Vol 11 Issue 39 ~ Editor: Rev. Fr. Courtney Edward Krier
September 29, 2018 ~ Saint Michael Archangel, defend us in the battle!
1. What is the Sacrament of Confirmation
2. Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
3. Saint Jerome
4. Family and Marriage
5. Articles and notices
Dear Reader:
This past week the Church in the United States celebrated the Feast of Saints Isaac Jogues, Jean de Brebeuf and Companions. These priests sacrificed comfort and civility to go into a savage country and try to bring the
American Indians into humanity and the faith. Surprisingly, these holy figures who brought the faith to the American Indians, along with Junipero Serra, Jacques Marquette and other missionary priests together are considered bad people bent on destroying cultures and supporting oppression. Even today it is pointed out that, without distinction, priests are opponents of women, molesters of children, and support policies that deny social benefits to minorities—this, despite the fact the Conciliar Church bends over backwards to deny their members familiar support in order to support policies destructive of families by a perverted sense of social justice in taking from the hard working father to give to those unwilling to do what is just and necessary to earn a living and live a decent life. Christ’s words, Go then and learn what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. For I am not come to call the just, but sinners (Matthew 9:13) meant for the Missionaries to go and convert the sinner, to heal their sins, to give them true life—not leave them die in their sins (cf. the story of the Good Samaritan). Unfortunately these words of Christ have come to mean to the Conciliarist hierarchy and clergy: I don’t want holy persons, I want sinners; and sinners should be embraced for that which they are; and those who are just should realize they would be better off if they, too, were sinners and try not so hard to be good.
And so the pagan American Indians who hated truth and goodness and lived perverted lives are treated as examples to be imitated. Those who would want to point out their perverseness are treated as oppressors and destroyers of sacred cultures and rites (such as the murdering of innocent victims). Saint Isaac Jogues was an example of facing death to tell these heathens how horrible their life was and to convert them to the humanity reflected in Christ. [Today he would have been thrown in jail for “hating” the perversity of these heathens.] Junipero Serra made California what it was in the goodness for which it once was recognized by starting the missions and inviting the California Indians to participate in that greatness of making California a fertile land that could feed so many others both physically and spiritually through a life devoted to work and prayer bound together by the Catholic faith. Those who hated his charity attacked his missions, killed the priests and forced the Indians living in comfort from the benefits received by living a human life of charity through the true faith to suffer their cruelty—and these attacks continue today.
Our Catholic parents should read the wonderful stories of the missionaries that roamed the Americas, for example Saint Francis Solano, Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Saint Peter Claver, Fr Pierre de Smet, so they hear the great deeds and marvelous conversions and amazing transformations that were accomplished by them. They should conclude by telling their children that Protestants hated the Catholics and suppressed these events in their history classes; and that now the Secularists who hate Catholics pervert the Catholic contributions in order to teach them in public school that all Catholics are bad and they should be ashamed of being Catholic—but we understand the truth and we are proud of what the Missionaries have done because it had made even the Protestants and Masons envious of the Catholic schools and parish life that developed and placed Catholics in the center of civic life prior to Vatican II.
Now if Catholics threw it all away by being seduced to join the world and listen to the Modernists that does not make Catholicism wrong; but it does make those who left the Catholicism of the great heroes of faith you have just read about no longer faithful and loyal Catholics.
As always, enjoy the readings and commentaries provided for your benefit. —The Editor
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WHAT IS THE SACRAMENT OF CONFIRMATION?
by Rev. Courtney Edward Krier
XIV
Post Trent Church Teachings on Confirmation
II
DISCIPLINE OF THE CODE OF CANON LAW TO BE OBSERVED
IN CONFERRING CONFIRMATION IN VIRTUE OF
THIS APOSTOLIC INDULT
1. The priest to whom this faculty has been given must clearly understand that the sacrament of Confirmation must be conferred by the imposition of the hand and anointing with chrism on the forehead and by the words which are prescribed in the pontifical books approved by the Church (canon 780).
2. This sacrament, which imprints a character, cannot be repeated; but if there is a prudent doubt as to whether it was really conferred at all, or as to whether it was conferred validly, let it be conferred again conditionally (canon 732).
