Vol 8 Issue 51 ~ Editor: Rev. Fr. Courtney Edward Krier
December 19, 2015 ~ Ember Saturday

1. Baptism: Means of Salvation (47)
2. Third Sunday in Advent
3. Saint Lucy
4. Christ in the Home (22)
5. Articles and notices

Dear Reader:

Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will.

Catholics remember these words of the Angels as the heavenly choir introduced the birth of Christ to the Shepherds and to the world of men:  Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will. (Luke 2:14) These shepherds were of good will. They were tending their sheep in the cold of the night, protecting them from the wolves. When they heard these words the Angels addressed to them they went in obedience to the inspiration of grace: Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.  (2:15) Whenever one is guided by grace and cooperates, it is always with haste, for so Rebecca goes with haste to fulfil the words of the Abraham’s servant (Gen. 24:18 and 20 [Hebrew]). Abigail also goes with haste to appease the wrath of David (1 Kings 25:18ff). As an admonition, that is, that Zacchaeus does not lose the grace offered, our Lord said to Zacchaeus: Make haste and come down; for this day I must abide in thy house. (Luke 19:5) And Mary fulfills that inspiration given by the Angel as she goes with haste to the hill country to her cousin Elizabeth who is with child six months. (cf. Luke 1:39) So they [the shepherds] went with haste, and they found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger. (Luke 2:16)

The reward of this promptness to grace is seen with Rebecca being chosen spouse of Issac, and Abigail appeasing the wrath of David and Zaccheus with Christ coming into his house. The Shepherds were also rewarded:  And when they had seen, they understood what had been told them concerning this child.  And all who heard marvelled at the things told them by the shepherds.(Luke 2:17-18)

This is presented not just to comment on the Scripture passage, but to motivate Catholics to also be prompt in living the graces presented during this season in preparation for the Nativity. There are the graces to be found in the Liturgy with its readings. It is even found in the simple use of the visible reminders of the season of Advent, as follows:

The Advent wreath that has four candles to remind one of the Old Testament expectation of the Redeemer through the four ages: From Adam and Eve to Abraham; from Abraham to Moses; from Moses to David; and, from David to the Christ. Do I look forward to the coming of Christ’s Birth as those longing in the Old Testament and expressed in the hymn sung frequently in Advent, O Come, O Come Emmanuel, as also the Mass, Communion and the joy my faith gives me this day? or am I looking forward to worldly parties, material objects, and shopping? How do I know? If I don’t make Mass on Christmas Day the main event and I become frustrated with other people preventing me from obtaining how and what I want; if I only look forward to the celebrations and become depressed if not invited; and if I am relieved Christmas is over instead of rejoicing that it has just begun. Because too many Catholics join the world in its consumerism they have the same frenzied rush to buy, to hear the “holiday” music and to decorate for what will not be until December 24, that they, too, are tired of the music, sick of seeing the decorations and exhausted from fighting the mad crowds in the shops by December 25. By December 26, Christmas is over and everything is put away while the worries of paying the price begin to sink in instead of just being the start of a joyful season with the Crèche prominently displayed and the Christmas tree freshly decorated. Yes, the world’s consumerist selfish Santa Claus might have disappeared, but the redeeming loving Christ Child just arrived.

The evergreen boughs laid around the house, made more prominent in symbolism when woven into wreaths, reminds the Catholic that Eternal life, everlasting life, is what is given through the Word Incarnate made visible for all to see in the lowly manger. That is what a Catholic ought to be living for and what the Epistle for the first Sunday in Advent introduces to the Catholic mind:

[T]hat knowing the season; that it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is passed, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day: not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and impurities, not in contention and envy: But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences. (Rom. 13:11-14)

I need this reminder to think of eternity especially when the world presents such a delightful, but temporal and bitter, exchange for it. Receiving appears more seductive than giving, but I cannot receive eternal life unless I give myself to Eternal Life.

