JOHN M.

KELLY LIBRARY

Donated by
The Redemptorists of
the Toronto Province
from the Library Collection of
Holy Redeemer College, Windsor

University of
St. Michael s College, Toronto
The Sacraments
A COURSE OF SEVEN SERMONS

BY
VERY REV. ALEXANDER MACDONALD, D.D.

^ JV

NEW YORK
JOSEPH F. WAGNER
 tf)tl fastat

RRMIGIUS LAFORT, S.T.L.

Censor

^Imprimatur

JOHN M. FARLEY, D.D.

Archbishop of New York

NEW YORK, November 27, 1906

Copyright, 1906, by JOSEPH F. WAGNER, New York

 CONTENTS
?AGE
I. THE SACRAMENTS IN GENERAL . .
5

II. BAPTISM . . . .
15

III. CONFIRMATION . . . -27

IV. PENANCE . . . . -37
V. PENANCE . . . .
49

VI. THE HOLY EUCHARIST . . . 60

VII. THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS .

72
 The Sacraments
A COURSE OF SEVEN SERMONS.

I. THE SACRAMENTS IN GENERAL.

"Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ and dispensers

of the mysteries of God." I. Cor. iv. i.

SYNOPSIS. Introduction. The Church of Christ, like Christ, her spouse,

the way, the truth, and the life: pointing out the way in the command
ments, teaching the truth in the creed, giving life in the Sacraments,
what the Christ life is, and how nourished by the Sacraments.
I. A"Sacrament" defined and explained: (a) A
"sacred sign" or

symbol; (b~) "sensible" and why; (c) "instituted by Jesus Christ," and
made after His likeness; (d) sanctify and save the souls of men"
"to

this being the end of its institution; (*) the Sacraments, seven in number,
to supply the seven special needs of the spiritual life.
II. Nature and efficacy of the Sacraments: (a) They signify grace,
and (&) bestow it; (c) by a virtue inherent in them; (d} as instruments
of the Holy Spirit. Scripture proof of this doctrine.
III. The Sacraments of the Old Law compared and contrasted with
the Sacraments of the New: (a) In the manner of operating; (fe) in
their effect. The former but shadowy tokens, the latter life-giving
agencies; by those a ransom promised, by these a ransom wrought. A
parable and its application. God s power and wisdom made manifest in
the use of material and sensible elements.
IV. Constitution of the Sacraments, made up of "matter" and
"form." Meaning and purpose of these.
V. Division of the Sacraments into: (a) Sacraments of the living
and of the dead; (b) character imprinting; (c) of necessity, of precept,
of free choice.
Conclusion. This sinful world an untowardly soil for the seed of
spiritual life sown by the Sacraments. Dangers to which this life is ex
posed; care to be taken of it; transplanted to its natal soil it will bloom
forever.

"He who hears you hears me," says Christ to the teachers of His
Church; and again, "He who hears not the Church, let him be to

thee as the heathen and the publican." The Church, then, Christ s
6 THE SACRAMENTS.

spouse, and our Mother, living His life, teaching His truth, knowing
His way, is to us, with whom He no longer visibly dwells, the way,
the truth, and the life. His way she makes known to us in the com
mandments, His truth she sums up for us in the creed. His life she

gives us in the Sacraments.

In the Sacraments, by means of the Sacraments, the Church

makes us partakers of the life of Christ. Christ gave His life for us,

that we might by Him. live "I am come," He says Himself, "that

they may have life, and have it more abundantly." Not, indeed, as
the soul is the life of the body, so is Christ the life of the soul ;
for

soul and body are so joined together as to form one nature and one
person. Christ is our life, in that He is the author and never-failing

source of a new life in us. He is our life, in the same way that the

sun is the light of the world, for the sun gives light and ever keeps

sending forth his rays to chase away the darkness and illumine
every corner of the universe. But as the man who is blind sees not

the light of the sun, so the soul, that is spiritually blind, sees not
the light of the world and is not quickened by His life-giving rays.
Christ is the life of those who are born again. He is king of a
kingdom that is not of this world, and He tells us Himself that no
man can enter into that kingdom if he be not born again of water
and the Holy Ghost. Mark the words, "of water and the Holy
Ghost." Therefore water is, by Christ s own institution, in some
mysterious way, a factor in the new birth. It is by means of a
"mystery,"
a Sacrament, or sacred symbol that we get the new life,

that we are begotten in Christ. So it is by other Sacraments, or

sacred symbols, of which the successors of the apostle in the Chris
tian ministry are the dispensers, that the new life, the Christ life, is
 THE SACRAMENTS IN GENERAL. 7

nourished in us, and grows, and is restored if it dies, as, alas! it so

often does. This is but another way of saying that the Sacraments

are the means of grace and the channels of grace to the soul; for

the life is grace, and then and only then do we

of Christ in us live

through Christ and in Christ the life of Christ when by His grace
He dwells in us ;
that is, when we are in what is commonly called the

state of grace.

By Sacraments, then, we mean certain mystic rites which Christ

has established in His Church as grace-conferring ordinances. A
Sacrament, as defined in our Catechisms, is a sensible sign of grace

instituted by Jesus Christ to sanctify and save the souls of men.

That which leads us to the knowledge of something other than itself

we call a sign. It may be natural or conventional, according as the

meaning of it is fixed by nature or by the agreement of men. Smoke

is a natural sign of fire, water of cleansing, oil of soothing. Words,
on the other hand, are conventional signs of ideas, and written words
are conventional signs of spoken words. When a sign not only sig
nifies but effects that which it signifies it is called a practical sign.

The Sacraments are in part natural, in part conventional, signs;

natural as to the matter, conventional as to the form. Thus, the
bread of the Eucharist is a natural symbol of nourishment ;
the

words of the form, this is my body, signify what kind of nourish

ment it is. Again, the Sacraments are practical signs of grace.
They not only signify grace but produce it in the soul. And in this,

as we shall see, the Sacraments of the New Law differ from those
of the Old, which were mere symbols, not instruments, of grace.*

The Sacraments are "sensible"

signs of grace, that is to say, such

*For a compendious statement of what grace is see Vol. III. of the

HOMILETIC MONTHLY, pp. 773-777.
8 THE SACRAMENTS.

signs as may be perceived by the senses. The Sacraments were

instituted for men, and for men there can be no sign which is not
sensible. we know in this life comes to us through the
All that
senses ;
we can not get an idea of anything unless it be put before us
under some sensible form. This law of our nature lies at the soot of
the whole Sacramental system. Man, being a creature of sense, has
to be led from sensible things, through sensible things, to spiritual

things. And the all-wise God has wisely adapted the means of
grace to the needs of man s nature. Moreover, the Sacraments are
instituted as remedies against sin, the great moral ailment of man
kind. This ailment has its root mainly in the revolt of the sensuous

side of man s nature against right reason. Hence the remedy, to be

suited to the disease, should itself take a sensible form.

The Sacraments have been "instituted by Jesus Christ." No

other than He could be the author of the Sacraments. None but
He is the source of grace; none but He could make sensible things
instruments of grace to the soul. And the Sacraments are like their
Author. The outward or visible sign corresponds to His human
nature; the inward grace corresponds to the divine nature, which
was veiled from sense in Him. And as the divinity in Him operated
in and through the sacred humanity, so grace in the Sacrament op
erates in and through the sacred symbol. Again, as the sacred
humanity is made up of body and soul, so the Sacramental sign is

made up of matter and form, of which the latter is to the former as

the soul is to the body.

The end for which the Sacraments were instituted is indicated

by the last words of our definition "to

sanctify and save the souls
of men." To sanctify is to cleanse the soul from sin and make it

holy, which are not two different acts, but two aspects of one and
 THE SACRAMENTS IN GENERAL. 9

the same divine act. The same light which illumines a room removes
the darkness. The work of sanctification wrought by the Sac
raments, the work of dispelling the darkness of sin and error, is a

progressive work. And it affects the mystic body of Christ, which

is the Church, as well as each of its individual members. Two Sac
raments serve to perpetuate the life of grace in the Church as a

whole, Holy Orders and Matrimony. The other five propagate this
life in each one of us. Baptism begets the spiritual life, Confirmation
fosters it, by the Holy Eucharist it is nourished, Penance restores it.

And because, while we live in this world of sin, the life of the soul

is liable to be lost, nor is any child of Adam saved unless he die in

the state of grace, there is a special Sacrament, Extreme Unction,
which anoints the athlete of Christ and strengthens him for the
last struggle. Victor in that struggle, the soul passes from the
world of symbol and shadow into the truth.
The Sacraments of the New Law, as I have said, both signify the

grace which they confer, and confer the grace which they signify.
Thus the water of Baptism not only signifies cleansing, but really

cleanses the soul from sin. There is a virtue in it, St. Augustine
says, which makes the heart clean. So the bread of the Eucharist is

a fitting symbol of the spiritual nourishment which the body of

Christ imparts to the soul. The Sacraments are thus effectual means
of grace. They contain grace, the Council of Trent teaches, and

confer it on all who receive them with due dispositions. Grace is

conferred by virtue of the act done, a God-given virtue inherent in

the Sacramental rite itself. But as the rite is done and over in a

brief space, so the virtue that operates in it passes with it. The
painter with his brush makes the ideal that is in his mind live on
canvas, but the power to produce the picture is in the brush only
10 THE SACRAMENTS.

while it is being wielded by the painter. Similarly, the power to

grave God s likeness in the soul of man is in the Sacramental ele

ment only while it is being used by the Spirit of God for that

purpose.
The Sacraments confer grace not on all who receive them, but

only on those who receive them with due dispositions. They are
fitted, indeed, to confer grace on all, but all are not fitted to receive

grace. So fire is fitted to burn all kinds of wood, but, to take fire, the
wood must be dry. And the sun is fitted to flood a room with light,
but the housewife has to lift the blinds that the light may enter.

That the Sacraments are no empty signs of grace is plain from the
language used by Our Lord and the inspired writers in speaking
of them. Man is said to be born again, "of water" as well as of the

Holy Ghost. So the apostle says that we are saved by the laver that ;

is, the washing of regeneration. The Eucharist in like manner is,

by Christ s institution, itself a means of grace to the soul. It is no
mere symbol of grace, but the fountain of grace, Christ Himself.
Hence "He who eats of this bread shall live forever and who ;"
"he

eats me," says Our Lord, "shall also live by me." So, too, Our
Lord gave His apostles power to forgive sins; not to signify the

forgiveness of it merely, or to declare the forgiveness of it, but to

forgive. So, once more, He

gave His apostles power to bestow
grace by the laying on of hands. And that this laying on of hands
was no mere token of grace we gather from the words of St. Paul
to Timothy : "Stir
up the grace of God that is in thee by the laying
on of my hands."

