Vol 9 Issue 19 ~
Editor: Rev. Fr. Courtney Edward Krier
May 7, 2016 ~ Saint Stanislaus, opn!

1. Baptism: Means of Salvation (67)
2. Sunday after Ascension
3. St. Michael
4. Christ in the Home (41)
5. Articles and notices

Dear Reader:

Please accept a brief newsletter. The Novena to the Holy Ghost as begun as the Church prepares for the feast of Pentecost, but May also means First Communions, Confirmations, and May crownings. The Church is alive in presenting her children with opportunities of grace and the faithful should take advantage. 

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

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Baptism

Means of Salvation

Sacrament of Baptism

Post Trent

Roman Catechism

1. The renunciation.

After the performance of these ceremonies, the person to be baptized approaches the baptismal font, at which are performed other rites and ceremonies, which present a summary of the obligations imposed by the Christian religion. In three distinct interrogatories, he is formally asked by the minister of religion, “dost thou renounce Satan?” “and all his works?” “and all his pomps?” to each of which he, or the sponsor in his name, replies in the affirmative. Whoever, then, purposes to enlist under the standard of Christ, must, first of all, enter into a sacred and solemn engagement to renounce the devil and the world, and, as his worst enemies, to hold them in utter detestation. [4 Tertul. lib. de coron. mil. c. 13. et de spectac. c. 4. et de Idol. c. 6. Cypr. epist. 7. 54.]

The oil of catechumens.

He is next anointed with the oil of catechumens on the breast and between the shoulders—on the breast, that by the gift of the Holy Ghost he may lay aside error and ignorance, and receive the true faith; for “the just man liveth by faith” [5 Gal. iii. 11.] on the shoulders, that by the grace of the Holy Spirit he may be enabled to shake off negligence and torpor, and engage actively in the performance of good works; for “faith without works is dead.” [6 James ii. 26.]

The profession of faith.

Next, standing at the baptismal font, he is interrogated by the minister of religion in these words: “Dost thou believe in God, the Father Almighty?” to which is answered; “I believe;” a like interrogatory is proposed with regard to the other articles of the creed, successively; and thus is made a solemn professiqn of faith. These two engagements, the renunciation of Satan and all his works and pomps, and the belief of all the articles of the creed, including, as they do, both faith and practice, constitute, it is clear, the whole force and discipline of the law of Christ. [7 Cyril. Hier. Catech. 2 et 3.]

The will of the person to be baptized asked, and when ascertained, baptism is administered.

When baptism is now about to be administered, the priest asks him if he will be baptized; to which an answer in the affirmative being given by him, or, if an infant, by the sponsor, the priest performs the ablution, ” in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” As man, by yielding the assent of his will to the wicked suggestions of Satan, fell under a just sentence of condemnation; so God will have none en- /135/ rolled in the number of his soldiers, but those whose service is voluntary; that by a willing obedience to his commands they may obtain eternal salvation.

III. The oil of chrism.

After the person has been baptized, the priest anoints with chrism the crown of his head, thus giving him to understand, that from the moment of his baptism, he is united as a member to Christ, his head, and ingrafted on his body; and that he is, therefore, called a Christian, from Christ, as Christ is so called from Chrism. What the Chrism signifies, the prayers offered by the priest, as St. Ambrose observes, sufficiently explain. [1 Lib. 1. de Sacram. Dionys. Eccl. Hierar. c. 3. Cyril. Hieros. Catech. 3. Basil lib. de Spiritu Sancto, c. 27.]

The white garment.

On the person baptized the priest then puts a white garment, saying, “receive this white garment, which mayest thou carry unstained before the judgment-seat of our Lord Jesus Christ; that thou mayest have eternal life. Amen.” Instead of a white garment, infants because not formally dressed, receive a white kerchief, accompanied with the same words. According to the doctrine of the Holy Fathers this symbol signifies the glory of the resurrection to which we are born by baptism, the brightness and beauty with which the soul, when purified from the stains of sin, is invested, and the innocence and integrity which the person who has received baptism, should preserve through life. [2 Dionys. loco citato. Amb. de iis qui myst. init. c. 8.]

