PRAYER: MAY THE MEANING OF MARRIAGE BE PROCLAIMED WITH EVER GREATER LOVE

“On every first Friday to commit as a day of fasting, penance and prayer (e.g. Rosary, Stations of the Cross, Adoration and 40 hours in October) for the intentions of the Universal Church and the Holy Father Pope Francis.

Let us pray

Father in Heaven, you have ordered the Sacrament of Marriage and the gift of life as an image of your Divine Life with the Son in the Holy Spirit. We pray that the teaching of the Church on the true meaning of marriage and human sexuality may be proclaimed with ever greater love, courage and hope in our world and be received in deep gratitude. Amen.

We ask for the intercession of all the Saints in Heaven. Our Lady, Mother of Nazareth – pray for us. Saint Joseph – pray for us. Saint Thomas More – pray for us. St Therese of Lisieux – pray for us. Blessed Louis and Zelie Martin – pray for us.”

(Confraternity of Catholic Clergy)

 

SACRAMENTAL CONFESSION IS “LIKE HAVING A TOOTH OUT WITH ANAESTHETIC”

“Quick relief

Let me tell you a story about Bishop Fulton Sheen. It well illustrates how delicately God, through this sacrament of confession , takes away from us the terrible burden of sins. Really it’s like having a tooth out with anaesthetic. Jesus took all the pain in his Passion. We just feel the relief.

Bishop Fulton Sheen was on a plane journey, and after a time the man next to him, seeing he was a priest, said, ‘You know, Father, I’ve got all sorts of troubles.’ Fulton Sheen said, ‘What are they now?’

The man started telling him all his woes, and after a time the Bishop said, ‘You know, from the way you’re talking you might be a lapsed Catholic.’ And the man said, ‘Well Father, I suppose you could call me that.’

Fulton Sheen said, ‘How long is it since you went to confession?’

‘About twenty years.’

‘Are you married?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you living with your wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you having an affair with another woman?’

‘No.’

‘Well, fasten your seat belt, and I’ll hear your confession.’

When he had been to confession the man said,

‘You know, Father, I reckon God wanted me to sit here, because I had a seat reserved on a previous plane but I missed my connection, and I had to ring my wife and say I was coming on the next plane. This seat I’m sitting on was the only empty seat left on the plane.’

God’s plans

Fulton Sheen said, ‘Does your wife go to the sacraments?’ and the man said, ‘No.’ ‘Is it long since she went?’ ‘About the same as me.’

So Fulton Sheen said, ‘When we get there you must introduce me.’

At LA Guardia airport, the man introduced Fulton Sheen to his wife and they found a secluded part of the airport and he heard her confession too.

Now that incident shows how confession defuses what could be an explosive emotional situation, the return of the prodigal son.

Confession makes the return of the sinner to God easier, because it concentrates the sinner’s attention and energy on the one essential element in the whole process of reconciliation: the movement of the will away from sin and towards God, in other words, a change of heart. This sacrament cuts out the frills. It keeps emotion in a duly subordinate place and enables the sinner to come straight to the point.

God respects our free will

God respects our free will. He does not force anyone. He does not force the sinner to come back. But confession makes it all relatively easy and unembarrassing.

It took God’s wisdom and love to invent this sacrament, which frees us so gently from our sins. I once knew a nurse who worked in a maternity hospital. She was a very gentle soul, and she once told me that women who’d had surgery would ask for her to take their stitches out. They knew no one could be more gentle. That’s how Jesus is with our souls when he comes to us in this sacrament. No one could be more gentle.

But he does more than just take away our sins. He also strengthens us against further temptation. For there are other graces we receive in this sacrament besides the forgiveness of sins…”

– Fr Hugh S. Thwaites, S.J.

 

CATCHING GLIMPSES OF THE DIVINE

Something more than earthly

“At times we seem to catch a glimpse of a form which we shall hereafter see face to face.

We approach, and in spite of the darkness, our hands, or our head, or our brow, or our lips become, as it were, sensible of the contact of something more than earthly.

We know not where we are, but we have been bathing in water, and a voice tells us that it is blood. Or we have a mark signed upon our foreheads, and it spake of Calvary. Or we recollect a hand laid upon our heads, and surely it had the print of nails in it, and resembled his who with a touch gave sight to the blind and raised the dead. Or we have been eating and drinking; and it was not a dream surely, that one fed us from his wounded side, and renewed our nature by the heavenly meat he gave.”

– Bl. John Henry Newman, “We may even experience Christ’s presence in his Sacraments”

 

 

“THE HOLY SPIRIT COMES TO MEET US AND KINDLES FAITH IN US”

“On … Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles, let us prayerfully reflect on some of the words contained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the Holy Spirit.

‘The HOLY SPIRIT comes to meet us and kindles faith in us. By virtue of our Baptism, the first sacrament of the faith, the Holy Spirit in the Church communicates to us, intimately and personally, the life that originates in the Father and is offered to us in the Son.’ (Section 683).