This is the great difference between the Sacraments of the New

Law and those of the Old. The were mere symbols of grace.
latter

They had no virtue in them to confer grace. Hence St. Paul calls
 THE SACRAMENTS IN GENERAL. n

them "weak and beggarly elements." The grace conferred in cir

cumcision, for instance, was given, not by virtue of the act done, but
only by virtue of the doer of the act, the minister or recipient of the
rite. Grace came into the soul only because and wholly because of
the faith and piety of the one who administered the rite and of those

who received it. Now the Old Law was, as it were, the shadow of
which the New is the substance and the reality. Hence we should
expect that the Sacraments of the New Law should not only signify

grace, but also effect it, else they would be of no greater efficacy than
the "weak and beggarly with which they are contrasted
elements"

in the New Testament.

Again, for the debt of sin the merits of Christ are, as it were, the

only coin which God will accept in payment. Now this coin, to carry

on the metaphor, under the Old Law existed only in prospect.

Under the New Law, since Christ has paid the price of our redemp
tion, His merits exist in fact, and are applied through the Sac
to us

raments which He has instituted for this purpose. Let me explain

thisby means of a simple parable. A man is deeply in debt, and
having no means of paying the debt is cast into prison. A friend
comes along, goes to the creditor, and says to him: "Release that
poor man, who is pining in prison, and I will pay the debt." He
gives the creditor his note of hand, payable a year after date. The
creditor accepts the note, and releases the debtor, who goes his way
rejoicing. At the end of a year the debtor s friend pays the note in

gold, and out of his goodness puts all his gold in bank, to establish

a fund, that needy and deserving creditors may be furnished with

means of paying their debts. The meaning of this parable is plain.
God is the creditor, sinful man the debtor, and the friend of sinful

man is He who calls Himself and is the Son of Man. From eternity
12 THE SACRAMENTS.

it was settled that He should give His blood as the price of men s
ransom. The price was paid when He shed that blood on Calvary.
Before then men were saved through faith in Him as the coming
Redeemer. They offered to God sensible tokens of this faith, which
are known as the Sacraments of the Old Law not payment of the
debt of sin, but pledges and securities of the future payment. And
so the Son of God, the friend of sinful man, before He had yet be
come man, gave God the Father, on behalf of the men who lived
under the Old Law and believed in Him, the promise of payment in
full of all their debts, that in the meantime they should go free.
But on our behalf, on behalf of all who have believed in Him since
His coming, He gives no longer the promise of payment, but the

payment itself the pure gold of divine grace which He has bought

for us with His blood. This is what He has stored up in His

Church to redeem the men of all ages and of all lands, for with Him
is plentiful redemption. On this store we draw through the Sacra

ments. For this did He institute them, that they should not only
bear His divine seal upon them and symbolize His grace, but should
be means of grace as well should contain the gold of divine grace
that was coined by Him and bears His image and superscription

upon it. This is the currency of God s kingdom, by means of

which the poor in spiritmay buy their freedom from bondage.

But could not God, it may be asked, bestow His grace directly
without using these sensible signs? Certainly He could. Why,
then, does He not do so ? He does so in certain cases, for the grace
of God is not tied down to sensible rites. Yet, in the ordinary

providence of God, His grace must come through the Sacraments,

for these are the means He has Himself ordained for the dispensing

of grace sensible tokens suited to sensible creatures. He could

 THE SACRAMENTS IN GENERAL. 13

have given sight to the blind man in the Gospel by a mere word of
His mouth, or a mere act of His all-powerful will. Yet he chose
to mix spittle with clay and put it on his eyes, as if to teach us that

He is able to use the most unlikely means to accomplish His ends.

Enough for us to know that He is pleased to make use of material

elements to confer spiritual graces upon men, thereby showing His

infinite wisdom and almighty power.
The Sacraments consist of two elements, the matter and the form.
As in man, for whom the Sacraments are instituted, there is a dual

element, body and soul, so there is a corresponding dual element in

the Sacraments. The matter and form together make up the sensible

sign of grace, the matter signifying the effect of the Sacrament

somewhat vaguely and the form signifying it distinctly. Water may
be used for many purposes besides washing, but the form of words
"I
baptize thee," specifies the purpose to which it is put in Baptism.
So, in the Eucharist, bread signifies nourishment indeed, but be
tokens corporal rather than spiritual nourishment. The form, "This

is my body," makes it plain to us that the Eucharistic bread is food

for the soul, and a very special kind of food, namely, the body of
Christ.

A word on the division of the Sacraments. Baptism and Penance

are known as Sacraments of the dead, because they raise men from
the death of sin to newness of life. The other five are Sacraments
of the living, because those who
them must already possess
receive

the life of grace. Again, Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders

stamp upon the soul a spiritual character, and can be received but
once; the others may be received again and again. Lastly, there are
Sacraments which are necessary as means of salvation; Baptism
for all, Penance for those who are in mortal sin; or
necessary be-
14 THE SACRAMENTS.

cause of a precept which enjoins us to receive them, namely, Pen

ance in certain cases, the Eucharist, Confirmation, Extreme Unction.

Holy Orders and Matrimony are Sacraments of free choice.

The life which the Sacraments give does not thrive well in this

cold world of ours. It is what gardeners would call an exotic, a

plant brought in from a foreign land. We know that, in the order

of nature, few plants take kindly to a strange soil, or grow near as

well as they would in their own. Much more is this the case since

sin has laid its upon the earth that was once so goodly and
blight
so fair. The natural life itself, which is much harder to kill, being
native here and to the manner born, we know how evil it has fared
in consequence of man s fall. It is heir to a thousand ills, which
must sooner or later put an end to it. But how much worse it is

with the supernatural life in the sinful world! The very air we
breathe is charged with sin, which is to the life of the soul what a

killing frost is to the life of the plant in springtime. How seldom,

alas ! does the seed of the new life find soil where it can yield fruit
an hundredfold, or tenfold, or even live at all. It most often falls by
the wayside, and is trodden down by the feet of the passers-by or ;

it falls on stony soil, and soon withers for want of moisture and
nourishment or ;
it falls where the soil is foul with weeds, and these,

growing up, choke it. The flesh with its passions, the world with its

allurements, the devil with his wiles, all these are arrayed against it.

It is slain on every hand, it is slain a thousand times, but by the

great and exhaustless mercy of God it comes again to life, even as

does the wayside flower that has been withered by the frosts and
buried under the snows of winter, when the spring, with its warmth
and sunshine, comes round once more. How careful we ought to be
of this tender flower of the spiritual life that the good God has
 BAPTISM. 15

planted in the soil of our hearts; how careful to shield it from the
blight of sin, to nourish it with God s grace-giving Sacraments,
until He comes to gather it, in His own good time, and to plant it

again in the heavenly paradise. There in its natal soil, where it first

saw the light, it will bloom forever.

II. BAPTISM.

"Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter
the kingdom of God." John iii. 5.

SYNOPSIS. Baptism the gate by which we enter the kingdom of God. Its
institution, matter and form, effects, minister, subject and ceremonies.
I. Baptism instituted on the day of Our Lord s baptism by John in
the Jordan, but not made obligatory till after the Resurrection.
II. The matter of Baptism, water. Its properties of cleansing,
cooling, clearness aptly signify the effects of the Sacrament. Form of
Baptism, baptize thee" etc., must be said while the water is being
"I

poured on. No word essential to the meaning must be omitted.

III. Effects of Baptism sevenfold: (i) to cleanse from original sin;
(2) to cleanse from actual sin; (j) to free from all temporal punishment
due to sin; (4} to clothe the soul in the robe of grace; (5) to make one
a member of the Catholic Church; (6) to make one a child of God; (7)
to make one heir of heaven.
IV. Bishop or priest the ordinary minister of Baptism; lay person,
even an unbeliever, minister in case of necessity; must have intention
of doing what the Church does. Reason of this.
V. Subject of Baptism any unbaptized person, infant or adult. Chil
dren of non-Catholic parents not lawfully baptized without the consent
of parents. Proof that Baptism may and should be given to infants.
VI. Baptism necessary to salvation, in one or other of its three
forms, namely, in water, in blood, or in desire. The words "unless a
man be born again of ivater and the Holy Ghost he cannot enter the
kingdom of God," considered and explained.
VII. Ceremonies of baptism not to be made light of; significance of
them in detail.
Conclusion. Let us call to mind in this holy season the vows we
took in Baptism, and resolve henceforward faithfully to fulfill them.

Baptism is the first of the Sacraments, the gate, as it were, by

which we gain entrance into the kingdom of God. The Catechism
 1 6 THE SACRAMENTS.

of the Council of Trent briefly defines it as the Sacrament of rebirth

by water in the word, and the definition is plainly founded on the
words of Our Lord that are cited above. The Sacrament of Bap
tism cleanses us from original sin, and from actual sin, if such there
be, makes us Christians, members of God s visible Church on earth,
children of God and heirs of heaven. We are to consider the insti
tution of Baptism, the matter and the form, the effect, the minister,

the subject and the ceremonies that hedge it round.

Our blessed Lord is of Baptism, as of each of the other Sacra

ments, alone the author. Sacraments convey grace, and Our Lord,
as God, is the fountain source of all grace, and as man alone bought

with His blood a title to saving grace. Therefore none but He can,
in his own right, confer grace, whether with or without the sensible

signs which we call Sacraments. He instituted Baptism, so the

Fathers tell us, on the day that He was Himself baptized by John
in the Jordan. He then bestowed upon water a Sacramental efficacy :

the cleansing from sin. But it was not till He had risen from the
dead, when He charged His apostles to teach all nations, that He
laid upon all the obligation of being baptized.
The matter of Baptism is water, whether it be fresh or salt, from
river or lake, from a well or from the clouds. Our Lord says

simply, and Baptism in any water is therefore valid, but

"water"

the Church requires that baptismal water should be blessed. There

is a fitness in the choice of this element as the matter of baptism, for

this Sacrament is necessary to salvation, and the matter used in
conferring it should therefore be easily procurable in every quarter
of the globe. Again, as the Sacraments signify the grace which
they confer, water most aptly signifies the effects of Baptism. It

has the property of cleansing, the property of cooling and the

 BAPTISM. 17

property of clearness or transparency. Even so Baptism cleanses

the soul from sin, cools the ardor of concupiscence, and lets the clear

light of faith into the soul.

The form of a Sacrament is that part of the sensible sign which

signifies the effect of the Sacrament distinctly. It always consists of

words, for words surpass every other sign or symbol in the clear
ness and distinctness with which they signify. The form of Bap
tism, adapted from the words of Our Lord in the last chapter of St.