The burning light.

To signify that faith received in baptism, and inflamed by charity, is to be fed and augmented by the exercise of good works, a burning light is next put into his hand. [3 De hoc cereo vide Gregor. Nazian. serm. de bapt. Gregor. Turon. lib. 5. cap. 11. Niceph. inst. Eccle. lie. 3. c. 12.]

The name, its utility, its selection.

Finally, a name is given, which should be taken from some person, whose eminent sanctity has given him a place in the catalogue of the Saints: this similarity of name will stimulate to the imitation of his virtues and the attainment of his holiness; and we should hope and pray that he who is the model of our imitation, may also, by his advocacy, become the guardian of our safety and salvation. Hence we cannot mark in terms too strong, our disapprobation of the conduct of those who, with a perverse industry, search for, and whose delight it is to distinguish their children by the names of heathens; and what is still worse, of monsters of iniquity, who, by their profligate lives, have earned an infamous notoriety. By such conduct they practically prove, how little they regard a zeal for Christian piety, who so fondly cherish the memory of impious men, as to wish to have their profane names continually echo in the ears of the faithful.

Recapitulation.

This exposition of baptism, if given by the pastor, will be found to embrace, almost every thing of importance, which regards this Sacrament. We have explained the meaning of the word ” baptism,” its nature and substance, and also the parts of which it is composed we have said by whom it was instituted /136/ who are the ministers necessary to its administration who should be, as it were, the tutors, whose instructions should sustain the weakness of the person baptized to whom baptism should be administered, and how they should be disposed what are the virtue and efficacy of the Sacrament. Finally, we have developed, at sufficient length for our purpose, the rites and ceremonies that should accompany its administration. The pastor will recollect that all these instructions have principally for object, to induce the faithful to direct their constant attention and solicitude to the fulfilment of the sacred and inviolable engagements into which they entered at the baptismal font, and to lead lives not unworthy the sanctity of the name and profession of Christian.

(To be continued)

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Sunday after the Ascension

Benedict Baur, O.S.B.

Be prepared

1. “Almighty and eternal God, grant that our will may be ever devoted to Thee, and that we may serve Thy majesty with a sincere heart” (Collect).
2. A submissive will. If the grace of the Holy Spirit is to be fruitful in us, as it was in the apostles, it is not enough that we merely pray for His coming. It is also necessary that we prepare the soil of our souls to the best of our ability. We do this by renouncing ourselves, and by rejecting all that is contrary to God’s will and honor. Above all we must have charity: “If any one love me he will keep my word, and we [The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] will make our abode with him” John14:23). Our task is to acquire a submissive will. We must prove ourselves.

Purity of heart. Purity of heart is opposed to sin, to faults, and to imperfections. We know that before the Holy Ghost will enter the heart of man, it must at least be free from sin and from willful imperfections and faults, or it must at least have the sincere desire to achieve such purity of heart. The greater the graces God gives, the more purity of the affections required of the soul. The soul should possess something of that purity of heart which Mary possessed when she was congratulated by Elizabeth and raised her eyes to Him from whom she had received so much grace: “My soul doth magnify the Lord . . . He hath regarded the humility of His handmaid . . . . He that is mighty hath done great things to me” (Luke 1 :46 ff.). Mary is elevated too far above the motive of selfish love to become proud over the distinction that has been given to her. She rejoices only in what God has wrought in her; she sees only Him and not herself. She possessed perfect purity of soul and was ready for the reception of grace. But how different it is with us How great is our secret pride! What idle self-complacency we indulge in when God gives us grace! How often we take foolish pride in the graces we receive, and think ourselves something great because of them. The honor and the good pleasure of God are seldom our primary motive in our quest of holiness. Our thoughts and actions and designs are often primarily concerned with ourselves. Our selfish pride instills a subtle poison into all our actions and infects even “our love of God, so that what we should do purely for the love of God, we do for ourselves. We have, then, good grounds for asking God: “Grant that our will may be ever devoted to Thee, and that we may serve Thy majesty with a sincere heart” (Collect).