The wording, sung on most Sundays and feast days, Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis, does not mean peace and good will to men as erroneously translated in the King James Version. Such a mistranslation has dire consequences especially seen today. ­It has placed God in the position of being forced to give while there is nothing mankind has to do on its part. It is reception without performance. It is peace without peace for man need not strive to have good will. This is why the secularists, inspired not be grace but by the evil one, retorts that it alone can only establish peace when God is dead because if God were alive, why is there no peace. The word peacehas become meaningless because it can only be given to those of good will. And if God announces that peace comes only through those who have good will, that is, who accept the grace of God and fulfill its promptings with haste, one could see that good would be accomplished on earth, that peace would reign because on earth God’s will would be done as it is in heaven. (cf. Matt. 6:10) But, since the secularist do not do the will of God, they cannot achieve peace. In the New York Daily News on December 3, 2015, the front page reads: God isn’t fixing this. Intended to blaspheme God and mock those who pray while demanding the Government to fix the problem of terrorism, these atheists don’t understand that they are the problem and God can’t fix them because they don’t want God to do so—nor will God force anyone else to do so for only those of good will choose to have God’s grace to do good and avoid evil. Will the Government imprison and kill everyone until there is no one left? For only then will there be no evil and it seems to be their solution now when addressing ISIS.

Unless you become as little children (Matt. 18:3). Christ became a little Babe because this is where ultimately peace is found—only a will to live the life God gave, to be loved by all, allowing everyone to behold, to touch and never rejecting anyone of good will.

I wish to thank all who have continued to support St. Joseph’s Catholic Church here in Las Vegas, without which the significance of the presence of this parish might not be recognized in the city and amongst other Catholic congregations. For those unable to attend Holy Mass on this great Feast of the Nativity, you will be remembered in the Christmas Masses. Praying that all may have a blessed Christmas and asking Our Divine Saviour to bestow His blessings upon us all during the coming New Year.

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

____________________

Baptism

Means of Salvation

Sacrament of Baptism

The Church Defines her Teachings on Baptism 

The Church Magisterium

From the Fifth to the Twelfth Centuries

In reading the documents from the Popes and Councils it should be observed that what holds these documents as Church teaching is not only the infallibility of the teaching Magisterium and the confirmation by later Popes and Councils, but also none of these teachings have ever been rejected by the Church. There are some who may question whether the Pope spoke infallibly or the Council was confirmed as infallible. Despite their questioning the Church’s authority, they cannot say these teachings were ever condemned as erroneous, but rather were promulgated and ever held as Catholic teaching.

With the teachings formulated as a result of confronting the errors of the Novatians, Donatists and Pelagians the Church referenced those same documents to continue emphasizing the Catholic teaching regarding baptism as absolute. One finds St. Anastasius II (496-498) writing to admonish the Emperor Anastasius I in 496 that those who are baptized and ordained by schismatics are not to receive the sacraments again, since the sacrament was validly administered:

According to the most sacred custom of the Catholic Church, let the heart of your serenity acknowledge that no share in the injury from the name of Acacius should attach to any of these whom Acacius the schismatic bishop has baptized, or to any whom he has ordained priests or levites according to the canons, lest perchance the grace of the sacrament seem less powerful when conferred by an unjust [person]. . . . For if the rays of that visible sun are not stained by contact with any Pollution when they pass over the foulest places, much less is the virtue of him who made that visible [sun] fettered by any unworthiness in the minister.

Therefore, then, this person has only injured himself by wickedly administering the good. For the inviolable sacrament, which was given through him, held the perfection of its virtue for others. (Exordium Pontificatus mei, c. 7-8; D 169]

The Second Council of Orange, held in 529 under Felix III (526-530) to condemn the Semi-pelagians, and which was confirmed by Boniface II (530-32) has already been quoted, rejects the stoic belief that one obtains salvation through one’s own human efforts—even baptism:

Canon 5. If anyone says, that just as the increase [of faith] so also the beginning of faith and the very desire of credulity, by which we believe in Him who justifies the impious, and (by which) we arrive at the regeneration of holy baptism (is) not through the gift of grace, that is, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit reforming our will from infidelity to faith, from impiety to piety, but is naturally in us, he is proved (to be) antagonistic to the doctrine of the Apostles. . . . (cf. D 178)

It continues, in rejection of the belief that freewill is capable of choosing a supernatural good through its own power, that a grace given in baptism is the freedom to be able to choose a supernatural good:

Canon 13. The restoration of free will. Freedom of will weakened in the first man cannot be repaired except through the grace of baptism; “once it has been lost, it cannot be restored except by Him by whom it could be given. Thus Truth itself says: If the Son liberates you, then you will be truly free” (John 8:36; St. Prosper; cf. D 186].