Matthew, is, "I

baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the

Son, and of the Holy Ghost." The form is, as it were, the soul of
the Sacrament. And just as man is not soul alone, or body alone,
but soul and body united in one, so the matter alone is not the Sacra

ment, nor the form alone, but the matter and form united. Hence it

is not enough to pour the water on without saying the words, or to

say the words without pouring on the water; both must be done,
as far as may be, at the same time. It is important to note this, as

any one may be called upon to christen a child in case of necessity.

It would not do, in such a case, first to say the words and then pour

on the water, or conversely. Still less would it do, as persons have

been known to do through ignorance or under excitement, to pour
on the water, saying, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and

of the Holy Ghost," for the simple reason that this is not the form of

Baptism but the form of words used in making the sign of the cross.
But suppose one were to omit a single word of the baptismal form,

would the Baptism be valid? That would depend altogether on the

word omitted. If one should omit the article "the/ for instance, the
form would still be valid. But if one were to omit "I,"
or "thee,"
or

"baptize,"
or "Son," it would not. Any omission which substantially

changes the meaning of the form renders the Sacrament null. Or,
i8 THE SACRAMENTS.

to put it in another way, no word may be omitted which is needed

to express the essential meaning of the form.
The effects of Baptism, briefly, are: (i) To cleanse the soul from

original sin; (2) to cleanse the soul from actual sin, if such stain be
on the soul; (3) to free from all the temporal punishment due to

sin, for Baptism is a new birth, and as the newborn child in the
order of nature has no past, so the newborn man in the order of

grace so completely puts off the old man with all his works that the
past is as if it never had been, its sins and the consequences of
these sins being wholly blotted out ; (4) to clothe the soul with the
grace of God; (5) to make one a member of the Catholic Church;

(6) to make one heir of heaven; (7) to imprint upon the soul in

delibly the character of a child of God.

The minister of Baptism is the one who confers it. A bishop or
priest is the ordinary minister of Baptism, but a deacon also may
baptize, with the permission of bishop or priest. In case of necessity,

any one may baptize, but a subdeacon or one in minor orders should
do so rather than a lay person and, in the case of lay persons them
;

being equal, a Catholic, rather than a Protestant,

selves, other things

a Protestant rather than a Jew or unbeliever, a man rather than a

woman, a grown person rather than a child, and any person who can
be trusted to baptize validly rather than the father or mother of the
child to be christened. That even an unbeliever may validly bap
tize we know from the fact that the Church has always recognized
the validity of Baptism bestowed by one without the true faith or any

faith, ifhe used the right matter and form with the intention of

doing what the Church does. If it were by virtue of the doer of

the act that Baptism gives grace, this could not be but the Sacra ;

ments confer grace by virtue of the act done. Baptism is the door
 BAPTISM. 19

by which we enter the Church. Now, any one, be he good or bad,

believer or unbeliever, may turn the key in the lock and open the

door, though none but the believer can enter. To confer Baptism

validly, however, the unbeliever must have the intention, at least im

plicit and virtual, of doing what the Church does.
The Sacrament of Baptism does its work independently of the

faithand piety of the one who administers it. He is but the instru
ment; God Himself is the principal agent; and God can use any
kind of instrument to do His work. But there is one thing that
God will not do : He will not do violence to the nature that He has
made. He moves everything according to its nature. That which
has no will of its own to determine its motion He moves necessarily ;

that which has a will of its own He moves only when and in so far

as it freely moves itself in unison with Him as prime mover and

first Whenever, then, God uses man as His instrument in
cause.

conferring Baptism, man must first, since he has a will of his own
to which God can do no violence, lend himself freely to God s pur

pose. He must acquiesce in the act, and make His will one with
God s will. There is another way of saying this same thing, and
it is that the one who baptizes must intend to do what the Church
does, for what the Church does is what God wills to be done. Hence,
if even the Pope himself and I make the supposition not because it

is a supposable case, but merely by way of accentuating this great

truth were to pour the water on a child, while saying the words of
the baptismal form, but without the intention of baptizing, i. e., of

doing what the Church does in pouring the water and saying the
words, there would be no Baptism, because he would not be putting
the condition under which alone God could use him as His instru
ment in administering the Sacrament. If, on the other hand, a
20 THE SACRAMENTS.

pagan, without faith himself in the baptismal rite, but knowing that

the Church regards it as a sacred thing and intending to bestow what

ever benefit the Church believes it to bestow, pours water on an un-

baptized person while saying the words of the baptismal form,

the Baptism is valid, because he places the condition under which
God vouchsafes to use a human being as His instrument in admin
istering the Sacrament.

By the subject of Baptism we mean the person who is to be bap

tized. Of course, it is only an unbaptized person that can be the

subject of Baptism, for Baptism is a spiritual birth, and one can
be born but once. If there be question of one who has come to the
use of reason, Baptism can not validly be conferred unless the person
has faith and a desire to receive Baptism. Here, again, we see the

wisdom and justice of God in His dealings with men. He does not

require faith or a desire of Baptism in the infant, because the infant

is incapable of having either. He does require both in the one who
has come to the use of reason, because He will not let any one into
His kingdom who, while capable, is not willing to believe His word
and use the means of salvation that He has appointed. For the
fruitful reception of Baptism, in the case of one who has come to the

years of discretion, there is need, moreover, of at least the sorrow or

attrition for grievous sin, if such sin there be. Otherwise the recep
tion of theSacrament would be informal though valid. The person
would not have to be baptized over again, but would have to repent
of and confess his sin, and so remove the obstacle which kept the
Sacrament from producing its full effect.

If the subject of Baptism be an infant, the Sacrament is always

valid, provided the proper matter and form
be used with the right

intention. But the Church strictly forbids the baptism of a child of

 BAPTISM. 21

Protestant, Jewish, or heathen parents without their consent. She

does this for two reasons :
First, because the parents are the natural

guardians of the child, and the rights which the Author of nature has
given them must be respected ; second, because there should be some
guarantee that the child shall be brought up in the faith, and there
can be no such guarantee when the parents are not of the faith.

There is one and only one case in which the Church holds lawful and
approves the Baptism of such a child, and that is when it is morally
certain that the child can not live. To await the consent of the

parents in such a case would be to expose the child to the certain

risk of never entering the kingdom of God.
But there are those who do not believe in infant baptism. How,
then, it may be asked, do we know that Baptism may be given to

infants? First of all, we know that the Son of God came into this

world to give His life for all men, for children not less than for
grown people, nay, especially for the little ones, since He declares

that of such is the kingdom of heaven, and sets up a little child as

the pattern of that guilelessness and simplicity which should distin

guish the children of God. On the other hand, He has told us,

in the plainest words, that Baptism is necessary to salvation. Hence

we infer that children are to be baptized. It is true there are other

texts of Scripture which seem to imply that children are not to be

baptized since they can not believe; and had we no other guide

but Scripture the matter would be by no means free from difficulty

and doubt. But we have a pure and unerring guide. Before one
word of the New Testament was put in writing, our blessed Lord
commissioned the apostles to teach and to baptize the nations, and
promised to be with them till the end of the world, thus plainly im
plying that others should succeed them in this office, since they
22 THE SACRAMENTS.

were mortal and doomed to pass away. Now the apostles knew
how to give Baptism, and to whom. So the question of infant Bap
tism was settled once for by the practice of the Church before a
all

line of the New Testament was written. Nor has it since for one
day been a moot point in the Church, which traces back the succes
sion of her pastors, in unbroken series, to the men who received

their mission of teaching and baptizing the nations from the lips of
Christ. We know that infants are to be baptized in the same way
as we know so many other things that are either not at all, or not

clearly set forth in the New Testament; as we know that the first

and not the last day of the week is to be kept holy ;

as we know pre
cisely what the means are that Our Lord has appointed for our sal

vation, and how we are to use these means as we know how many ;

Sacraments there are, and how and by whom and to whom they are
to be administered ; as we know that Baptism is valid, whether given
by sprinkling, or by pouring on the water, or by dipping the whole
person in water; as we know that even an unbeliever can confer
valid Baptism. These things and many more things we know with
certainty from the Catholic and Apostolic Church, our spiritual
Mother that has begotten us by Baptism in Christ, the Church that
spans all the ages and preaches the Gospel to all peoples, the Church
that can never fail or falter in her divine mission of teaching and

baptizing the nations, because, as it is written, the Spirit of God that

is in her, and the Word that He has put in her mouth will not de

part from her mouth, nor from the mouth of her seed, nor from
the mouth of her seed s seed, from henceforth and forever.

Baptism is necessary to salvation. The words of Our Lord are

plain: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost
he can not enter into the kingdom of God." These words, on the
 BAPTISM. 23

face of them, would seem to mean that heaven is forever closed to

every one who has not received the Baptism of water. Yet the
Church has always taught that martyrdom supplies the place of
Baptism by water, and not only martyrdom but also an act of per
fect contrition, with at least an implicit desire of Baptism. But
how is this to be reconciled with the plain words of Our Lord? In

the first place,meaning of these words has to be gathered not

the

merely from the text itself and context, but from other passages of
Scripture as well. Scripture can not contradict Scripture, else would
God Now, in another passage of Scripture, Our
contradict Himself.

Lord declares that every one who loses his life for His sake shall
find it; and in yet another passage, when asked by the young man

what he must do to obtain eternal life, replies: "Thou shalt love

the Lord thy God with thy whole heart ;

. . . this do and thou
shalt live."
Suppose, then, a person believes in Jesus Christ, and
is put to death for confessing this faith before he can be baptized,
those words of Our Lord ensure him salvation "He who loses his :

life for my sake shall find it."

Suppose, again, that one who has
been instructed in the faith, and is sorry from his heart for his
sins because they are displeasing to God, who is so good in Himself,

dies suddenly before he can receive the Sacrament, the Church

teaches that he is saved because he has fulfilled to the letter the

conditions laid down by Our Lord Himself: "Thou shalt love the

Lord thy God with thy whole heart."