3. Pentecost will be fruitful in graces. But a perfectly pure and unselfish heart is required to profit by them. Not without reason Mary met with the apostles in the upper room. She is the exemplar of all those to whom God gives great graces; we must imitate her example. She teaches us that we should not long for special favors; that we should not believe that we have been given any special graces because of our own worthiness and excellence; that we should not ascribe to our own deserts any of the graces which we receive; that in matters of the spirit we should be humble; that we should never undertake works of piety or self-abnegation in order to obtain sensible consolations. All such things are based on self-love and only hinder the work of God. Such motives turn the gifts of heaven into a deadly poison.

To approach God we must efface ourselves and understand our own nothingness. “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke14:11.).

PRAYER

Almighty and eternal God, grant that our will may be ever devoted to Thee, and that we may serve Thy majesty with a sincere heart. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Baptized with the Holy Spirit

1. In ancient Rome those who for some reason or other had not been able to receive baptism at Easter, received the sacrament on the vigil of Pentecost, which is similar to the vigil of Easter. It expresses the idea of our baptism by the Holy Ghost.
2. The Epistle relates that St. Paul came to Ephesus and found there certain disciples who had already been baptized, and he inquired whether they had received the Holy Ghost after their baptism. They, however, said that they had not so much as heard of the Holy Ghost. Paul concluded from this reply that they had not received the baptism of Jesus, otherwise they would have received the Holy Ghost. As a matter of fact, they had received the baptism of John; that is, the baptism which John had given at the Jordan, and not the sacrament of baptism established by Christ. Then “they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had imposed his hands on them, the Holy Ghost came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.” We are bearers of the Spirit, filled with the Holy Ghost.

The Introit applies to us: “When I shall be sanctified in you, I will gather you together out of all the countries [into the fold of the Church], and I will pour upon you clean water [baptism] and you shall be cleansed from all your filthiness.” There can be no doubt that we have received the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost, together with the Father and the Son in the inseparable unity of the divinity, has come to us to abide in us. He is most intimately bound to our souls in a living union. “The Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it seeth Him not nor knoweth Him, shall abide with you and shall be in you” (Gospel). He lives and works in us who have been incorporated in the body of Christ.

“He that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father; and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him” (Gospel). With what a love He has loved us He has loved us with that same love which binds the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost together in the Blessed Trinity. We Christians can boast that the love with which the Father and the Son love us, and with which we love them, is God. “God is charity” (I John 4:8). It is the Holy Ghost, the Love of God, who binds the Father and the Son together and completes their love. It is the same Holy Ghost who binds us to Christ, as head and members, so that as one we love, work, pray, suffer, and adore the Father. Through His miraculous entry into our souls and His marvelous union with them, He effects our union with Christ and binds us to the fountainhead of all grace. We are incorporated in Christ through the Holy Ghost, who lives in us. And the Holy Ghost, the Love of God, dwells in us because we are incorporated in Christ.

3. How unfortunate that we should always merely skim the surface of our souls! Into the inner sanctuary where You reside, O Holy Ghost, we seldom penetrate. O God, at Pentecost give us a view of those unfathomable depths in which You dwell. From this day on let our gaze be fixed on Thee. Draw us away from the turmoil and distractions of our daily life into the depths of our soul where the Holy Ghost lives and works, that we may listen to His inspirations and live by His spirit.

We dissipate our energies by distractions and allow ourselves to become slaves to our duties and obligations. We allow ourselves no moments of silence and meditation in which we might be led to the Holy Ghost, who lives in us. We forget His presence entirely. He lingers in the dark recesses of our soul and waits in vain for a glance or a word from us.

