet been administered:

And Peter opening his mouth, said: In very deed I perceive, that God is not a respecter of persons. But in every nation, he that feareth him, and worketh justice, is acceptable to him.

To him all the prophets give testimony, that by his name all receive remission of sins, who believe in him. . . . While Peter was yet speaking these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word. And the faithful of the circumcision, who came with Peter, were astonished, for that the grace of the Holy Ghost was poured out upon the Gentiles also. (34-35, 43-45)

Sanctifying Grace is a permanent or habitual state of the soul, and why it is expressed that one who has Sanctifying Grace is in the state of grace. This is a result of that relationship established through justification, a relationship that increases through acts of faith, hope and charity along with the Sacraments. Only mortal sin terminates the relationship; therefore, only mortal sin drives out sanctifying grace, the Life of God living and working in one’s soul. The Council of Trent, therefore, set down these two Canons:

Can. 24. If anyone shall say, that justice received is not preserved and also not increased in the sight of God through good works but that those same works are only the fruits and signs of justification received, but not a cause of its increase: let him be anathema [cf. n. 803; D834].

Can. 27. If anyone shall say that there is no mortal sin except that of infidelity, or that grace once received is not lost by any other sin however grievous and enormous, except the sin of infidelity: let him be anathema [cf. n. 808; D837].

It was necessary for the Council to make clear that sanctifying grace was inherent in the soul, for children who were baptized could not make acts of faith, hope or charity; nor could sanctifying grace be equated with actual grace, or God continually giving prevenient grace (which only leads to justification) or a continuous giving of justification that did not remain inherent in the soul. Therefore, the Council of Trent both upheld the Church tradition of baptizing children and rejected an external “covering” promoted by the innovators. And this grace, or gift, of the Holy Ghost (cf. Acts 2:38 and 10:45), and elsewhere abiding seed (1 John 3:9):

[M]ust be as distinct from the Holy Ghost as the gift from the giver and the seed from the sower; consequently the Holy Spirit is our holiness, not by the holiness by which He Himself is holy, but by that holiness by which He makes us holy. He is not, therefore, the [formal cause], but merely the [efficient cause], of our holiness.

. . . . [Therefore] Sanctifying grace is “a quality strictly supernatural, inherent in the soul as a habitus, by which we are made to participate in the divine nature”. (CE, Sanctifying Grace)

Returning to the Baltimore Catechism one finds there are enumerated the following chief effects of sanctifying grace: first, it makes us holy and pleasing to God; second, it makes us adopted children of God; third, it makes us temples of the Holy Ghost; and fourth, it gives us the right to heaven. (Ch. 9, q. 109)

It makes us holy and pleasing to God.

This very strong expression is used by St. Augustine and many of the Fathers to describe one of the effects of grace.  By grace we are deified, i.e., made into gods.  Right at the beginning of all the woes of humanity when, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve first were tempted, the lying spirit promised that the reward of disobedience would be that they should become “as gods.”  The result of sin could hardly be that, so man, made only a little lower than the angels, can at times find himself rebuked by the very beasts.  Yet the promise became in the end fulfilled, since the Incarnation really affected that transformation, and God, by becoming human, made man himself divine.  St. Peter, in His second epistle (4.1), insinuates the same truth when he describes the great promises of Christ making us “partakers of the Divine Nature.” The work, then, of grace is something superhuman and divine.  Creation pours into us the divine gift of existence and therefore makes us partakers in the divine being, for existence implies a participation in the being of God.  The indwelling of the Blessed Trinity, then, does even more, for by it we participate not only in the divine being, but in the divine nature, and fulfill the prophecy of Our Lord: “Ye are gods.” Justification, therefore, is a higher gift than creation, since it does more for us.