There does not appear to be any good reason why we should not
take "the
kingdom of God," in the third chapter of St. John, to

mean the visible society founded by Jesus Christ on earth, for this is

the meaning the words bear in many passages of the Gospel. So

understood, the words of Our Lord may be taken in their strict and
24 THE SACRAMENTS.

literal sense, without limitation or exception, for no one can enter

the Catholic Church except by Baptism. He may have faith so as
to move mountains, and an ardent love of God and his neighbors,

but until the water of Baptism has been poured on him he remains
without the Church, in token of which the catechumens of old were

kept without the churches during the solemn part of the Mass.
The Baptism of water alone is a Sacrament, and imprints a char
acter. The Baptism of blood has all the effects of the Sacrament,
except the imprinting of the character. It cleanses from all sin, and
frees from all the consequences of sin. Hence the Church has never
prayed for martyrs, but always invoked their prayers.
As regards its administration, Baptism may be solemn or private.
It is private when given by priest or lay person by simply pouring
on the water and saying the words of the form. It is solemn when

given in the church with the prayers, exorcisms, and other rites

which are known as the ceremonies of Baptism. These ceremonies,

though in no way necessary to the valid administration of the Sac

rament, are not to be deemed of little account. They have been in

use from the earliest times; they are full of mystic meaning; they

serve to impress people with a deep and lively sense of the dignity
of the Sacrament. Hence parents are enjoined, in case a child in

danger of death has been baptized privately, if it should get well

again, to bring it to the church, that the ceremonies may be supplied.

The first thing is to choose a name. The name given in Baptism
we call the Christian name, as distinguished from the surname or
name of the family, and a Christian name it ought to be, preferably
that of a saint or martyr. Parents who choose for their children

worldly names, the names though they be even of the great ones of
this world who yet live and die without the pale of the Church,
 BAPTISM. 25

should ask themselves whether they are not putting the things of
this world before the things of God. The Christian name should

surely have about it the sweet savor of Christ.

The ceremonies that precede Baptism are designed to fit the can
didate for the fruitful reception of the Sacrament. The remote
preparation consists of prayers, exorcisms, the sign of the Cross,
and other rites which have for their object to deliver the child or

catechumen from the power of the devil. The Church believes in

the existence of a personal devil, the prince of darkness, the deadly

enemy knows that he has a species of dominion over

of man, and
those who have not been made clean in the waters of Baptism. She
therefore addresses him personally in the exorcisms that precede

Baptism, and bids him depart from the person who is to be baptized,

and give way to the Holy Ghost, the Comforter. Then the priest
puts salt in the mouth of the child, as a symbol of Christian wis
dom and of that baptismal grace which preserves from the corrup
tion of sin. Then follows the proximate preparation. The child is
asked whether it believes in the principal mysteries of religion,
and it
makes answer by the mouths of its sponsors. The priest next
touches the ears and nostrils with spittle, saying, after the manner of
Our Lord to the dumb man, "Be thou opened." Then the child
renounces Satan, his works and his pomps, and is anointed with
holy on the breast and between the shoulders, in token of its
oil

being made an athlete to fight thenceforward the enemies of Christ.

After Baptism the child is anointed with the oil of chrism, because
he is now a Christian, one of God s anointed, even as Christ was
anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows. A white robe is

put on him as the symbol of innocence, and a lighted candle is

placed in his hands, as having been called from darkness into God s
own admirable light.
26 THE SACRAMENTS.

The sponsors answer for the child, and in default of the parents

must see to it that the child is brought up and instructed in the faith.
They contract a spiritual affinity with the child and parents of the

child, which an impediment to their marriage with the child or

is

either of the parents. God and the Church are the spiritual parents
of the newborn child, for no one can have God for Father who
has not the Church for his Mother. In Baptism the priest holds the

place of God and the sponsors stand for the Church. For, as St.
Augustine so well says, Mother Church gives these little ones the
feet of others, that they may walk to the place of Baptism; the
heart of others, that they may believe unto righteousness, and the
tongue of others, that they may confess their faith unto salvation.
On the day of our Baptism we were born to a new life. We took
vows to serve God as our only Lord and love Him as our Father.
But these vows, alas! we have broken time and time again. We
have left God the fountain of living water, and have hewed out
unto ourselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. We
have turned to false gods, have set up in our hearts the idol of self-

as did the Israelites of old

love, of pride, or lust, or worldliness,

their calf, and have fallen

golden
down and worshipped it. But the
Lord our God, whom we have vowed in Baptism to serve, is charity

itself, and charity, St. Paul tells us,

is kind, is patient, is long-suffer

ing. God is ever calling to us with a father s voice, if haply we

shall hear Him, and turn from our sins, and prove ourselves faith
ful toour baptismal vows while yet it is day for the night cometh
;

when no man can labor. "Now is the acceptable time now are the ;

days of salvation." Let us heed the call of God our Father in this
holy season. Let us forsake the service of Satan, put on the livery
of Christ, and, with the great apostle, fight the good fight, that,
like him, we too may win a crown of glory.
 CONFIRMATION. 2?

III. CONFIRMATION.

they laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy
Ghost."
"Then

Acts viii. 17.

SYNOPSIS. By Baptism our spiritual birth, by Confirmation our growth

in the spiritual life. Baptism makes us children of God, Confirmation
makes us soldiers of Christ. Confirmation has for its matter the anointing
with oil by the hands of a bishop; for its form, set words, as in the other
Sacraments. A
bishop the minister, but a priest can confirm by virtue of
power from the Pope. The subject of Confirmation, any baptised person
who is come to the use of reason; in the East infants are confirmed. The
state of grace needful for the fruitful reception, not for the validity, of
this Sacrament. Confirmation has all of the three conditions needful to
constitute a Sacrament; a sensible sign, divine institution, the power of
conferring grace. Its effect twofold: (i) the conferring of grace; (2)
the stamping of a character on the soul. The Sacrament of spiritual
growth. Growth a gradual process. The whole period of life a time of spirit
ual growth, even when the hair is white with age and the body bent with
the weight of years. Confirmation bestows the seven gifts of the Holy
Spirit, in the germ. These are the seven steps of the ladder of Christian
perfection. Fear the first step, wisdom the last. Between these lie piety,
knowledge, fortitude, counsel and understanding. Analysis and explana
tion of these seven gifts. Confirmation the Sacrament of the Holy
Ghost. The Holy Spirit, ever since the day of Pentecost, in the world
performing His mission as Paraclete. Dwells in a temple not made with
hands. Our bodies the temple of the Holy Ghost. Heinousness of sin.
Let us reverence the temple of God, that He may receive us into eternal
tabernacles.

By Baptism we are born into the kingdom of God. And as, in

the natural order, the child must grow to manhood before he is fit
to go out into the world and fight life s battle, so it is in the

spiritual order. The kingdom of God on earth is the Church mil

itant, whose members wage a spiritual warfare as soldiers under

Christ, their captain. The child of God, therefore, to be an effi

cient member of the Church militant, must outgrow the weakness of

childhood and attain to adult age "the measure of the age of the
fulness of Christ" (Eph. iv. 13). Confirmation is the Sacrament
28 THE SACRAMENTS.

which enables the child of God, by the grace of God s Holy Spirit,

thus to grow into a strong and perfect Christian, a soldier of Jesus

Christ. The name itself implies this, for to confirm is to make

strong.

Like the other Sacraments of the New Law, Confirmation con

sists of matter and form. The matter is the anointing with holy

chrism and the laying on of the hands of a bishop. The laying on of

hands alone is mentioned in the New Testament, but the anointing
is vouched for by the tradition of the Church. "Thus, too, in our

case," says Tertullian, speaking of this Sacrament, "the unction runs

(down our flesh) carnally, but profits spiritually, in the same way as

the act of Baptism itself, too, is carnal, in that we are plunged in

water, the effect spiritual, in that we are freed from our sins"
(De
Baptismo, Ch. vii). The words of the form are: "I
sign thee with
the sign of the cross and confirm thee with the chrism of salvation,

in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

The bishop is the minister of Confirmation. A priest, however,

may receive special power from the Pope to administer the Sacra

ment, using oil blessed by a bishop.

The subject of Confirmation is any one who has been baptized

and not yet confirmed; not yet confirmed, for this Sacrament, like

Baptism, imprints on the soul an indelible character, and can not

therefore be given more than once. The candidate for Confirmation,

according to the present discipline of the Church in the West, must

have come to the use of reason and have some knowledge of Chris
tian doctrine, more especially the principal mysteries of religion, the
four great truths commonly spoken of as "the last things,"
and all
 CONFIRMATION. 29

that concerns this Sacrament, as well as the Sacrament of Penance,

which is to be received before Confirmation. In the East children
are confirmed immediately after Baptism.
The one who is to be confirmed should be in the state of grace,

for Confirmation is a Sacrament of the living, and it would be

sacrilege to receive it in the state of mortal sin. Still the Sacra
ment would be valid, and would imprint a character on the soul,
but would confer no grace till pardon was first obtained for the sin.

A Sacrament is a sensible sign of grace instituted by our blessed

Lord to sanctify and save souls. Three things there are thus in

every Sacrament: a sensible sign, divine institution, the

power of
conferring grace. The sensible sign in the Sacrament of Confirma
tion consists in the laying on of the bishop s hands with the anoint
ing and the words of the form. But while a Sacrament is a
sensible sign, not every sensible sign is a Sacrament. It must be
divinely instituted, for no sensible sign can give grace unless it

is divinely instituted for that purpose. Of this divine institution, in

the case of Confirmation, there is proof at least implied in the Acts

of the Apostles. There we read that the people of Samaria were
won to Christ by the preaching of Philip and baptized. And when
this became known to the apostles, Peter and John were sent thither,

and they laid their hands on the newly baptized converts, who
thereupon received the Holy Ghost. Plainly this rite, which con
sisted in the laying on of apostolic hands with prayer was a Sacra
ment, for it conferred grace nay, the very author of grace, the

Holy Spirit. It was not Holy Orders, which

outwardly resembled, it

in the laying on of hands, for orders are given to men only who are
elected to the ministry, and the Christians of Samaria were not all

of them called to the ministry, and there were among them women
3o
THE SACRAMENTS.

and children as well as men. It follows that here was a Sacra

ment, from Baptism and from Holy Orders, the
distinct special
effect of which was to give the Holy Ghost. For so we read : "Then

they laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Ghost"

(Acts viii. 17).

Confirmation produces a twofold effect: (i) It gives grace to
make us strong and perfect Christians and soldiers of Jesus Christ;

(2) it stamps upon the soul a character, which is like the putting on
of a spiritual armor, with the livery of Our Lord and Master, to
serve Him and do battle for Him and under His standard with the
enemies that assail us on every side. Not that we become strong and
perfect Christians all at once; not that we show from the first, or

even after many years, such skill and courage in fighting the good
fight as never to falter or suffer defeat. This Sacrament does not
transform men all at once into saints and heroes, but it gives them

grace to grow, if they will but correspond with the grace, until, as
the apostle has it, they attain their full stature in Christ.