PRAYER

O almighty God, grant, we beseech Thee, that we who keep the festival of the coming of the Holy Ghost may ever burn with the desire of heavenly things, and ever thirst after the waters of life eternal. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

8: THE APPEARING OF ST MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL (A.D. 492 ?)

WHEN people had become familiar with the idea that Michael the Archangel was not only the captain of the heavenly host and the great protector, but also the arbiter of man’s destinies on the threshold of the world to come (cf. his feast on September 29), some public and external manifestation of the appeals made to this beneficent influence in private could not long be delayed. Any nucleus provided by an alleged miraculous happening would awaken ready response and would suffice to crystallize into one determined form the latent devotion of the crowd. There are indications of an early cult of St Michael, connecting him with the wonders wrought by the hot springs of Phrygia, notably at Hierapolis, and it seems certain that already in the fourth century a church was dedicated under his name near Constantinople, possibly in the lifetime of the first Christian emperor, Constantine. This impulse came from the East, though there is evidence that a basilica in honour of St Michael was constructed near Rome at the sixth milestone along the Via Salaria at an early date. Several Masses, apparently connected with this shrine, or possibly with others bearing the same dedication within the city, are provided in the earliest Roman Mass-book, the so-called Leonianum, and are assigned to the end of September. Whether the dedication on Mount Garganus, in Apulia, where Greek influences were dominant, is older than this cannot be easily determined. According to the written legend, still summarized in the Breviary, it occurred in the time of Pope Gelasius (492-496). A bull which had strayed from the herd of a certain rich land-owner found its way into a cave near the summit of the eminence called Mount Garganus. In the search which was made for it portents occurred by which the archangel manifested his desire that this spot should be consecrated in his honour. Numberless miracles were believed to have been wrought in the cave or crypt, where a spring trickled which was accredited with healing virtue. That the fame of this shrine soon spread all over the West is manifested by the fact that Mount Garganus is mentioned in one of the oldest manuscripts of theHieronymianum in connection with the feast of St Michael onSeptember 29. Even in England the Anglo-Saxon collection of sermons called the Blickling Homilies, written before the end of the tenth century, supplied an account of Mount Garganus and its crypt chapel, from which, to quote /249/ a modern English version, we may learn that: “There was also from the same stone of the church roof, at the north side of the altar, a very pleasant and clear stream issuing, used by those who still dwell in that place. Beside this piece of water was a glass vessel hung on a silver chain, which received this joy-giving tide, and it was the custom of this people when they had been houselled (i.e. had received holy communion) that they by steps should ascend to the glass vessel and there take and taste the heavenly fluid.” This is an interesting piece of evidence for the fact that long before communion under both kinds was abolished for the laity, it was customary to take a draught of water after receiving the Precious Blood, or more probably, under Greek influences, after receiving the dipped Host, which is still the usual manner of administering the sacrament of the Eucharist in the East.

(Butler’s Lives of the Saints.)

CHRIST IN THE HOME

BY RAOUL PLUS, S.J. (1951)

MARRIAGE

EUCHARISTIC EDUCATION (3)

IT WOULD be a mistake to limit the Eucharistic knowledge of the child to an understanding of the Real Presence and the nature of Holy Communion.

As soon as possible and in proportion to the unfolding of his understanding, the child should be initiated into the Mystery of the Eucharistic-Sacrifice, or in other words, he should be given an intelligent appreciation of the Mass. This naturally supposes that those instructing him have complete and correct information on this vital subject—unfortunately, this is not often the case.

It is easy to explain even to relatively young children—as was evidenced in the Children’s Crusade—that Our Lord did not want to limit the offering of His immolation on the Cross to a

single day, to Good Friday only.

Because sins were going to continue to swarm the earth, it was fitting—although certainly in itself not necessary, but assuredly fitting—for Our Lord to repeat His elevation between earth and heaven, to put Himself as a screen—the

screen of His nail-pierced Hands and open Side—between the justice of God perpetually outraged and the sins of humanity.