This divine participation is what is implied in many texts which allude to the sacrament of Baptism, for the purpose of Baptism is just that, to make us children of God.  The phrases concerning “new birth” and “being born again” all are intended to convey the same idea, that the soul by means of this sacrament is lifted above its normal existence and lives a new life.  This life is lived “with Christ in God,” i.e., it is a sort of entrance within the charmed circle of the Trinity, or, more accurately, it is that the blessed Trinity inhabits our soul and enters into our own small life, which at once therefore takes on a new and higher importance.  In it henceforth there can be nothing small or mean.  For the same reason Our Lord speaks of it to the Samaritan woman as “the gift of God,” beside which all His other benefactions fade into nothingness.  Again, it is a “fountain of living water,” it is a “refreshment,” it is “life” itself.  Not the stagnant water that remains in a pool in some dark wood, but a stream gushing out from its source, fertilizing the ground on every side, soaking through to all the thirsting roots about it, giving freshness and vitality to the whole district through which it wanders.  Life indeed it bears as its great gift; and so does sanctifying grace carry within it the fertilizing power needed by the soul.

The participation of the Divine Nature is therefore no mere metaphor, but is a real fact.  The indwelling of God makes the soul like to God.  I find myself influenced by the people with whom I live, picking up their expressions, copying their tricks and habits, following out their thoughts, absorbing their principles, growing daily like them.  With God at the centre of my life the same effect is produced, and slowly, patiently, almost unconsciously, I find myself infected by His spirit.  What He loves becomes my ideal; what He hates, my detestation. But it is even closer than this, no mere concord of wills nor harmony of ideas, a real and true elevation to the life of God.  Grace is formally in God, at the back, so to say, of His divine nature, the inner essence of Himself.  By receiving it, therefore, I receive something of God, and begin to be able to perform divine actions.  I can begin to know God even as I am known, to taste His sweetness, and by His favor to have personal, experimental knowledge of Himself.  To act divinely is only possible to those who are made divine.  This, then, becomes the formal union with God, its terms, its ends, its purpose.  Deified, therefore, we become in our essence by grace, in our intelligence by its light, in our will by charity. (Jarrett, 69-71) 

It makes us adopted children of God. 

Here again we have to realize that the sonship of God is no mere metaphor, no mere name, but a deep and true fact of huge significance: “Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called and should be the sons of God!”  (1 John 3). We become the Sons of God.  St. Paul very gladly quotes the saying of a Greek poet that men are the offspring of God, making use of a particular word which necessarily implies that the begetter and the begotten are of the same nature.  A sonship indeed is what Our Lord is Himself incessantly teaching the Apostles to regard as their high privilege, for God is not only His Father, but theirs: “Thus shalt thou pray, Our Father.”  With the Gospels it is in constant use as the view of God that Christianity came especially to teach.  The Epistles are equally insistent on the same view, for St. Paul is perpetually calling to mind the wonderful perpetually calling to mind the wonderful prerogatives whereby we cry, “Abba: Father.” We are spoken of as co-heirs of Christ, as children of God.  St. John, St Peter, and St. James repeat the same message as the evident result of the Incarnation, for by it we learn that God became the Son of Man, and man the son of God.

Yet it must also be admitted that this sonship of God, which is the common property of all just souls, and is the result of the indwelling of God in the soul, does not mean that we are so by nature, but only by adoption.  Now adoption, as it is practiced by law, implies that the child to be adopted is not already the son, that the new relationship is entered upon entirely at the free choice of the person adopting, that the child becomes the legal heir to the inheritance of the adopting father.  It is perfectly evident that all these conditions are fulfilled in the case of God’s adoption, for we were certainly no children of His before His adoption of us as sons; strangers we were, estranged indeed by the absence of grace and the high gifts of God.  Naturally we were made by Him, but had put ourselves far from Him: “You were as sheep going astray.”  Then this adoption of us by God was indeed and could only have been at His free choice, through no merits of ours, but solely according to the deliberate action of His own will, for “you have not chosen Me but I have chosen you.”  So that it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.”  Finally, the inheritance is indeed ours by right and title of legal inheritance.   We are co-heirs with Christ, and our human nature is lifted up to the level of God; not, of course, that we supplant Him who is by nature the true Son of God, but that we are taken into partnership with Him, and share in Him the wonderful riches of God.