All growth is from within. You can not force it. It is a

gradual, a slow process. It is so in the natural order, it is so in

the spiritual order. But there is this difference between growth in

the natural order and growth in the spiritual order, that the former
is confined to the period between birth and adult age while the latter
extends over the whole of one s lifetime. Nay, as a rule spiritual

growth is sturdiest and surest when the season of lusty youth is

over and the life of man "is fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf."

But whether it be in the morning of life or toward life s sunset that

this growth takes place, it has ever its source in God s Holy Spirit,

in the seven gifts which He bestows on the soul, and which exist in

the soul, at least in germ, from the day of one s Confirmation. The
 CONFIRMATION. 3I

fulness of these gifts was in Christ our Saviour, and of this fulness

we all receive. "And there shall come forth a rod out of the root

of Jesse," says the prophet, "and a flower shall rise out of his root ;

and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom
and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of fortitude, the

spirit of knowledge and of godliness ;

and he shall be filled with the

spirit of the fear of the Lord" (Is. xi. 1-3).

In these words of Isaias are set forth the seven gifts of the Holy

Ghost, the seminal principles of which are sown in the soul by the
Sacrament of Confirmation. The prophet gives them in the order

of their dignity, wisdom being first and fear last. We shall take

them in the ascending order, beginning with holy fear.

The fear of the Lord is, so to say, the by first step in the ladder
which the soul slowly mounts up the steep of Christian perfection.
A good many Christians seem unable to get beyond this first step.
They are content to keep themselves just within the territory of

grace, and aspire to nothing higher. They linger in the valley

below; they seek not to gain the distant heights. Others, again,

pass most of their lives with one foot on this lowest rung of the
ladder and the other on the earth. That is to say, the holy fear

of God keeps urging them forward and prompting them to bring

forth fruit worthy of penance, to seek the things that are above ; but
the force of evil habit, and the weight of their old sins, and the

lust of worldly pleasures, bear them down to earth once more. These
really have not the gift of holy fear at all. They received the seed

of it into their souls on the day of their Confirmation, but they soon
stifled and quenched it by sinful works.
Would that the whole world were filled with the fear of the Lord !

All are in need of this gift: the good, that it may prompt them to
32 THE SACRAMENTS.

walk steadily along in the way of God s holy commandments, the

wicked, that they may turn from their evil ways.
The next gift is piety, or godliness. It perfects the former gift.
It takes away the sting that lurks in all fear, however holy. It

changes the feeling of awe with which we look on God into one of
love and confidence. Fear makes us regard God as our master and
judge; piety gathers us round Him as children round a father, and
bids us cry out to Him, "Our Father who art in heaven." Of this

sweet gift is born the spirit of prayer, as well as reverence for all

things that are holy, with meek resignation under present trials,

for such as bear these patiently here. It is a priceless gift. But,

alas! sin with its malign breath often blasts it just as it is putting
forth its first blossoms in the virgin soil of the yet innocent heart.

Hence we so often see children disappoint the promise of their early

years, and grow up wayward and bold, disrespectful to parents and

superiors, without reverence for God and holy things.
The third gift is knowledge. It is not enough to have the fear

of displeasing God and the wish to please Him, if we know not what
is pleasing to Him and what displeasing. With this knowledge the
third gift supplies us. The fear of that endless misery to which sin

leads makes us turn away from sin; the hope of reward and the
sweetness of that peace which dwells in the heavenly home, these
draw us on. Yet, powerful as these impulses are, they would avail

nothing if we knew not how to shun the devious ways of sin and

keep our feet in the narrow way which leads to life.

But even this gift of knowledge is not enough. Many have known
the way of life who have not walked therein. Like the pagan of old,

they have seen the better course and approved it, but have followed
the worse. The way that leads to life is long and difficult. It is, for
 CONFIRMATION. 33

the most part, a thorny path that through the wilderness of this
lies

world into the land of promise beyond the river of death, and we,

poor, frail, fallen creatures that we are, are apt to falter and lose

heart, to linger by the wayside, and to long once more for the flesh-
pots of Egypt even though they be in the house of bondage. But
our help is in the name of the Lord. His Holy Spirit is ever at hand
to strengthen the feebleand help them over the hard places of the
road. He brings the gift of fortitude. It is the fourth of His gifts.

It turns weak and cowardly men into soldiers of Christ, who go

forth to conquer their inveterate foes, the world, the flesh and the
devil. For they feel their youth and strength renewed, as did St.

Paul when he cried out, "I can do all things in Him that maketh me
strong."

And yet the battle is not to the strong. Prudence, too, is needed,
and Christian prudence is the gift of counsel. It goes before the gift
of fortitude. It points out what is to be done, and how it is to be

done, and how much is to be done at a time. Emboldened by the gift

of fortitude we might be tempted to undertake things that are be

yond our strength, or unsuited to our state in life. Here the gift of
counsel both curbs and guides us. Thus, in a fit of fervor, a
person
might make a vow to avoid all sins, even venial, only to learn by
sad experience that this is Or one might be so
next to impossible.
taken up with prayer and religious exercises as to neglect the duties

of one s calling. This were piety, but ill-directed, lacking counsel.

Fear, piety and fortitude perfect the will ; knowledge and counsel,
the intellect, in the practical order that is, they enable us to know
what is to be done and what is to be avoided ; and as regards what
is to be done, when and how, and how much at a time. There is

another gift to teach us what to believe, to give us an insight into

34 THE SACRAMENTS.

the truths of religion, to shed such light upon the deep things of
God, the mysteries of our faith, as may be vouchsafed to mortals in
a world where these things are seen as through a glass, darkly. It
is the gift of understanding. It is of a higher order than
knowledge
as counsel.

I do not ask to see the distant scene,

One step enough for me.

So the poet prayed, seeking, for the moment, but the "kindly

light"
of knowledge and counsel to guide his steps "amid the en

circling gloom." Yet in the voyage of life there is need, ever and
anon, of stronger light, to catch at least some passing glimpse of
the distant scene. To hold his course on the trackless waste of

waters, the mariner must, from time to time, pause to take his bear

ings. He must lift his eyes to the heavenly bodies, the sun by day,
the moon and stars by night. So we, in crossing the ocean of life,
must raise eyes of faith to gaze upon the eternal truths, and from
them seek light and guidance. Else we may not hope to win the
haven of eternal rest.

Lastly, there is a seventh gift that crowns the others, the blossom

and perfection of all the rest, the talisman of victory to the soldier

of Christ, the last round of the ladder by which the Christian mounts

to heaven. It is the gift of wisdom. It is the good and perfect gift

that cometh down from the Father of lights. It enables the one into
whose soul it descends to see everything as God sees it, and to set

its true value on everything. The wisdom of this world makes men
prize the things of this world. The wisdom that is from above
makes men fix their minds and hearts on the things that are above,
where Christ sitteth at the right hand of the Father. And the wis-
 CONFIRMATION. 35

dom of this world is foolishness with God. Men of the world deem
it highest wisdom to possess themselves of the good things of this
world. St. Paul, who was full of the wisdom that is from above,

reckoned all these things as dross, nay, to use his own strong word,
even as dung, that he might win Christ. He had been thoroughly
drilled in the school of the Holy Ghost. He had been taught to
know the true beatitudes, "Blessed are the poor in spirit,"
"Blessed

are the merciful," "Blessed are the clean of heart," "Blessed are they

who endure persecution for righteousness sake." He had fathomed

the meaning of the Master s words : "What doth it profit a man to

gain the whole world if he suffer the loss of his own soul?" It is

a question of profit and loss, where the loss of all things earthly,
even of life itself, for Christ s sweet sake, is
supremest gain.
Confirmation is, in an altogether special sense, the Sacrament of
the Holy Ghost. Baptism confers grace to sanctify the soul, but
Confirmation confers the sanctifier of the soul, the Holy Spirit.
Ever since the day of Pentecost this Holy Spirit has
been in the world, performing His mission as Paraclete, ruling the
Church as a whole, guiding it in the way of truth, and sanctifying
itsmembers. Creatures of the senses that we are and tied down to
the things of sense, we find it hard to bring home to ourselves this

great truth of our faith, that we are living under the dispensation

and personal guidance of the Holy Ghost. This Third Person of the
blessed Trinity, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who

together with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who
is the Lord and giver of life, is present in the world to-day, in the
world-wide Church, as really and truly as the Second Person,
Son of the Virgin Mary, was present nineteen hundred
Jesus Christ,
years ago on the earth, and is still present on our altars in the
36
THE SACRAMENTS.

Adorable Sacrament. Our Lord Himself promised that when the

Paraclete should come he should abide always with the Church. Pie

is not the less really present for our being unable to see Him with
our eyes and touch Him with our hands.
Our blessed Lord, when He was visibly present on earth, dwelt

with Mary and Joseph in that lowly cottage at Nazareth. He still

dwells, though unseen by eyes of flesh, in our churches, on our

altars. But the Holy Spirit dwells not in a temple made with hands.
"Know ye not," says the apostle, your bodies are the temple of
"that

the Holy Ghost?" Yes, this poor tenement of clay, which death
one day will dissolve, is the dwelling-place of God s Holy Spirit.

And now here is a thing to think of and to take to heart. As

often as a Christian sins mortally he turns God s Holy Spirit out of
his temple. To men out of one s own house
turn even the meanest of
without cause is shameful; to drive a man out of the house of
which he is owner is open robbery. Judge, then, how heinous is
mortal sin. He who is guilty of it drives God s Holy Spirit out of
His dwelling-place. Let us not grieve the Holy Ghost; let us be
ware of quenching the Holy Ghost. Let us show due reverence to
the temple in which He deigns to dwell, and treat in a befitting way
this divine guest of our souls. So it will come to pass that, when
this house of our earthly dwelling is dissolved, He will receive us

into His tabernacle a building of God, a house not made with

hands, eternal in the heavens.
 PENANCE 37

IV. PENANCE.

"Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose sins you shall forgive they are for

given unto them, and whose sins you shall retain they are retained." John
xx. 22, 23.

SYNOPSIS. The healing of spiritual illness by the physician of the soul

A theme for the Lenten season. Penance makes straight the way
fitting
of the Lord; the means appointed by Christ Himself to make our peace
with God. A "second plank after shipwreck" whereon to make one s way
to the eternal shore. Penance a Sacrament. Proof of this. Christ gave
to men the power of forgiving sins, and willed it to abide in His Church.
Could Himself forgive sins in heaven, but it is not a question of what
He could do, but of what He has done. The minister of this Sacrament a
priest having faculties. Reason why a priest can not validly absolve
without faculties. The case of a judge a parallel one. The acts of the
penitent the matter of Penance. They bear the same relation to it that
the pouring on of water does to Baptism. These acts three: Contrition,
Confession, Satisfaction. The only fruitful sorrow the sorrow for sin.
Include a purpose of sinning no more. Purpose must be firm, clear-
cut, whole-hearted, practical. Sorrow for sin must be interior, universal,
sovereign, supernatural. Must come from the heart, not from the lips
merely; must reach out to every mortal sin that is on the conscience;
must be, in reason and conscience, the greatest of all sorrows; must spring
from a motive above nature. Motives of supernatural sorrow mainly
three: the fear of hell, the hope of heaven, the love of God. This last the
motive in perfect contrition. Closely bound up with it the thought of
the sufferings sin has caused our Saviour.