Pope Pelagius I (556-561) in 560 instructs Gaudentius, bishop of Volterra, that it is of Gospel precept for baptism to be administered in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost; and if not, the person was to be rebaptized—even if done so in the name of Christ. This Epistle cannot be interpreted as other than teaching the necessity of the invocation of the Three Divine Persons while baptizing, and not that they must be immersed in water threefold, for Pelagius does not say they must be baptized if not immersed or immersed threefold, but only if they have been baptized only in the name of the Lord: 

There are many who assert that they are baptized in the name of Christ alone with only one immersion. But the evangelical precept which the very God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, handed down warns us to give each one holy baptism in the name of the Trinity and with a triple immersion also, since our Lord Jesus Christ said to his disciples: Go, baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit [ Matt. 28:19]. If, in fact, those of the heretics, who are said to remain in places near your love, confess perchance that they have been baptized only in the name of the Lord, without any uncertainty of doubt you will baptize them in the name of the Holy Trinity, if they come to the Catholic faith. But if . . . by a clear confession it becomes evident that they have been baptized in the name of the Trinity, you will hasten to unite them to the Catholic faith, employing only the grace of reconciliation, in order that nothing other than what the evangelical authority orders may seem to be accomplished. (Admonemus ut; cf. D 229) 

This is repeated by St. Gregory the Great (590-604) in his epistle, Quia Charitati, which he wrote on June 22, 601, to the bishops of Spain on accepting Nestorians back into the Church, beginning: 

From the ancient institution of the Fathers we have learned that those who are baptized in the name of the Trinity, although amid heresy, whenever they return to the holy Church, may be recalled to the bosom of their mother the Church either with the anointing of chrism, or the imposition of hands, or with a profession of faith alone . . . , because the holy baptism, which they received among the heretics, at that time restores the power of cleansing in them when they have been united to the holy faith and the heart of the universal Church. But these heretics who are not baptized in the name of the Trinity . . . , whenever they come to the holy Church, are baptized, because whatever those placed in error received not in the name of the Trinity—was not baptism. Nor can that baptism itself, which, as has been said, had not been given in the name of the Trinity, be called repeated. (Cf. D 249) 

One must take notice of the last sentence: Nor can that baptism itself, which, as has been said, had not been given in the name of the Trinity, be called repeated. The one baptism for the remission of sins (Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed; cf. D 86 and Eleventh Council of Toledo 675, D 287) has always referred to the teaching that baptism cannot be repeated. This is so strenuously taken by the Church as undisputable that despite perhaps doubts and antipathies towards unworthy priests, the popes have always intervened when even bishops proposed doing otherwise. To Saint Boniface, Saint Gregory II (715-726) wrote the epistle Desiderabilem mihi to St. Boniface on November 22, 726, reminding him that even if the catechumens were not well prepared because of contemptible priests, they were still baptized: 

You have said that some without the profession of the Creed were baptized by adulterous and unworthy priests. In these cases may your love hold to the ancient custom of the Church: that, whoever has been baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, may in no case be rebaptized; for not in the name of the one baptizing, but in the name of the Trinity has one received the gift of this grace. And let that which the Apostle says be observed: One God, one faith, one baptism [Eph. 4:5]. But we recommend that to such you teach more zealously the spiritual doctrine. (Cf. D 296a)

And his successor Saint Gregory III (731-741) informs Boniface, in the epistle Doctoris omnium of October 29, 739, that all who were baptized, even though not according to the Roman Rite or in the Latin language (as missionaries from various quarters had arrived though the centuries to convert eastern Germany), and who were under his care as bishop were to be simply administered the Sacrament of Confirmation:

However, because they were baptized in the name of the Trinity, it is necessary that those indeed who were baptized through a diversity and a variation of the relationship of languages, be strengthened through the hands of imposition and of the holy chrism. (Cf. D 296b) 