Here, then, I may learn the worth and dignity of the Christian name.  I am a true Son of God, and what else matters upon earth?  I have indeed to go about my life with its vocation and all that is entailed in it.  I have to work for my living, it may be, or take my place in the family, or lead my own solitary existence.  I have to strive to be efficient and effective in the material things of life that fall to my share to be done.  But it is this sonship of God that alone makes any matter in the world.  In our own time we have heard a very great deal about culture and the ultimate value of the world; but we have seen also to what evil ends so fine a truth may lead men.  True culture is not a question of scientific attainments, or mechanical progress, or the discovery of new inventions of destruction, or even of medical and useful sciences; but it is the perfect and complete development of the latent powers of the soul. True culture may indeed make use of sciences and art; perhaps in its most complete sense science and art are needed for the most finished culture of which man is capable; but it is in its very essence the deepening of his truest desire, the full stretch of his widest flights of fancy, the achievement of his noblest ideals.  What nobler ideal, or fancy, or desire, can a man have than to be called and to be the son of God; to know that he has been drawn into the close union of God; to feel within his very essence the presence of God; to have personal experience as the objects of his knowledge and love of the Father, Son, and Spirit? (Ibid., 72-75)

It makes us temples of the Holy Ghost.

We have taken it for granted that God then is present somehow in the soul by grace.  We have now to consider what sort of a presence this really is.  Do we mean absolutely that God the Holy Ghost is truly in the soul Himself, or do we, by some metaphor or vague expression, mean that He is merely exerting Himself there in some new and especial way?  Perhaps it is only that by means of the sevenfold gifts He has got a tighter hold of us and can bring us more completely under the sweet dominion of His will.  All that is true, but all that is not enough, for we do absolutely mean what we say when we declare that by grace the Holy Spirit of God is present within the soul.  Scripture is exceedingly full of the truth of this and is always insisting on this presence of the Holy Ghost.  St. Paul, especially, notes it over and over again, and in his epistle to the Romans repeats it in very forcible language: “But you are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you” (Rom. viii.9), and he goes on in that same chapter to imply that this presence is a part of grace.

To some it will seem curious to find that the fathers of the Church in earliest ages were not only convinced of the fact of this presence, but appealed triumphantly to it as accepted even by heretics.  When, in the early days, a long controversy raged as to whether the Holy Ghost was really God or not, the Fathers argued that since this indwelling of the Spirit was acknowledged on all hands, and since it was proper to God only to dwell in the heart of man, the only possible conclusion was that the Holy Ghost was Divine.  The value of the argument is not here in question, but it is interesting to find that this presence was so generally believed in as part of the Christian Faith.  In the acts of the martyrs, too, there are frequent references to this, as when St. Lucy declared to the judge that the Spirit of God dwelt in her, and that her body was in very truth the temple and shrine of God.  Again, Eusebius relates in his history that Leonidas, the father of Origen, used to kneel by the bedside of the sleeping boy and devoutly and reverently kiss his breast as the tabernacle wherein God dwelt.  The child in his innocence and grace is indeed the fittest home on earth for God.

This presence, then, of God in the soul is a real, true presence, as real and as true as the presence of Our Lord Himself in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.  We look on all that mystery as very wonderful, and indeed it is, that day by day we can be made one with God the Son by receiving His Body and Blood; we know the value to be got out of visits to His hidden presence, the quiet and calm peace such visits produce in our souls; yet so long as we are in a state of grace the same holds true of the Holy Spirit within us.  We are not indeed made one with the Holy Ghost in a substantial union such as united together in the Sacred Incarnation God and man; nor is there any overpowering of our personality so that it is swamped by a Divine Person, but we retain it absolutely.  The simplest comparison is our union with Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, wherein we receive Him really and truly and are made partakers of His divinity.  By grace, then, we receive really and truly God the Holy Ghost and are made partakers of His divinity.  If, then, we genuflect to the tabernacle in which the Blessed Sacrament is reserved and treat our Communions as the most solemn moments of our day, then equally we must hold in reverence every simple soul in the state of grace, the souls of others and our own. (Ibid., 39-41)

It is give us the right to heaven.