After Baptism comes Confirmation, then the Holy Eucharist, then

Penance, then the other Sacraments. This is the order in which the
Sacraments are given in our Catechisms. It rests on the analogy
between the natural life and the spiritual life. In the natural life the
first thing is birth, then there is growth and there is nourishment,
and there is a physician with remedies in case of illness. One is

born into the spiritual life by Baptism, one grows in it through

Confirmation, one is nourished in it by the Holy Eucharist, and one
is healed in case of spiritual illness by the physician of the soul in
the Sacrament of Penance. Were I to follow this order, I should,
38 THE SACRAMENTS

now that I have done with Confirmation, deal with the Holy
Eucharist; but I will treat of Penance instead. We are now some
weeks advanced in the Lenten season, and the Church, as you

know, enjoins upon all the faithful to confess their sins, so that

they may receive worthily the Holy Eucharist before the paschal
time expires. This is the reason why I take up Penance first.
"Make straight the way of the Lord." This was the burden of the
Baptist s message to the men of his time. It was his special office
to proclaim this, for he was the great preacher of Penance, the angel
sent before the face of the Lord to prepare the way for Him and
make straight His paths. It is a call to the consciences of men, a
call to adjust matters, to right what is wrong, to straighten what is

crooked, before the coming of the Lord. The ways of sin are
crooked and devious, for the sinner wanders from the path of rec
titude, the path of straight dealing, the narrow path of which Our
Lord speaks, the path that leads to life. Hence to make straight the

way of the Lord is byways of sin and come back to

to forsake the

the path of God s holy commandments.

Now we have one means, a means appointed by Christ Himself,

to make straight the way of the Lord, to straighten out the affairs of

the soul, and that is the Sacrament of Penance. And it seems fitting,

as I have said, that we should turn our thoughts to this divine ordi
nance in this holy season, when we are preparing to celebrate the

great mystery of our redemption in the blood that "blotted out

the handwriting of the decree that was against us." For how shall

we worthily celebrate that great event if we are not at peace with

God? And how shall we make our peace with God save by the
means that He has appointed, the Sacramental confession of our
sins?
 PENANCE. 39

The Fathers of the Church speak of this Sacrament as a second

plank after shipwreck, and the figure is an apt one. To one who
has made shipwreck of baptismal innocence there is offered this

plank to save him from drowning. When a vessel escapes ship

wreck, the passengers reach land without any exertion on their part.
They are borne thither. It is otherwise if the vessel should strike a

reef and founder. Each passenger has then to shift for himself : the

cry is save himself who can. How eagerly the drowning man
clutches at a plank or piece of wreckage ! How closely he clings to

it till he drifts ashore or is rescued by a boat! Even so, Baptism

frees ufe in childhood from sin without any act of ours. The water is

poured on, the form of words gone through is with, and, lo! the

child begotten in sin is born again of water and the Holy Ghost

into the kingdom of God. But not so easily are we freed from

grievous sin committed after Baptism. We must seize upon the

plank of Penance which God in His mercy throws to us, and never
let go our hold upon it until we gain a footing somewhere within
the territory of divine grace.

Penance is a Sacrament which, by the absolution of the priest,

remits the sins committed after Baptism to those who are sorry for

them, confess them, and are ready to make amends for them by
doing whatever the confessor enjoins. That it is a Sacrament is

shown by the fact of its being a sensible sign instituted by Jesus

Christ to give grace. The words of the priest who absolves, to

gether with the acts of the penitent, are the sensible sign. The
grace-conferring power of this sensible sign is shown by the words
of Our Lord to the apostles : "Whose sins you shall forgive the\

are forgiven them." The same words show that it is of divine insti

tution, for it was our divine Lord who used them, and the purport
4o THE SACRAMENTS.

of the words is plain. We Catholics indeed need ask no further as

surance that Penance is a Sacrament than that which we have from

the lips of the Church, which has been the witness for God in the

world since the day of Pentecost, and which is set before us in Holy
Writ as pillar and ground of the
"the truth." But it is a satisfaction
to find so clear a warrant for our belief in the Scripture itself.

There we read how the Son of God, in solemn fashion, conferred

upon His disciples power to forgive and to retain sins. His words
are so plain that there is no missing their meaning. To say that
He did not intend to convey the power of forgiving sins is to say

that He trifled with His hearers. Which shall we believe, Christ

Our Lord or men who confessedly have no way of knowing what
He meant but from His own words, and yet who, in the teeth of His
own declaration, that He grants the power of forgiving sins, boldly
deny that He has done so ? Nor can we at all doubt that He meant
thepower of forgiving sins to abide in His Church, for He had
come into the world to save, through the forgiveness of sin, not

the men of His own time only, but the men of all times. Moreover,
He had already committed Himself to the Sacramental system when
He instituted Baptism. Baptism is the remedy He gave against
original sin; we should therefore expect Him to give a like remedy
against actual sin.
Of course the Son of God could Himself forgive sins in heaven,
without the mediation of men. But so could He have freed men
from their sins without dying on the Cross for them, and even with
out at all coming down from heaven. So could He have dispensed
altogether with preachers, and Himself made known to each the

truths of the Gospel by special revelation. So could He have directly

blotted out the guilt of original sin without instituting the Sacrament
 PENANCE. 4I

of Baptism. So could He have healed the bodily ailments of the men

of His time without giving His disciples the power of doing so. So
could He
have raised Lazarus from the dead without going up to
Bethany to the home of Martha and Mary. But He did come
down from heaven and die upon a cross. He did send out His

disciples to preach the Gospel to every creature. He did institute

Baptism to wash away the guilt of original sin. He did give His
disciples a miraculous gift of healing bodily ailments. He did go
up to Bethany to raise His friend Lazarus from the dead. There is

question not of what He could have done, but of what He did ;

not
of what might have been, but of what was and is. And so He gave
power to men to forgive sins. The grant of the power is there in
His own words, which, though heaven and earth should melt into
nothingness, shall not pass away.
The minister of the Sacrament of Penance is a duly ordained

priest, having, from his bishop, the faculty of hearing confessions.

Only a priest can validly absolve no lay person can do so, no per
:

son in minor orders, no subdeacon, no deacon. What is more, not

even every priest can validly absolve, except in one instance, and
that is a case of necessity. When there is a person in danger of
death and no priest with faculties is to be found, any priest at all,

even though he should be suspended, even an apostate, can give

valid absolution. In every other case a priest must receive what
are known as faculties from a bishop.
It may be said : Does not every priest receive the power of for
giving sins on the day of his ordination? He does. But it is one
thing to receive power and be fit to exercise it, another to exercise it

validly. To hear confessions is to sit in judgment on the penitent,

to exercise jurisdiction over him. It is not for nothing that this
42 THE SACRAMENTS.

Sacrament is spoken of as the tribunal of Penance. The priest sits

there to try those who present themselves, and to loose or bind at
his discretion. Now it is not enough to be a judge that one may try
cases and give decisions which shall be valid in law. A judge must
have jurisdiction, that is to say, faculty from the executive of the
country in which he is to hold his court. Were a judge from Eng
land to go to Washington, for instance, and presume to hold a court

there, he would be guilty of a misdemeanor, and every single case

would have to be tried over again. He could not give a valid de
cision. So with the priest. He must have jurisdiction from the
executive of the Church, from some one of those whom, as the

apostle has it, the Holy Ghost has set to rule the Church of God.
Penance, like the other Sacraments, has two essential elements,
the matter and the form. The form consists of the words of the
priest, "I absolve thee from thy sins, in the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." The matter is, not the sins of
the penitent, which are rather the matter to be done away with,
and could become part of a sacred rite,
not, in the nature of things,
but the acts by which the penitent turns away from and seeks to be
rid of his sin. In the other Sacraments he who administers the Sac
rament furnishes the matter, water in Baptism, bread and wine in

the Eucharist, oil of the sick in Extreme Unction. In the case of

Penance, on the other hand, the one who receives the Sacrament

must supply the matter. And as there can be no Baptism without

water, and no Eucharist without bread and wine, so there can be
no Sacrament of Penance without the acts of the penitent. These
bear precisely the same relation to the Sacrament of Penance that
the pouring on of water does to Baptism. The priest may say the
words of absolution over the penitent, but if the sorrow for sin is
 PENANCE. 43

not there, or if any grievous sin is knowingly and wilfully concealed,

or if there is wanting the will to perform the penance enjoined, then
the sentence of absolution is not ratified in the higher court, and the
words of the priest have no more effect than would the words of
one who should think to confer Baptism without water by merely

repeating the words of the form. These are the three acts of the
penitent which constitute the matter of the Sacrament of Penance:
contrition, confession and satisfaction. I will deal with each in

turn.