Saint Zachary (741-752) would settle the scruples of many when he answered another concern of Saint Boniface regarding the mispronunciation of words. Here, in the epistle Virgilius et Sedonius to Boniface  on July 1, 746, Zachary writes: 

For they have reported that there was a priest in that province, who was so completely ignorant of the Latin language that when he was baptizing, because of his ignorance of the Latin speech, breaking up the language, said: “Baptizo te in nomine Patria et Filia et Spiritus Sancti.” And on account of this your honored brotherhood has considered rebaptizing. But . . . if that one who baptized, not introducing an error or a heresy, but through mere ignorance of the Roman speech by breaking up the language, baptizing he said, as we mentioned above, we do not agree that they should be baptized a second time. (Cf. D 297) 

Yet, Zachary has to clarify to Boniface that if any part of the form is left out that is essential, such as not mentioning the Father or the Son or the Holy Ghost, then the sacrament of baptism is invalid and must be baptized:

In that (synod of the Angles) it is distinctly recognized that such a decree and judgment is very firmly commanded and diligently demonstrated, so that whoever had been washed without the invocation of the Trinity, he has not been perfected, unless he shall have been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. (Sacris liminibus, May 1, 748)

The Third Council of Valence (855), which was convoked to oppose the errors of John Scotus who seemingly proposed a determined predestination of the just without grace and denied the real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist (expressing a symbolic presence), in a change of reiterating Church teaching turns to explaining Baptism in these words that express an absoluteness of a cleansing and not a mere symbolism:

Canon 5. Likewise we believe that we must hold most firmly that all the multitude of the faithful, regenerated “from the water and the Holy Spirit” [John 3:5 ], and through this truly incorporated in the Church, and according to the apostolic doctrine baptized in the death of Christ [Rom. 6:3], in His blood has been absolved from its sins; that neither for these could there have been true regeneration unless there were true redemption; since in the sacraments of the Church there is nothing false, nothing theatrical, but certainly everything true, dependent upon truth itself and sincerity. Moreover, from this very multitude of the faithful and the redeemed some are preserved in eternal salvation, because through the grace of God they remain faithfully in their redemption, bearing in their hearts the voice of their God Himself: “Who . . . perseveres even unto the end, he will be saved” [Matt. 10:22 ; 24:13]; that others, because they were unwilling to remain in the safety of faith, which in the beginning they received, and because they choose by wrong teaching or by a wrong life to make void rather than to preserve the grace of redemption, came in no way to the fullness of salvation and to the reception of eternal beatitude. in both certainly we have the doctrine of the holy Doctor: “We who are baptized in Christ Jesus, are baptized in His death” [Rom. 6 :3], and: “All you who are baptized in Christ have put on Christ” [Gal. 3:27 ], and again: “Let us approach with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with clean water let us hold unwavering the confession of our hope” [ Heb. 10:22], and again: “For to us sinning willfully after the accepted knowledge of the truth, there is now left no sacrifice for sins” [Heb. 10:26], and again: “He who making void the law of Moses, dies without mercy with two or three witnesses. How much more do you think he deserves worse punishments, who has crushed under foot the Son of God, and has considered the blood of the testament unclean, by which he was sanctified, and has offered insult to the Spirit of grace?” [ Heb. 10:28]. (Cf. D 324)

The Council of Rome, held in 860 and again convened in 863 under Saint Nicholas I (858-867), perhaps confronting those who were still influenced by John Scotus the Irishman or the monk Gotteschalk and their ideas of predestination declared the following: For all those who say that these who believing in the most holy font of baptism are reborn in the Father, in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit, are not equally cleansed from orignal sin, let it be anathema. (Chapter 9; Cf. D 329) Baptism is equally efficacious for all at the moment the water and words are ministered, whether they persevere in the grace given or lose grace given.

(To be continued)

————————–

Week of Fourth Sunday in Advent

Benedict Baur, O.S.B.