One of the conditions of adoption is that the newly chosen son should become the legal heir of the new father.  Without this legal result or consequence adoption has no meaning.  Merely to get a boy to enter a family circle does not imply adoption, for this last has a distinct meaning with a distinct purpose.  If, then, we are the heirs of God we are really possessed of a right to His Divine Inheritance. Heaven has been made indeed out home.  We speak of it in our hymns as patria, which we can translate as the “land of our fathers.”  We claim it thereby in virtue of our parentage, and our Father, not by nature, but by adoption, i.e., by grace, we are none the less His heirs and have some sort of right over His possessions and riches.  A father cannot without leave of his adopted son alienate any of the family heirlooms; the adopted son now, by the father’s own free act, acquires, not indeed dominion over the riches of the home, but, at any rate, an embargo on the father’s free exercise of those riches.  He could even demand, as against his father, a legal investigation into the due use and investment of them.  His signature if required for every document that relates to them.  He has become almost a part-owner of his father’s possessions, since he is their legal heir.  All this is implied by adoption in its true sense, and therefore it must be intended to apply to us when we are spoken of as God’s adopted sons.

I can, therefore, truthfully speak of myself as an heir of God.  Of course I cannot mean that there is any possible question of “the death of the testator,” i.e. of God.  That is quite clearly of no significance here.  But adoption does give me some sort of claim to the heritage of God.  Now the law defines a heritage as that by which a man is made rich.  It includes not the riches only, but the source of the riches, so that if I have a claim to God’s riches, I have a claim also upon the source of those riches. For the heir is entitled not merely to a legacy, but to the whole of the fortune.  I have a right to the whole fortune of God, to the whole universe.  At once, as soon as I realize it, the whole of world is mine.  It is the doctrine of the mystics that, misunderstood, led astray the communists of the Middle Ages.  These claimed a common ownership of the wealth of all the world, whereas what was intended was that we should look upon the whole world as ours.  To me, then, in life, nothing can be strange or distant or apart.  No places can there be where my mind cannot enter and roam at will and feel itself at home; no things can be profane, no people who are not tabernacles of God, no part of life that is not steeped in that living presence.  The only possible boundary is the love and the grace of God.  There will indeed come evil frontiers beyond which my soul could never dwell.  But all else is of God and is therefore my right.  All creation is mine; the wonder and beauty of it, life and death,    pleasure alike and pain, yield up to me their secrets and disclose the hidden name of God

Here, then, I can find that divine wealth, to inherit which has been the purpose of the adoption by God.  Wherever I turn I shall find Him. Whether life has smooth ways or rough, whether she hangs my path with lights or hides me in gloom, I am the heir to all that earth or sea or sky can boast of as their possession.  Indeed, these are only the rich things of God, whereas I have a claim upon even more.  I have a claim upon the very source of this wealth, that is, upon God Himself, for He is the sole source of all His greatness.  I have a right to God Himself.  He is mine.  He Who holds in the hollow of His hands the fabric of the world, Who with His divine power supports, and with His providence directs, the intricate pattern o the world, has Himself by creation entered deeply into the world; at the heart of everything He lies hid.  But even more by grace He comes in a fuller, richer way into the depths of the soul.  Here in me are Father, and Son, and Spirit. . . .  (Ibid., 76-79)

(To be continued)

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Week of Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Benedict Baur, O.S.B.

The sowing and the harvest

1. Once again the baptized are admonished to “walk in the spirit.” “Brethren, if we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit” (Epistle). The feast of Pentecost has brought us the Holy Spirit with His gifts and His graces. It becomes us, therefore, to walk in the spirit and to sow in the spirit.
2. “For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption” (Epistle). The flesh and its concupiscences are indeed fertile soil. He who sows in this ground will reap an abundant harvest of corruption. Who are they who sow in the flesh? The Apostle explains clearly in the Epistle: He who seeks worldly honors; he who through his vanity and ambition provokes quarrels with his neighbors; he who is envious of others and covetous of their property; he who imagines himself to be something, whereas he is not; he who compares himself with others, and passes an invidious judgment on their thoughts, words, and actions rather than leave all such judgments to God; he who has no sympathy and understanding for the frailty, misery, and weaknesses of his fellow men; he who refuses to carry the burdens of others; he who fails to pray for his brother and admonish him; he who fails to perform corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Such a man is worldly, acts from purely natural motives, and is absorbed in himself, untouched by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit.