If we cast a glance back over our past we

shall find many things

done by us that we could now wish undone many things that we ;

have cause to be sorry for. And yet there is but one thing that
ought to bring us sorrow, one thing that it is our duty to be sorry
for, and that is sin. And there is another consideration. All other
sorrow is barren ;
it serves no good purpose. The grief that men
feel for temporal losses, keen though it may be, will not repair these
losses; the tears we shed for loved ones over whom the grave has

closed can never bring them back to us again. But the sorrow for
sin is a fruitful sorrow ; it is profitable alike for the life that now is

and for that which is to be ;

for that which now is, for this sorrow
isthe beginning of a change for the better, a putting off of the old
man and a putting on of the new for the life that is to be, because;

without this sorrow our sins remain the great and only bar to our
happiness hereafter.
Contrition is a sincere sorrow for having offended God by sin,
with a firm purpose of sinning no more. The word is from the
Latin and means literally the breaking to pieces of
anything that is
solid or hard. The sinner is said in Scripture to become hard of
heart. Sin makes the heart hard, and sorrow softens it. A great
44 THE SACRAMENTS.

sorrow is said to break one s heart, and sorrow for sin ought to be

the greatest of all sorrows. With this sorrow for sin there must be
a firm purpose of sinning no more. It is not possible that there
should be real sorrow without this purpose of amendment. And the

purpose must be a firm one; no feeble, half-hearted, vague, ill-

defined wish to avoid sin, but a strong, clear-cut, whole-hearted

resolve to have done with sin once for all, to burst the fetters

forged by evil habits, to shun the persons, the places, the things
that have proved in the past to be occasions of sin, and to use all

the means necessary to lead a new life ;

to pray more earnestly, to

examine one s conscience night after night, to ponder the last things

and bring them home to oneself, and especially to go more fre

quently to Confession and Holy Communion. It is not a bit of use
in the world to form a sort of general resolution, very comprehen

sive but very vague, of sinning no more. We must get down to

the concrete and the particulars. We

must make up our minds to
avoid not sin in general, but that particular sin into which we know
from experience we are prone to fall, and to avoid the occasions of
that sin, and to make use of the means that are needful to keep
from falling again into that sin. So much for the purpose of sin

ning no more.
The sorrow for sin must be interior, universal, sovereign and
supernatural. It must be interior ;
that is, a sorrow of the heart, not
a sorrow put into the words or looks or demeanor or posture of the
penitent, not a sorrow put on or feigned, but a heartfelt sorrow.
"Rend your hearts, not your garments," says the Holy Ghost. In
terior sorrow means, then, a sorrow that comes from the heart.
And this sorrow must be universal; that is to say, not confined to

one sin of which a person may be guilty to the exclusion of another

 PENANCE. 45

or others, but extending at least to all grievous sins. Every mortal

sin takes away the life of the soul, and therefore we must be sorry
for every mortal sin, else the life of the soul can not be restored.

"It is impious," says the

Holy Ghost, hope for half a pardon/ "to

to fancy that one may be friend and foe of God at the same time.

Divine grace and mortal sins are opposed, as light and darkness.
Therefore God s grace can no more coexist in the soul with mortal
sin than light can coexist with darkness, day with night.
In the next place, the sorrow for sin must be sovereign. This
means that the sorrow for sin should be greater than the sorrow for

any other evil that can befall one. The reason is plain. The great
ness of our loss, the greatness of the evil that weighs upon us, must
be the measure of our sorrow, and sin is the greatest of all evils,

since it is the source of every other evil, and causes infinite loss, the

loss of infinite goodness and infinite happiness. By this I do not

mean that we should feel the loss caused by sin more keenly or

grieve for it more bitterly than for any other loss. The sorrow for

sin may be really sovereign or supreme even when it is not felt so

keenly as some other sorrows. A mother who sheds scalding tears
over the grave of a dearly loved child has perhaps never a tear to
shed for her sins. Yet her sorrow for her sins may well be, after

all, the greater sorrow. It is not a matter of feeling so much as of

conscience and reason. We can not command our feelings at will.

If we really in our hearts set down sin as the greatest of all evils,

and hate it as such, and are ready, if need be, to suffer any loss rather
than forfeit God s grace and friendship by mortal sin, then is our
sorrow sovereign.

Lastly, our sorrow must be supernatural. This means that sorrow

for sin must spring, not from any natural source or motive, how-
46 THE SACRAMENTS.

ever good in itself, but from a motive and source wholly above
nature. It is to the motive or cause of the sorrow we must look if

we would know whether the sorrow is natural or supernatural. If

one is sorry because one s sin has got one into trouble, or is sure
to get one into trouble in this world because ; it will hurt one s, health,
or hurry one into prison, or blight one s prospects in life, or bring

disgrace upon one, one s sorrow is purely natural and avails not in
the least unto the forgiveness of sin. But if one is sorry because
one s sin is going to get one into trouble in the next world, then
one is in a fair way of winning the forgiveness of sin, because the
sorrow comes from a supernatural source.

What, then, are the motives of supernatural sorrow? They are

mainly these three : the fear of hell, the hope of heaven, the love of

God. The fear of hell comes first. Those who have fallen into

grievous sin must begin with this. The fear of the Lord, we are

told, is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of being cast forever into

that place of torment which our blessed Lord sets so vividly before

us and so often warns us about the place prepared for the devil and
;

his angels, an outer darkness where there shall be weeping and

gnashing of teeth, an unquenchable fire where the worm dieth

not and the fire is not extinguished; this fear, I say, comes home
to the run of men more sensibly than any other motive. And the

run of men need such a powerful motive as this to stir their hard
hearts to sorrow and deter them from sin. It is safe to say that
the great bulk of those who are in heaven to-day would never have
entered there but for the fear of hell. It was this especially which

gave them pause in their career of sin, or stayed them when about
to fall into sin. And if more went down to hell in imagination fewer

would go there in reality.

 PENANCE. 47

The next motive is the hope of heaven. By mortal sin man for

feits his right to heaven, and heaven is happiness beyond the thoughts
and dreams of men. Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, what
God has prepared there for those who love Him. The whole being
of man is athirst for happiness. There is no man born of woman
but is all his life long in quest of happiness. One man places his

happiness in one thing, another in another, but there is no happiness

for man unless he place his happiness higher than the creature. "For

thyself thou hast made us, O Lord," cried St. Augustine, after

having vainly sought for happiness in created things, "and our

hearts are restless till they rest in thee." All that there is of truth

and goodness and beauty in the world, what is it but a faint shadow
of that truth and goodness and beauty which is the essence of God ?

Earthly happiness, at the best, is and empty the happiness

fleeting ;

of heaven alone is real and soul-satisfying and everlasting. Mortal

sin robs us of our title to this happiness, and the hope of winning
it back by repentance is a true motive of supernatural sorrow.
But there is a higher motive. It is good to be sorry for sin, be

cause sin offends God, who can make both body and soul to perish
in hell ; it is better to be sorry for sin, because sin offends God, who
has been so good to us and who is to be sought after as our last

end ;
it is best to be sorry for sin, because sin offends God, who is

infinitely good and amiable in Himself. This is the motive of that

perfect sorrow which wins the pardon of sin even before it is con
fessed to the priest. Such, too, is awakened by the
the sorrow

thought of what sin cost our divine Lord and Saviour. In His suf

ferings we have an unfailing motive of perfect contrition for our

sins. It was sin, mine and yours, that, in the person of cruel Herod,
sought the sweet babe of Bethlehem to put Him to death. It was
48 THE SACRAMENTS.

mine and yours, that drove Him from the shelter of the humble
sin,

home at Nazareth and tore Him from the arms of His loving Mother,
to dwell alone with wild beasts in the wilderness. There the foxes
had holes and the birds of the air nests, but the Son of Man had
not whereon to lay His head. It was sin that forced the blood

through every pore of His body in the garden, sin that scourged
Him naked at a post, sin that thrust down upon His head a crown

of thorns, sin that spat into the face on which the angels longed to

gaze. What was it that marred with wounds those blessed feet that

went about doing good, and pierced with nails those hands that were
never raised but in benediction? It was sin, the same that at last
slew the Son of God and Saviour of men. What a frightful thing
is sin! What motive have we to sorrow for it, what cause to shun
it, and to choose rather death itself than embrace such a monster !
 PENANCE. 49

V. PENANCE.

"If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and
to cleanse us from all iniquity." I. John i. Q.

SYNOPSIS. Perfect and imperfect sorrow for sin. Difficulty of conceiving

a sorrow springing from so unselfish a motive as the love of God for His
own sake. In the tribunal of penance God meets man more than half way.
The duty of telling one s sins to a priest implied in the power of forgiving
and retaining sins left with the Church. The Old Law a "shadow of
things to come." Priests under the old dispensation to judge of the
leprosy of the body; priests under the new to judge of the leprosy of the
soul. Those only declared a person free from leprosy; these set him free.
The leper cleansed by Christ (Mark i.). Knew he was made dean, yet is
bidden to show himself to the priest. This is done in confession. The
confession must be (i) simple, that is, plain and to the point; (2)
humble, seeing it is of its vetj nature an act of humility; (3) sincere, that
is, frank and honest, without attempt to conceal or cloak sin; (4) entire,
i. e., embracing at least all mortal sins on the conscience,
the kind and
the number. How
to prepare for one s confession and make it. The third
and last act of the penitent, satisfaction. An essential part of the matter
of penance consists in the readiness to do what the confessor enjoins.
Within zvhat time and how to be performed. Meaning of satisfaction.
God being just as well as merciful exacts satisfaction for sin forgiven as
to its guilt. Scriptural instances in proof. Christians, servants of God
and soldiers of Christ, by sin betray their Master and desert His standard.
Reparation called for. Lesson to be learned from the conduct of Naaman
the leper. God grants forgiveness upon easy terms. Should we not avail
ourselves of His indulgence?

The second act of the penitent, which forms part of the matter of
the Sacrament of Penance, is confession. Perfect contrition, the
sorrow for sin that springs from the love of God above all things
for His own sake, would of itself wipe out sin without sacramental
confession. But, humanly speaking at least, there are few capable
of such unselfish sorrow. So complete a change of heart is hardly
to be looked for as shall transform, in an instant, a sinner into a

great lover of God. I am far from saying that this can not be ;
with
God all things are possible. Nor do I deny that there are cases with
out number in which one bound by the chains of sin sees as in a flash
50 THE SACRAMENTS.

the foulness of sin and the goodness of God, and sorrows with a

perfect sorrow, like the Magdalen. What I say is that such signal

graces as these are exceptional. As a rule, the grace of God works

slowly in the heart of the sinner, leading him step by step from the
imperfect sorrow of attrition to the perfect sorrow that is born
of unselfish love. This what ordinarily happens, and we have but
is

to recall our own experience to be assured that it is. God knows

full well how hard it is for man, living in the midst of sin, his sense

of the unseen world blunted by sin, keenly alive to the things of this
life, but blind for the most part to the things of the next, selfish

by nature and by long years of self-indulgence God knows, I say,

how hard it is for such a one to conceive a sorrow for sin springing

from so unselfish a motive as the love of God for his own sake.

Therefore God meets man more than half-way. He says to man, "I

will be content with an imperfect sorrow. I will give you a means

of procuring pardon for your sins with such imperfect sorrow as you

may easily conceive, if only you will make up your mind to sin no
more." This means is sacramental confession.
The duty of telling one s sins to a priest, for the purpose of obtain

ing the pardon of them, is clearly implied in the power of forgiving

and retaining sins which Our Lord has left with His Church. The

apostles and those who received from them this power were made
judges of the consciences of men. Plain it is, however, that they
could not pass judgment without knowing the state of each man s

conscience, and this they could know, apart from a miracle, only
from the man s own confession.