3. The chrism which is used in the administration of this sacrament, even by a simple priest, must be consecrated by a Bishop who is in communion with the Holy See, on the last preceding Holy Thursday; nor should old chrism be used except in case of necessity. When the blessed oil is about to give out, other olive oil which is not blessed should be added to it, even repeatedly, but in lesser quantity (canons 734, 781). It is never allowed to administer Confirmation without chrism, or to receive the chrism from heretical or schismatical Bishops. The anointing should not be done with any instrument, but with the very hand of the minister duly imposed on the head of the person to be confirmed (canon 781, § 2).
4. A priest of the Latin rite who has this faculty by indult, confers Confirmation validly on the faithful of his own rite only, unless the indult expressly provides otherwise. Priests of the Oriental rite who have the faculty or privilege of conferring Confirmation together with baptism on infants of their own rite, may not administer Confirmation to infants of the Latin rite (canon 782, §§ 4 and 5).
5. A priest who has an Apostolic privilege is bound to confer this sacrament on the persons in whose favor the faculty was granted, when they duly and reasonably ask for it (canon 785, §§ 1 and 2).
6. Although this sacrament is not necessary as a means of salvation, yet it is not right for any one to neglect it when the opportunity to receive it is presented; and pastors must see to it that the faithful receive it in due time (canon 787).
7. According to a very ancient custom in the Church, just as in baptism, so too in Confirmation, a sponsor should be used if one can be had (canon 793).
8. The sponsor shall present only one or two persons to be confirmed, unless for just cause the minister shall judge otherwise; also there should be one sponsor for each person to be confirmed (canon 794).
9. For a person to act as sponsor; the following conditions are necessary:
1° He too must be confirmed, must have attained the use of reason and have the intention of acting as sponsor;
2° He must not belong to any heretical or schismatical sect, nor be excommunicated by a condemnatory or declaratory sentence, nor infamous by law, nor excluded from legitimate acts, nor be a deposed or degraded cleric;
3° He must not be the father, mother, or spouse of the person to be confirmed;
4° He must be designated as sponsor by the person to be confirmed, or by the latter’s parents or guardians, or, in case there are none or they fail to do it, by the minister or the pastor;
5° He must, in the very act of Confirmation, physically touch the person to be confirmed, either himself or through a proxy (canon 795).
10. In order that one may be licitly admitted as sponsor, the following conditions are necessary:
1 ° He must be a different person from the sponsor of baptism, unless in the judgment of the minister there is a reasonable cause to the contrary, or unless Confirmation is legitimately conferred immediately after baptism;
2° He must be of the same sex as the person to be confirmed, unless in particular cases the minister for reasonable cause judges otherwise;
3° He must have attained his fourteenth year, unless the minister for just cause judges otherwise;
4° He must not be, because of any notorious crime, either excommunicated or excluded from legitimate acts or infamous by law, even though there have been no sentence, nor must he be under interdict or otherwise publicly criminal or infamous in fact;
5° He must know the rudiments of the faith;
6 ° He must not be a novice or professed religious in any institute, unless it is a case of necessity and the express permission of at least the local Superior has been obtained;
7 ° He must not be in sacred orders, unless the express permission of his proper Ordinary has been obtained (canons 796 and 766).
11. From valid Confirmation there arises between the person confirmed and the sponsor a spiritual relationship, by reason of which the sponsor has the obligation to regard the person confirmed as perpetually recommended to him, and to see to his Christian education (canon 797). But this spiritual relationship is no longer an impediment to marriage (canon 1079).
12. To prove the fact of Confirmation, as long as it is not prejudicial to any one, a single unexceptionable witness is sufficient, as is also the oath of the confirmed person himself unless he was confirmed in infancy (canon 800).
13. A priest who has dared to administer Confirmation without having the faculty to do so either by law or by grant of the Roman Pontiff, is to be suspended; if he has presumed to overstep the limits of the faculty given him, he is ipso facto deprived of the faculty (canon 2365).
(AAS 38-349; S. C. Sacr., 14 Sept., 1946.; Cf. Bouscaren, CLD III)
(To be continued)
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The Church’s Year of Grace (1959)
NINETEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Guests at God’s marriage feast
This Sunday marks the beginning of a series of three featuring the virtue of Christian hope. Playing his role in the liturgical mystery, the Christian appears first as a guest at God’s marriage feast, then as an alien on earth, and thirdly as a soldier in his Father’s army. Life on earth is staged in the light of the parousia.