The central point of the Christmas season is the birth of Christ. He who is awaited during the season of Advent with such great longing arrives on Christmas Day. He who comes is true God and true man, our Savior, “full of grace and truth; … and of His fullness we all have received” (John 1:14,16).

Christmas is the feast of the mercy and love of God. “For God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting”( John 3:16). Such is the importance which God places on our salvation and our eternal happiness.

In the liturgy of Advent, Christ is not so much the weak, helpless babe, as the divine King, the heavenly Lord and Savior. Christmas has its own peculiar dogmatic character, which differs from the ideas many pious Christians have of it. Both liturgical piety and popular piety have a place at the crib of the Savior. The liturgy sees the Son of God in the crib at Bethlehem, a King and Master, who appears now in His Church to win a place in the souls of men and to establish His throne in their hearts. He is and must be King. For this reason the liturgies of Christmas and Epiphany both emphasize the idea of the eternal birth of Christ as God as much as the kingship of the child who is born to us.

2. What happened at Bethlehem is for the liturgy “a matter both of the past and the present. Each time the host is consecrated at Mass, the liturgy celebrates Christmas. Our Bethlehem is the altar and the Christian soul. Like the shepherds of Bethlehem, we bring our gifts to Him at the Offertory. In a holy exchange He takes those gifts, transmutes them, and gives them back to us at the time of Holy Communion, that through this exchange we may become like unto Him in all things (Secreta of the first Mass of Christmas). In Holy Communion the Church places Him in our hearts as His mother once laid Him in the manger at Bethlehem. The Lord will be born again in our soul and will take up His abode there. The old man must be put away and a new life must take possession of us as a result of the incarnation of the Son of God. The Lord sets up His throne in our hearts and fills us with His life, His strength, and His grace. “And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me” (Gal.2:20). That is the purpose and the gift of Christmas.

Christmas is also a symbol and a pledge of the glorious coming of Christ which all mankind will witness at the end of the world and which each person will experience individually at the moment of his death. At Christmas He appears among us as the heavenly, glorified Christ, in which form He is once to come to judge the living and the dead. Moreover, this glorification of the humanity of Christ is fulfilled before our eyes. Now we behold it in symbol and in faith; we behold it in the brightness of the light with which the Church illuminates the Holy Night.

3. The liturgy of Christmas first of all sets before us Christ, the divine King, as the object of our contemplation; in second place the Virgin Mother is to occupy our thoughts. It was she who gave birth to the divine King, nourished Him as a child, and watched over Him during the flight into Egypt. She offered Him to God in the Temple, and after watching Him grow to manhood, elicited from Him His first miracle at Cana in Galilee. Mary is a type of the Church, which in its turn relives all these mysteries and passes on to her children all the graces she receives. “She kept all these words in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

Mary is also a type of the individual Christian soul, which should enter with the Church into the feelings and sentiments of the Blessed Mother as presented by the liturgy during the Christmas season. The Christian should become another Mary, doing all things for Christ and in Christ.

Christmas should accomplish in us a new birth. As Mary gave birth to the human nature of Christ and presented Him to the Church, so the Church also, in the power of the Holy Spirit, gives her children a new life in Christ. It is for this reason that the liturgical texts of the Christmas cycle dwell continually on the birth of Christ. He is actually born in us for the first time at the moment of our baptism. He is reborn daily and more perfectly in our souls each time we receive Him in Holy Communion, in the fruit of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and in the unending stream of grace that is poured out upon us.

The birth of Christ through the Virgin Mary is a pledge and a guarantee of the reality of His birth in us, a pledge of our incorporation in His divine life. It assures us of the reality of our function as a branch on the vine of divine life, and is a pledge of our eventual resurrection to eternal life and the possession of eternal happiness.