‘The Holy Spirit is at work with the Father and the Son from the beginning to the completion of the plan for our salvation. But in these ‘end times’, ushered in by the Son’s redeeming Incarnation, the Spirit is revealed and given, recognised and welcomed in a person. Now can this divine plan, accomplished in Christ, the firstborn and head of the new creation, be embodied in mankind by the outpouring of the Spirit: as the Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.’ (section 686)

The Church, a communion living in the faith of the apostles which she transmits, is the place where we know the Holy Spirit:

• In the Scripture he inspired;

• In the Tradition, to which the Church Fathers are already witnesses;

• In the Church’s Magisterium, which he assists;

• In the sacramental liturgy, through its words and symbols, in which the Holy Spirit puts us in communion with Christ;

• In prayer, wherein he intercedes for us;

• In the charisms and ministries by which the Church is built up;

• In the signs of apostolic and missionary life;

• In the witness of saints through whom he manifests his holiness and continues the work of salvation (section 688).”
– From “Spiritual Thought from Fr Chris” (June 2014)

 

“LORD, GRANT THAT YOUR SERVANTS MAY MANIFEST IN THEIR LIVES THE GRACE OF THE SACRAMENT”

O God, you are constantly increasing the numbers of your faithful. Grant that your servants may manifest in their lives the grace of the sacrament which they have received in the spirit of faith. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

1st MARCH, BIBLE READING (JAMES 5:13-20)

THE HEARTFELT PRAYER OF A GOOD MAN WORKS VERY POWERFULLY.

If any one of you is in trouble, he should pray; if any one is happy, he should sing a psalm. If one of you is ill, he should send for the elders of the church, and they must anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord and pray over him. The prayer of faith will save the sick man and the Lord will raise him up again; and if he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven. So confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, and this will cure you; the heartfelt prayer of a good man works very powerfully. Elijah was a human being like ourselves – he was a human being like ourselves – he prayed hard for it not to rain, and no rain fell for three-and-a- half years; then he prayed again and the sky gave rain and the earth gave crops.

My brothers, if one of you strays away from the truth, and another brings him back to it, he may be sure that anyone who can bring back a sinner from the wrong way that he has taken will be saving a soul from death and covering up a great number of sins.

V. The word of the Lord.
R. Thanks be to God.

 

COMING CLOSE TO JESUS THROUGH FORGETTING ONESELF

“To forget oneself, to be delivered from all one’s desires and pretensions, to open one’s heart to the pressing needs of others – this is possible only through daily intimacy with Our Lord.

If we take counsel with Him in all our affairs, if we let ourselves be purified by the sanctifying power that flows from the Eucharist, if we offer ourselves to the Lord in this sacrifice and receive Him into our innermost souls in Holy Communion, then we cannot but be drawn ever more deeply into the current of His Divine Life; we shall grow into the mystical Body of Christ, and our heart will be transformed into the likeness of the Divine Heart.”
– St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

 

“WHEN YOU HAVE MADE A GOOD CONFESSION, YOU HAVE CHAINED UP THE DEMON”

THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

“My children, we can never understand God’s goodness to us in instituting this great Sacrament of Penance.

If someone said to the poor damned souls, who are in hell so long: ‘We will place a priest at the gate of hell. Those who will go to confession can then leave’, do you think that there would be one left? The most guilty would not shrink from telling their sins, not even from telling them before everyone. How soon would hell be a desert, and how quickly heaven would be filled! Well, we do have the time and the means denied to these poor damned souls.

My children, the moment our soul contracts a stain, we should act like a person who possesses a beautiful globe of crystal, which he guards most carefully. If it gets a little dust, he passes a sponge over it immediately, and behold, the globe is clear and brilliant again!

It is grand to think that we have a sacrament which cures the wounds of our soul! But we must receive it with the proper dispositions, otherwise new wounds are added to the old.

What would you think of a man covered with wounds, who acted in the following manner. He is advised to go to the hospital and consult the physician. He goes, and the doctor cures him by means of certain remedies. But imagine him now taking up a knife and inflicting deep wounds upon himself, till he reduces himself to a worse condition than formerly. Well, this is what you do frequently, when, on leaving the confessional, you fall back into the same sins. Some people profane the sacrament by failing in sincerity. They have hidden mortal sins for ten years, twenty years. They are always in torment; their sin is always before them. They intend to tell it every time, and every time they put it off. It is a hell.

When you have made a good confession, you have chained up the demon. The sins we conceal will all re-appear. To get rid of our sins we must confess them fully.”
– Blessed Cure d’Ars

 

THANK THE LORD FOR THE GENEROSITY AND SELFLESSNESS OF OUR CHERISHED AND BELOVED PRIESTS

÷ HOLY ORDERS ÷ SACRAMENT ÷ PRIESTHOOD ÷ VOCATION ÷ CALLING ÷

THIS IS A TEXT BY POPE EM. BENEDICT XVI ABOUT THE APOSTLES OF CHRIST: “I GIVE WHAT I MYSELF CANNOT GIVE; I … HAVE BECOME THE BEARER OF THAT WHICH ANOTHER HAS COMMITTED TO MY CHARGE…”

“This ‘nothing’ that the disciples share with Jesus expresses at once the power and the impotence of the apostolic office. On their own, by the force of their own understanding, knowledge and will, they cannot do anything they are meant to as Apostles. How could they possibly say, ‘I forgive you your sins’? How could they conceivably say, ‘This is my body’ or impose their hands and pronounce the words, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’? Nothing that makes up the activity of the Apostles is the product of their own capabilities.