O Christian, you are a wedding guest in the Church’s
wedding halls—keep your nuptial robe of grace immaculate.
O Christian, earth is not your country; in it you are
an enemy alien—do not forget your true fatherland.
O Christian, you are a soldier and you must win
the conflict so that you may receive the crown of life.
The liturgy presents to us this Sunday a splendid picture of the Church during her time of harvest. In the brilliantly illumined apartments of a wedding celebration, we see seated numerous guests clothed in white. Expectant glances are cast toward the door, which at any moment may open that the king may enter to greet his guests. The wedding room is the Church; we Christians are the guests, the white garment is the baptismal robe denoting our divine filiation, the awaited king is the Lord about to return for the parousia. The great concern of our life ought to be our white wedding garment; it is symbolic of the new man whom we must put on in justice and holiness of truth (Epist.); it is the realization of God’s will in our regard (Coll.).
l. Text Analysis. Today’s formulary lends itself to analysis from two different approaches, (a) that of the station saints; (b) that of the wedding garment.
a) There is a relationship of dependence between today’s holy Mass and the Mass of the physician-saints Cosmas and Damian, whose feast is celebrated about this time. In past centuries their titular church was also the station for today’s liturgy. This titular relationship accounts for the frequent use of terms such as healing, medicine. The transition from our saints as physicians to Christ’s healing work is not difficult. Note the very first word of the Mass, Salus. Christ stands at the head as the Healer of the souls par excellence. The antiphon at the Offertory originally was salvum faciet, “Your right hand will heal me.” The Oration treats of the needs of body and soul, the Secret of health-procuring (salutaria) gifts, the Postcommunion of the healing efficacy (medicinalis) of the holy Eucharist. The Lessons make no allusions to the healing theme, but an enthusiast could easily see the cure accomplished in the wedding garment of grace and the “new man created in justice and holiness.”
b) The Lessons give another key to the message of the various prayer texts. There is a wedding, and we are present in the role of both bride and guest. The Epistle is linked to the Gospel in that the wedding garment is equivalent to “putting on the new man.” Clothed in the garment of grace we sit in the Church’s banquet hall about her Eucharistic table. The Bridegroom Christ is present both as Host and as Food. No work is more important than to keep one’s apparel immaculate (Intr., Comm.). At our first appearance the Bridegroom greets us with Salus, “I am your salvation,” and requests cooperation, obedience. The joyous, festive chants are wedding songs. The nuptial theme, so deeply imbedded in Sacred Scripture, aids no little in making this Mass instructive and edifying.
2. Holy Mass (Salus populi). In this Mass it is easy to sense the spirit of the early Church; in apparent tears and sorrow, though clothed in the white robe of purity, holy Church expectantly awaits the Second Advent of the Lord. The Introit antiphon arranges a quite extraordinary setting; on entering the church, Christ comes to meet us and speaks to us words of comfort and of counsel: Do not be sad if now you have much to suffer; I am with you, I am your God and very soon I Myself will be your greatest joy. Presently, however, He lifts His hand in warning: Be mindful of this one thing, keep My commandments. The Collect is a pilgrim’s prayer. Joyfully we are hastening toward our heavenly home; nevertheless, the devil and our own lower nature hang as leaden weights on body and soul; we pray for the removal of these hindrances that “with freed hearts we may fulfill the will of God.”
The Epistle assigns to us the most serious task of our lives: “To put on the new man which God has created according to His image in true justice and holiness.” It is the wedding garment of the Gospel. We must put off the dress of sin, the old man, before the setting of the sun (before the sun of life has set); we must show love to one another “for we are members” of Christ’s Body. The incense which ascends at the Gospel together with our hands lifted up toward heaven in the Gradual attest our homesickness for heaven.
The Alleluia verse resounds with paschal praise to our divine King who enters at the Gospel. Now Christ is speaking. The parable of the wedding garment is, in the first place, an admonition; it does not suffice to belong to the Church through faith alone (to sit at the marriage feast); we must also live in accordance with the will of God, wearing the required spiritual attire. The nuptials denote the work of salvation; Christ is the Bridegroom, the Church the Bride, we Christians the guests. The Second Advent of Christ is signified by the king’s entrance; sanctifying grace is the wedding garment. Hardly any other picture could better represent Christian life.