Consequently, before dying, Our Lord gave to His Apostles and their successors the power to change bread and wine into His Body and Blood, the power to offer Him anew, the power in each Holy Mass to lift him up again between earth and heaven.

Since every day is marked by sin and the betrayal of Judas, by the crimes of men, by forgetfulness and ingratitude without name on the part of so many people, it is fitting, says Bossuet, that every day be a Good Friday.

Our Lord in every Mass has again in the hands of the priest the dispositions of complete sacrifice that were in His Heart at the moment of the First Eucharistic Offering and which He kept throughout His Passion and His agony on the Cross.

In this way will the Offering of His Sacrifice be perpetuated.

It is not a different immolation from the immolation of Holy Thursdayat the Last Supper; it is the same. Nor is it a different immolation from the immolation on Calvary. There it was a bloody sacrifice; at the altar, in the Mass, it is an unbloody sacrifice. The form alone is different.

In order to stress the identity of the Mass and the Sacrifice of the Cross—for it is a dogma that they are one and the same sacrifice—the Church provides carefully that at every Holy Mass a great number of details recall the immolation of Jesus on Calvary.

The priest may not celebrate Mass unless there is a crucifix above the altar. The altar stone beneath the altar cloths is marked by five crosses which recall the five Wounds of Our Lord. All the objects the priest uses and the vestments he wears have reminders of the cross.

There should then not be too much difficulty for the child if he is alert to become well informed about the ineffable mystery of Christ’s renewed or rather continued immolation. Then he will get the habit—and a very essential habit it is—of receiving Holy Communion not only to receive but also to give; not only to benefit by the Living Bread but to unite himself with Jesus in the very act of His perpetuated Sacrifice.

EUCHARISTIC EDUCATION (4)

SHOULD children be led further in their Eucharistic education than the phases discussed so far? That is, should they at such an early age be introduced to the subject of grace, particularly the ineffable grace given to the world through the Sacrament of the altar?

It may be advisable to wait a bit before introducing them to the subject of grace but it should be kept constantly in mind. We ought not take it upon ourselves to dispense to these little

Christians only a part of Christianity.

Before we can penetrate to the depths of the Eucharistic mystery, we must understand the great doctrine of our incorporation in Christ: Our Lord, in order to restore to us the divine life which we lost by original sin, was not satisfied to redeem us from without by paying our debts with the merits of His life and sacrifice; He wanted to make us one with Him which, as I have already understood in my meditations, is the culminating point of Christianity. Our Lord in order to re-divinize us made us one with Himself.

Thanks to the bloody grafting Our Divine Lord was willing to endure for love of us on Calvary, we were made capable of being joined, set and established as branches of the Living Trunk. Baptism made this sublime incorporation effective for each of us.

Since Calvary, then, we are of the body of Christ—Christ’s mystical body: Jesus plus us. “I am the Vine, you are the branches.”

A beautiful and strictly logical consequence follows: Just as the Divine Redeemer dying on the Cross offered Himself as Head of the whole human race, so in this pure oblation He offers not only Himself as Head of the Church to the Heavenly Father, but in Himself, His mystical members as well.

Since Calvary, Jesus is not separated from His members. A person passing through a door does not first put his head through and then fifty feet later bring through the other members of his body; he goes through as a unit at one time.

Is it so difficult to get our little Christians to understand that? Naturally, we will attempt to explain it to them only after we have made them conscious of what their baptism means to

them and the splendor of their status in Christ.

We tell ourselves too easily that it is difficult and under this satisfying pretext we neglect to give the young the relish and the knowledge for their splendor which they are actually capable of enjoying.

I will teach my children as soon as possible to find in the Eucharist Christ’s great plan for proving His love. “He has made us one with Him. In the act of sacrifice through the hands of the priest, whose word alone has brought Him to be present on the altar the Faithful themselves with one desire and one prayer offer to the Eternal Father the most acceptable victim of praise and propitiation for the Church’s universal needs.”

(To be continued)

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Father Krier will be in Pahrump May 12 and in Eureka May 19.
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