“But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Epistle). The field of the spirit is also a fertile field. Happy indeed are they who sow in this field. He sows in this field who does not seek honors, who does not yield to envy and jealousy, who admonishes his erring brother in the spirit of meekness and charity and guides him back to God; such a man is humble and knows his own frailty, and he examines his own life in the light of God’s will and the dictates of his own conscience. They sow in the spirit who “bear one another’s burdens” and practice charity toward their neighbor in word and deed, who do good while there is yet time, realizing that they are bound to the body of Christ and united with all His members through the sacrament of baptism. Such as these “shall reap life everlasting.”

“For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption.” All those works which are performed from purely natural and worldly motives are sown in the flesh. The same is true of all works that are not performed for the love of Christ. They may be good works in themselves, but they are without value for eternity; their end is corruption.

“But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting.” That is, he shall reap a reward that is of eternal value: the reward of the spirit, the reward of faith, the reward of grace, the reward promised by Christ. And every action performed in this spirit, no matter how insignificant it is in itself, is meritorious for eternity. How foolish of us not to exercise more zeal to sow in the spirit!

3. Jesus approaches the city of Naim. There He finds a dead man accompanied by his weeping mother. So, too, when He comes to a Christian family or to a parish, He finds some who are dead. They are sowing in the flesh and they will reap corruption of the flesh. But their distracted mother, the Church, stands weeping over them; she carries the burdens of her children who are spiritually dead. She has compassion on them and ceases not to pray for them, to offer sacrifice for them, and to make satisfaction for them. We must unite ourselves to this mother who prays: “Bow down Thy ear, O Lord, to me and hear me; save Thy servant, O my God, that trusteth in Thee . . . for I have cried to Thee all the day” (Introit).

PRAYER

Let Thy continual pity cleanse and defend Thy Church, we beseech Thee, O Lord; and because it cannot continue in safety without Thee, govern it evermore by Thy help. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

“Bear ye one another’s burdens”

1. “Brethren if we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. . . . Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so you shall fulfill the law of Christ” (Epistle). To walk in the spirit, therefore, means to bear one another’s burdens. Christ bore the burden of our sins, and we must likewise bear the burdens of others.
2. “Bear ye one another’s burdens.” Our Lord gives us an example in the Sunday Gospel. The only son of a widow of the city of Naim is being carried out to his burial. Many of the people of the city accompany her and share her sorrow, thus sharing her burden. Our Lord meets the procession as it leaves the city. As it approaches Him near the gates of the city, He has compassion on the mother. He wishes to share her burden and in charity lighten her grief. “Weep not,” He tells her. The widow feels that the Lord understands her grief and that He wishes to take part in her suffering. He approaches the bier and touches it, and they that carry it stand still. Then the Lord addresses the young man, “Young man, I say to thee, arise”; and the young man sits up. Then Jesus delivers him to his mother. Thus the Lord bore his neighbor’s burden, shared her misery and pain, and left an example for us.

“Bear ye one another’s burdens.” Everyone has a burden to bear during his life on earth; one in this manner, another in that. Each one of us receives his cross from the Lord; every one has his difficulties and his trials. For one it may be poverty, sickness, or misfortune; for another it may be professional or business reverses, the loss of property, family troubles, or the death of a dear one. In these circumstances Christian charity must rule. Christian charity cannot ignore the sufferings of others, or treat them with levity or indifference. Christian charity looks upon the misfortunes of others as its own. It suffers with those who suffer; it seeks to offer consolation and counsel. It seeks to lighten the weight of the cross on the shoulders of its neighbor who is bowed down with his burden of sorrow. A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved. What a splendid spectacle it would be if in our parishes, dioceses, and families, we who call ourselves Christians could really rise to such a heroic level of charity. Such charity requires a deep sympathy with the sufferings of others, an understanding heart, and a spirit of self-sacrifice. Moreover, it requires a faith that can see Christ in each of its neighbors, in the poor, the afflicted, the sorrowing, the sick, and the unfortunate. It requires that they keep ever in mind the words of the Lord, “As long as you did it to one of these My least brethren, you did it to Me” (Matt. 25:40).