But it is precisely in having ‘nothing’ to call their own that their communion with Jesus consists, since Jesus is also entirely from the Father, has being only through him and in him and would not exist at all if he were not a continual coming forth from and self-return to the Father. Having ‘nothing’ of their own draws the Apostles into communion of mission with Christ. This service, in which we are made the entire property of another, this giving of what does not come from us, is called sacrament in the language of the Church.

This is precisely what we mean when we call the ordination of priests a sacrament: ordination is not about the development of one’s own powers and gifts. It is not the appointment of a man as a functionary because he is especially good at it, or because it suits him, or simply because it strikes him as a good way to earn his bread; it is not a question of a job in which someone secures his own livelihood by his own abilities, perhaps in order to rise later to something better. Sacrament means: I give what I myself cannot give; I do something that is not my work; I am on a mission and have become the bearer of that which another has committed to my charge… This very self-expropriation for the other, this leave-taking from oneself, this self-dispossession and selflessness that are essential to the priestly ministry can lead to authentic human maturity and fulfilment.”
– Pope Benedict XVI

 

WHY SOMETIMES THE CHURCH MAY SAY “NO” TO A BAPTISM

“A priest may not, in fact, lawfully baptise a child unless he has a solidly founded hope that the baby will be raised properly as a Catholic.”

THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM IS PERFORMED BY WASHING WITH WATER BY WAY OF IMMERSION OR POURING, ACCORDING TO LOCAL CUSTOM.

“It is true that, according to our earliest biblical records (as in Acts 2, for example), perhaps only adults were baptised, though we can’t be sure of that. Soon afterward, however, infants were included as whole families were brought into Christian communities.

All Eastern and most Western churches consider infant baptism as having been the norm from the beginning of the Christian era.

The three main sources for correct Catholic practice of baptism are the Rite of Baptism, the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults and Canon Law.

Canon No. 854 says simply that baptism is to be conferred by immersion of the person into the water or pouring water over the person.

According to the baptism ritual (18.2), the sacrament is performed by washing with water by way of immersion or pouring, according to local custom.

The RCIA [Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults] is more explicit. If the individual is baptised by immersion, the whole body or the head only is immersed. If water is poured, it is poured three times over the bowed head (No. 226). Many prominent authors of sacramental theology have held that baptism of another major part of the body rather than the head (such as the breast or shoulders) is most probably valid, and the baptism would not need to be repeated.

All this notwithstanding, the Church’s principle is that in administering the sacraments the safest option should govern what we do. For baptism, this means that the head is immersed, or water is poured over it, as the baptism words are spoken.

Some priests do refuse baptism to an innocent child if they judge parents are not ‘Catholic’ enough. Others welcome infants with open arms, even if their parents are ‘fringe’ Catholics.

When Catholic parents (or a Catholic partner in an interfaith marriage) are seriously deficient in their Catholic practice, the priest is obliged to delay baptism until he can help the parents rethink their faith.

THE NEW TESTAMENT MAKES CLEAR THAT, FROM THE BEGINNING, BAPTISM WAS THE COMMON WAY TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN.

True, children should be baptised “within the first weeks” after birth (Canon 867). The law assumes, however, that parents are practising their faith, prepared to raise their children as faithful Catholic men and women. Thus, the same law requires that immediately after birth or before, the parents go to their parish priest to request the Sacrament of Baptism and to be properly prepared for it.

A priest may not, in fact, lawfully baptise a child unless he has a solidly founded hope that the baby will be raised properly as a Catholic. If evidence for this hope is lacking, he should delay the baptism and explain the reason to the parents (Canon 868).

The ritual for baptism emphasises the point. At least twice during the ceremony, Catholic parents profess adherence to the faith in which the child is being baptised and promise to give the example needed for the child to be raised in their faith. Normally, this promise cannot be made unless the Catholic parents themselves are faithful in their Catholic practice and are not simply bringing the child for baptism because of family tradition or a vague feeling that ‘it’s the right thing to do.’ In other words, the Church is concerned that parents not be placed in the position of making a profession of faith they do not honestly believe. But – and this is a crucial point – the story does not end there.

The parish priest is obliged to help parents who are not yet ready genuinely to profess their faith, to assist them in assuming responsibility for the religious education of their children and then to decide the right time for baptism…

It remains vital that Catholic parents desire in their own hearts that the baptism of their child will be what it was meant to be, an earnest recommitment of all their family to the faith they hope to share with their child.”
– This article by Father John was published in “The Catholic Universe”, issue Sunday 16th June, 2013. For subscriptions, please visit http://www.thecatholicuniverse.com (external link).

• If you are an ADULT who wishes to learn about the Catholic faith in order to “brush up” or to be initiated for the first time, please type “RCIA” into this blog’s search engine for information whether your baptism is recognised by the Catholic Church (if you were for example baptised Protestant), and info for those of you who would like to become Catholic without having been baptised previously.