December 21, “O Oriens”

1. “O Dawn of the East, brightness of light eternal and Sun of Justice, come and enlighten all who sir in darkness and in the shadow of death.”
2. “You were heretofore darkness” (Eph. 5:8). You were in darkness, under the shadow of night, of death, of rigidity, of barrenness, of chaos. When light fails everything fails. The sun awakens life; it brings vitality, beauty, and health to the material world. Should this light fail, the world would languish and wither away; all creatures would be struck with consternation, A similar happening occurs in the soul that has been cut off from grace. That soul sits in the shadow of death. It is afflicted by doubts, and as the light of grace wanes, it is plunged into the black night of despair. It deteriorates morally; it trembles with anxiety at the thought of the future. Its life, yes, its very existence is a mystery. It is uncertain of its origin, ignorant of its future. The existence of suffering and death are for it a complete mystery. Such is the state of a soul cut off from Christ. For ages mankind has puzzled over the mystery of life. It has worshiped at the shrine of idols fashioned by its own hand. It has run the gamut of idolatry from the worship of serpents to the worship of self. It has sought light in sacrifice, even in the sacrifice of human life; yet it has found no enlightenment; it has attained no peace or freedom. The sun has been obscured, the light of Christ has not been revealed to it.

It is the Sun, the Redeemer, whom we await. “I am the light [the sun] of the world” (John 8:12). Christ is the light of the world because of the faith which He has infused into souls. He has enlightened the world by His teaching and by the example of His life. In the crib, in Nazareth, on the cross on Calvary, in the tabernacle of our churches, He answers the eternal questioning of the benighted soul.

By the light of this Sun all is made clear. Men come to a new knowledge, a true and certain knowledge of their origin and their destiny. From Christ they learn that God is a loving Father who recognizes them as His children, and who wishes them to be eternally happy with Him. Man comes to a correct knowledge of himself and his relationship to God. He learns the worthlessness of all that is passing and temporal. He begins to understand the value of obscurity, the joy of suffering, the regenerative power of charity. But Christ gives more than knowledge; He gives new strength, new hope, new ideals. “I am the light of the world.” From Christ comes all true life: all understanding, all happiness, all prosperity, all power.

O eternal Sun, come and enlighten us, for where Thou art not, there is darkness, death, and wickedness. “Come and enlighten all who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.”

3. “But now [you are] light in the Lord” (Eph. 5: 18). In the Church the light has now appeared to us on the first Christmas night, on the day of our baptism, daily in the Mass and at the time of Holy Communion, and in the many inspirations and promptings of grace. How thankful we should be for this light, which is Christ.

But we have yet to reach the full measure of the stature of Christ. Alas! we let ourselves be burdened by earthly sorrow, we are distracted by the excitement of the moment, and our spiritual growth is hampered by our attachment to the things of this world. Fervently we should repeat that plea of Holy Mother the Church. “O dawning Sun of righteousness, come and enlighten us, who yet sit in the darkness of suffering, of human reasoning, and of self-love.”

The light of Christ will be revealed perfectly only when we meet Him at the time of His second coming. Then we shall be brought into the light of glory, and we shall “shine as the sun in the kingdom of the Father” (Matt. 13:43). “Sown in corruption we shall rise in incorruption” (I Cor. 15:42). May the day of enlightenment come soon!

PRAYER

O Dawn of the East, brightness of eternal light and Sun of Justice, come and enlighten all who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. Amen.

————————–

20: SS. AMMON AND HIS COMPANIONS, MARTYRS (A.D. 250)

ST DIONYSIUS, Bishop of Alexandria during the persecution under the Emperor Decius, wrote to Fabian, Bishop of Antioch, an account of the sufferings, heroism and failures of the Egyptian Christians, which has been preserved for us in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. In the course of it he mentions a certain Christian who, when he was brought to trial, began to fear and to waver. Some Christian soldiers who were among the guards, fearing that the man would deny his faith, made signs to him by looks, gestures, and nods to stand firm. The magistrate noticed this, made an inquiry, and amid the clamour of the onlookers five soldiers broke from the ranks and declared themselves Christians. The magistrates were extremely disturbed and the prisoners correspondingly encouraged by the profession of the soldiers, who duly suffered with the rest; “and by their victory Christ, who had given them this firmness of mind, gloriously triumphed”. Their names were Ammon, Zeno, Ptolemy, Ingenes and an, older man, Theophilus.

(Butler’s Lives of the Saints)

CHRIST IN THE HOME

BY RAOUL PLUS, S.J.

(1951)

MARRIAGE 

STRANGE PROFANATION

…

[Message clipped]  View entire message