The Gospel parable also pictures Sunday Mass. The illumined wedding suite is the house of God in which a congregation of divinely chosen guests are gathered; the wedding banquet is that of the holy Eucharist, which at the same time is a symbol and pledge of the heavenly nuptials. Here too the King appears to meet His guests as a figure of His future visit. Thus is the parable fulfilled in our Sunday Mass. You need but have one anxiety, one great worry—not to be the guest indecently clothed.
Today’s Offertory depicts life’s dark pilgrimage, “If I should walk in the midst of tribulation. . . .” Such words the early Church could truly pray in the midst of persecutions and her Offering would be accepted; therefrom she drew all strength. Insisting that our ways be directed according to the commandments of God, the Communion teaches abstractly what the Epistle and Gospel taught by the figures of “putting on the new man” and the “wedding garment.” The holy Eucharist was our spiritual medicine; may it effect a lasting cure from sin and a healthy obedience to God’s holy precepts (Postc.).
A beautiful Mass! Note how many times the observance of the commandments is repeated (Intr., Coll., Comm., Postc.). It is a challenge to you. Only by obedience may you hope to meet the approaching King with the white garment of grace.
3. Divine Office. The two greater antiphons (Magn. and Ben.) linger meditatively upon the text of the parable: “Tell them who were invited: See, I have prepared my dinner, come to the marriage, alleluia.” “The king went in to see the guests; and he saw there a man who was not wearing wedding apparel. He said to him: Friend, how did you get in here without wearing wedding apparel?”—The homily in explanation of the Gospel is from St. Gregory the Great. A type of allegorical syllogism is used that does not seem too convincing.
4. Meditations upon the Sunday. A. Today’s Parable and the Church Year. We will better understand today’s holy Mass if we consider its story of the marriage feast in relation to the liturgical life of Christians and in relation to the ecclesiastical year. The parable spans a mystic arch over the Church’s year of grace, uniting Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost.
1) The parable describes a marriage feast that a king arranged for his son. Now to what was Christ referring? Primarily the work of redemption. Why the comparison to a marriage? It was an ancient figure of speech, in use already by the prophets. In the New Covenant it was adopted by St. John the Baptist (he called himself the herald of the Bridegroom), by St. John the Evangelist (in the apocalyptic symbol of the Lamb and Bride), and by St. Paul (matrimony, a great mystery portraying Christ and the Church). Yes, our Lord even called Himself the Bridegroom of the Church (Matt. 9:15). Now just where is the point of semblance? Sin separated man from God, the redemption ought again unite man to God. That union should be the most intimate imaginable, not a relationship between servant and lord, or between friend and friend, but as close and as intimate as bridegroom and bride.
We may distinguish three stages in the espousal of Christ with men. The first was the incarnation. Through His conception and birth, divinity and humanity were joined in the person of the divine Word. The second stage was that of the passion and death upon the Cross by which Christ redeemed men and reunited them to God objectively; subjectively, however, redemption is accomplished in the baptism and sanctification of individual souls. The final degree is the ultimate union of the Church (and souls) with the divine Bridegroom in heaven, a consummation St. John paints so magnificently in his apocalyptic vision: “I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Apoc. 21 :2).
Aided by the liturgy we may compare the Christmas cycle, which has as its object the incarnation and birth of Christ, to a marriage feast. During Advent we hear the longing cries of the bride for the divine Bridegroom; she is preparing herself for His arrival. At Christmas we see the Bridegroom step forth from His bridal chamber (Ps, 18), but not until Epiphany does the Church celebrate the wedding feast. We need only recall that famous antiphon: “This day the Church is joined to her heavenly Spouse, for Christ has cleansed away her crimes in the Jordan; with gifts the Magi hasten to the royal nuptials, and the guests are gladdened with wine made from water. Alleluia.” Here we have the most ideal application of the parable. Again at the final feast of the Christmas cycle, the Presentation, we sing: “Adorn your bridal chamber, O Sion, and receive Christ, your King!” In this manner the Christmas cycle exemplifies the sacred nuptials between Christ and the Church.
2) After the citizens of that city had so insolently refused the invitation extended them, the king ordered his servants to bring in from the highways both the bad and the good; and his table was filled with guests. We know that by this Jesus indicated the rejection of the Jews and the call of the Gentiles.