3. Christ Himself comes down upon the earth each day in order that He may share our needs, our sufferings, our burdens, and our crosses. “Come to Me all ye that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you” (Matt. 11:28). He comes to us daily in the Holy Sacrifice as our high priest in order that He may assume our burdens, present them to the Father, and obtain from the Father strength for us to bear our burdens faithfully and fruitfully, and thus win for ourselves the rewards of eternal life. He comes to us in Holy Communion in order to arouse in us His own sacrificial spirit and sacrificial power. Strengthened by His spirit, we are capable of bearing our daily burdens and crosses, and of drinking the chalice which He drank (Matt. 20:22).

“Bear ye one another’s burdens”; thus you will fulfill the law of Christ. “If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love; as I also have kept My Father’s commandments and do abide in His love” John 15:10. And yet, where Christian charity is concerned, we fail most frequently, even when our closest neighbors and friends should be the object of our charity. We have no care whatever for the needs of strangers, no compassion on those who are poor and hungry. As long as we suffer no want ourselves, we are content. We have hardly a word of sympathy for those who are in need or in difficulties; we certainly have no time to assist them. Are we, then, really “walking in the spirit”? Where is that faith that should cause us to see Christ bearing His cross in each of our afflicted neighbors? “He that hath the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him, how doth the charity of God abide in him?” (1 John 3: 17.)

PRAYER

Let Thy continual pity cleanse and defend Thy Church, we beseech Thee, O Lord; and because it cannot continue in safety without Thee, govern it evermore by Thy help. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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6: SS. DONATIAN, LAETUS AND OTHERS, BISHOPS AND MARTYRS (c. A.D. 484)

IN the year 484 the Arian king of the Vandals, Huneric, ordered that all the Catholic churches of Africa were to be closed and the goods of the clergy to be taken from them and given to the Arian clergy; the bishops, in particular, who had assembled at the royal command were turned out of the city. Outside of the gates Huneric met a party of them, who appealed against his injustice and cruelty. “Ride them down!” he said to his mounted followers, and that was all the answer he vouchsafed. St Donatian with four others, all bishops in the province of Byzacene, were cruelly beaten, and then driven into the desert, and died of hunger, thirst and exposure. St Laetus, Bishop of Leptis Minor, whom the Roman Martyrology calls “a zealous and very learned man”, had made himself particularly obnoxious to Huneric by his opposition to Arianism. He therefore was thrown into a filthy dungeon, from which he only emerged to be burnt alive, one of the first martyrs of the persecution. The feast of these martyrs, with St Laetus in chief, is kept by the Canons Regular of the Lateran. /496/

ST ELEUTHERIUS, ABBOT (SIXTH CENTURY)

“THE holy man, old father Eleutherius”, is spoken of several times in the Dialogues of St Gregory, wherein are chronicled certain miracles reported of him by his monks. He was abbot of the monastery of St Mark, near Spoleto, and once when lodging at a convent of nuns he was asked to take over the care of a boy who was nightly troubled by an evil spirit. St Eleutherius did so, and for long nothing untoward happened to the boy, so that the abbot said, “The Devil is having a game with those sisters; but now that he has to deal with the servants of God he daren’t come near the child”. As if in rebuke of a speech that certainly savoured of boasting, the boy was at once afflicted by his former trouble. Eleutherius was conscious-stricken, and said to the brethren that stood by, “None of us shall eat food to-day until this boy is dispossessed”. All fell to prayer, and did not cease until the child was cured.

One Holy Saturday St Gregory was ill and could not fast, whereat, he tells us, he was considerably disturbed. “When I found on this sacred vigil, when not only adults but even children fast, that I could not refrain from eating, I was more grieved thereby than troubled by my illness.” So he asked Eleutherius to pray for him that he might join the people in their penance, and soon by virtue of that prayer Gregory found himself enabled to abstain from food. St Eleutherius lived for many years in Gregory’s monastery at Rome, and died there.

(Butler’s Lives of the Saints)

CHRIST IN THE HOME

BY RAOUL PLUS, S.J.

(1951)

MARRIAGE

INFINITY PROMISED

…

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