After the Christmas cycle is completed the Church becomes more grave in demeanor, more serious, more earnest. Her messengers and attendants are standing on the highways and at the crossroads inviting all to the marriage feast. Such is the spirit of the three Sundays preceding Lent (the workers in the vineyard). The Church is gathering her neophytes; she is insisting on penitential practices; the great fast, directed exclusively to the care of the wedding garment, is beginning. Each guest requires special attention; for one the wedding garment must be newly woven (baptism), for another it must be laundered (penance). How highly important this season is in the mind of the Church may be judged from the serious mood which has come upon her, from her fastings, and even from her feasts. In tears and penance, by fastings, by almsgiving, and by prayer the wedding garment is washed and woven. Then come two days of exceptional importance in her life, Holy Thursday and Holy Saturday. On Holy Thursday we put away the garb of penance to receive again the wedding garment; on Easter eve the catechumens are clothed with resplendent robes, and we together with them. The priest says: “Receive this white garment and bring it unsullied to the judgment seat of God.” On Easter day the marriage feast is full, all the guests are seated, clothed in immaculately resplendent wedding garments.
3) “And the king went in to see the guests.” By this the liturgy means the Second Advent of the Lord for each individual at death, and for all mankind at the Last Judgment. Only they will then be found acceptable who are clothed in the nuptial robes of sanctifying grace; they who are not so attired will hear from the heavenly Judge the sentence of eternal damnation. From Easter to Pentecost is the most blessed season for the children of God, for during that period their wedding garments are clean and nicely tailored. But on Pentecost the newly-baptized are declared of age and sent out into a contrary world.
The last period of the Church year, the time after Pentecost, is about to begin. This season may be characterized in these words: With deep anxiety holy Church endeavors to preserve her children’s wedding robes immaculate. Sunday after Sunday she purifies the holy garment by the Asperges; Sunday after Sunday she prepares a Eucharistic banquet to preserve and cleanse the baptismal robes (mundet et muniat). Untiringly she pleads and counsels her children to put off the old man and put on the new man exemplifying true justice and holiness. From the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, however, Mother Church gazes longingly and expectantly toward her approaching Lord. In pilgrim’s garb she travels as a stranger through the world, anxiously awaiting her King; her one and deepest concern is that her children will be present without blame or guilt on the day of the Lord’s Advent.
B. The Epistle. We ought always appraise the Sunday Epistles as letters truly from God. Since they are rich in golden kernels of early Christian doctrine, we ought every week dedicate one day to a deeper understanding and fuller application of their contents. Today’s Epistle begins with the counsel that we renew our spirit and put on the new man. Its relation to the parable of the Gospel has already been noted. We know that this renewal, this donning of the new man has already been accomplished in baptism, while at Easter each year it is publicly reenacted. But since we earth-men are repeatedly falling from our high aims, a more frequent regeneration becomes necessary. Each Sunday, therefore, is Easter in miniature, each Sunday calls to us in the first words of today’s Epistle: “Get a new heart, become a new (spiritual) personality!” The rite of the Asperges contains the same admonition. Wearing of Sunday clothes and the use of freshly laundered apparel may very appropriately be considered symbolic of this regeneration.
St. Paul cites three examples of spiritual renewal which may be summed up thus: love of truth, love of neighbor, love of justice. Certainly these are three fundamental virtues of our moral lives. Let us try meditating upon them in a positive manner.
1) Love of truth. Of course, we may not be addicted to the habit of direct lying, but God’s command is by far not fulfilled in that alone. We want to be men so sincerely given to the ideal of truth as never to show ourselves other than we truly are. Nothing two-faced, nothing hypocritical. Sincerity is a Christian virtue. Therefore, all exaggeration, all belittling, all that is not genuine, all that is false or “diplomatic” should be equally foreign. A final consideration. The motive St. Paul gives for being truthful is that “we are members of one another,” that is, members of the Mystical Body. The Apostle is teaching us how to make the doctrine of Christ’s Body practical. The hand never lies to the foot.
2) Love of neighbor. Life in action is the Apostle’s concern. He sees Christians living together in family and community groups, and as a result there arise occasions for friction. This of course may happen, the Apostle admits, but love need not suffer thereby. To prevent the continuance of ill-feeling, he lays down a sound and very practical p…
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