We read in the first chapter of the Gospel according to St. Mark

how, when Our Lord had cleansed the leper, He bade him go and
show himself to the priest. The incident has a deeper meaning
than would at first sight appear. God will have all things done in
 PENANCE. 51

the order and manner laid down in His law. By the divine law,

under the Jewish dispensation, the priests were to judge of leprosy;

to declare the leper clean, in case of a cure, before he could be al

lowed to frequent the society of men. Now, the things of the Old
Law were shadow of things to come" (Col. ii. 17). And so, by
"a

the divine law, under the dispensation of the Gospel, priests are to

judge of sin, which is the leprosy of the soul. And they must declare
the sinner free from sin before he can take his place at that divine

banquet which is therefore called Communion, because it is at once

the pledge and bond of man s union with God and of his fellow

ship with the children of light.

I have said that the Old Law was the shadow of which the New
is the substance. And it was true to its character of shadow in all

things. The Jewish priest could only declare a person free from
leprosy he could not cleanse him. The Christian priest, on the other
;

hand, has power to free the sinner from his sin. There is nothing
plainer in the whole of God s revelation than the grant of this power
to forgive sins and to retain them. And yet there are those who tell

us that God alone can forgive though He had not

sin, as Himself
declared by the mouth of His Only Son that He gave men also this

power, which is His alone indeed by virtue of His being God, but
His to commit to whom He wills. The power once given never has
been recalled. Those who first received it, being mortal, have gone
the way of all flesh. But the body corporate of which they were the
officers still lives. The Church of the living God dies not. She is to
show forth the death of the Lord till He come the death which
took away the handwriting of the decree that was against us. She is

God s own physician to men, and souls covered with the leprosy of
sin still crave her healing touch.
To those, then, whom Christ has clothed with this power we
52 THE SACRAMENTS.

must go if we would be freed from the guilt of sin committed after

Baptism. The man who says, my God I confess my -sins, to no
"To

man will I confess them," ignores the ordinance of God. At the

peril of his own soul does he say this. What is more, even if he
could be sure that he had made an act of perfect sorrow, he would
still be bound to confess his That leper was certain he had
sins.

been healed, far more certain than any one can be that he has made
an act of perfect contrition, yet was he bidden to show himself to the
priest. Christ came, as He tells us Himself, not to make void the

law, but to fulfill it. And by the law of God, under the old
as

dispensation, priests were to judge of leprosy, so by the law of

God under the new dispensation, priests are to judge of sin

in the tribunal of penance. It is galling to the pride of man, this

confession of sin, but it is necessary. And, like bitter medicine to
the man that is sick, it is wholesome. But to be wholesome it must
be a good confession, and a good confession is not done in a care
less way. As with any other work, so with confession, we must take

pains with it if it is to be well done. We must see to it that our

confession be simple, humble, sincere, and entire. These are the

qualities that mark a good confession.
In the first place, the confession should be simple, that is, plain and
to the point. One should bear in mind that the only purpose for
which one kneels there in the Tribunal of Penance is to tell one s

sins; not the good things one may have done, but the bad things;
not the bad things some one else has done, but that oneself has done.
We are there not to tell a long story by way of preface to the telling
of our sins, but to go at once to the heart of the matter; not to

try to excuse ourselves, but to accuse ourselves as plainly and briefly

as we know how. All this is meant when we say the confession

should be simple.
 PENANCE. 53

Another quality of a good confession is humility. The whole

purpose for which one kneels in the confessional, the very posture
itself, implies this. We do not go into that tribunal to boast of our
sins, but with shame rather to confess them.
"

An humble and con

trite heart, O Lord, thou wilt not despise," says the Psalmist. The
heart that is contrite is humble, too.

The third quality is sincerity. This means that the confession

should be frank, honest, straightforward. If ever there is need of
candor and truth, "honor bright" as people call it, it is in confessing

one s sins. The wounds of the soul must be laid bare to the soul s

physician, if he is to heal them. We should tell our sins just as

they are on the conscience, not trying to gloss them over or make
them look less ugly than they are. To tell our sins frankly yet mod
estly should be our aim.

Lastly, the confession must be entire. We have to confess all

our grievous sins, and the number of times we have been guilty of
them, and the circumstances that change the species. To withhold
wilfully or conceal in confession a grievous sin, or a sin believed
to be grievous, would make the confession null, and add to one s sins

the crime of sacrilege, not only against the Sacrament of Penance

itself, but, what is still more horrible, commonly also against the

Holy Eucharist. The number of times, too, must be confessed ;

if not
the exact number, as nearly as may be ; also, the circumstances that
would make of what is in itself but one two, or perhaps three
sin,

sins. Thus, to steal is one sin, but to steal a consecrated chalice

would be a sin of sacrilege as well as of theft, and to steal it from a
church would be another sin of sacrilege, a different kind of sacri
lege, that is: The circumstance of the chalice being consecrated
changes the nature of the sin, or rather adds a new specific deformity
to the act,and the circumstance that the chalice is stolen from a
54 THE SACRAMENTS.

place consecrated to God, yet another. In the one act there are really
three sins, and it would not therefore be enough to confess that one
had stolen an article of such or such value.
It may not be amiss to say a few words now on the preparation
for Confession, and the way to make one s Confession. The first
thing one should do is to pray God very earnestly for light to see
one s sins and grace to be sorry for them. Then comes the examina
tion of conscience, which is an earnest effort to recall the sins one
has fallen into since one s last good Confession, the number of times,
and the circumstances, if any, which change the species of the sin.
Those who go but seldom to Confession should examine their con
science carefully on the commandments of God and of His Church,
and the seven deadly sins. Those who go often may examine them
selves briefly on thoughts, desires, words, deeds, or omissions con

trary to the law of God. It is not needful, nor is it advisable for

them to spend much time in examining their conscience. It is better,

in the case of venial sins and imperfections, to single out the worst,
the one into which a person is most prone to fall, and to
spend one s
time rather in exciting oneself to sorrow for sin, and in thinking
over the steps to be taken in order to avoid sin for the time to come.
The penitent may say trie Confiteor before going in to confession, in
fact ought to say it when, as is often the case, there are a number of
others waiting their turn. On entering and kneeling, one should
say: "Father, bless me, for I have sinned;" or, if the Confiteor has
been already said, confess to Almighty God and to you, father,
"I

that I have sinned." Then follows the confession, at the end of

which it is proper to say: "For these and the other sins that I can
not now call to mind I ask pardon of God, absolution and penance
of you, my father." One more point I would call attention to.
If there are but trifling sins or imperfections to tell, one should
 PENANCE. 55

accuse oneself of some sin of one s past life, thus : I wish to accuse
myself also of such or such a sin of my past life, or in a general

way, sins of anger, or disobedience, or pride, formerly confessed.

There is a twofold reason for this ( I ) that if one has but trivial sins
;

to confess it is hard to be sure that one has real sorrow for them ;

(2) it is often a question with the priest, in such a case, whether

the penitent has furnished sufficient matter for absolution. A sin

already confessed and forgiven is yet sufficient matter for absolution,

because it is not the sin itself, but the acts of the penitent that are
the matter of the Sacrament, and it is easily seen that one may be

sorry again for a sin already confessed, may also confess it again,
and be ready to do penance for it if need be.
The third and last act of the penitent, which forms part of the
matter of the Sacrament, is satisfaction. This commonly goes by
the name of penance, as when we speak of saying or performing
penance enjoined by the priest. As an essential part of the matter of
the Sacrament it consists rather in the will to do what the priest en

joins than in the actual doing of it. One must have at least the will

to perform the penance, else the Confession is void. If one has the
will to perform the penance, and fails to perform it, the Confession
is valid, but ifone has failed through one s own fault one commits
a new sin, mortal or venial according as the penance was grave or

light. One round of the beads would be considered grave matter,

or the Our Father and Hail Mary five times for five days. The

penance is to be performed within a given time, when the time is

specified; otherwise, within a reasonable time. The sooner it is
done after Confession the one should fall into grievous
better, for if
sin before finishing thepenance, the remainder would be a barren
work. It would count as Sacramental Penance before the Church,
but it would have no merit before God, and it is more than doubtful
S6 THE SACRAMENTS,

whether God would accept it as satisfaction for the temporal pun

ishment due to sin.
The word satisfaction means in law the settlement of a claim
due, or the payment of a debt. It is in this legal sense I use the
word here. The Church teaches that, after the guilt of sin is for

given, there ordinarily remains a debt of temporal punishment to be

paid either in this life or in purgatory. This doctrine is founded in
Scripture, and is in accord with right reason. God is just, and
justice requires that reparation should be made for every wrong;
God is wise, and in His wisdom sees that to grant a free pardon
for every offensewould but encourage the offender to offend the
more. He could have forgiven the sins of mankind by an act of
pure mercy, but being just as well as merciful He willed that His
own Son should offer satisfaction and pay the penalty of our sins

upon the Cross. Adam and Eve He pardoned, but they did penance
he earning his bread in the sweat of his face, tilling
their life long,

the untoward earth which yielded him thorns and thistles in return

for his she bringing forth children in an agony of pain and

toil,

bearing with her companion in guilt the burden of hard labor.

Moses fell into what would seem to be no more than a venial sin of
diffidence when he srnote the rock twice. He was forgiven, but died
promised land without being suffered to set foot in it.
in sight of the

David sinned grievously. He was pardoned, but God told him by

the mouth of His prophet that the child which he begot in sin should
die. Again he sinned through vanity, in taking a census of his
people, and again was pardoned, but in punishment of his sin had to
take his choice of three great evils, war, pestilence, or famine. And
when the Son of God came in the flesh, there went before Him the
voice of one crying in the wilderness, preaching the Baptism of

Penance, bidding a sinful generation do penance for that the king

dom of heaven was at hand.
 PENANCE. 57

If a soldier deserts his post in time of war, he is guilty of a grave

breach of duty ;
if he goes over to the enemy, he is guilty of treason.
We who by Baptism are sons of God and by Confirmation soldiers
of Christ, are sworn to serve the Lord all our life long, and to fight
His battles. But as often as we sin grievously, we not only desert
the service of our Master but go over to the enemy range ourselves
under the banner of Satan, the sworn enemy of God. In every act
of sin there is a turning away from God and a turning toward some
creature in His stead. By every act of sin man insults God, and robs
Him of the love, the worship, the loyal service that are so justly His
due. In the Sacrament of Penance God forgives the insult, but re
quires man to make restitution for that whereof He has been robbed.
It is for this that the priest enjoins a penance, not indeed equal to
the offense, but very effective in wiping out the debt of temporal

punishment. Even a little penance, enhanced by the grace of the

Sacrament, goes a long way toward satisfying the justice of God.
It may serve to exempt one from long years of confinement in that

prison-house whence no man goes forth till he has paid the last

farthing.
The tribunal of Penance is popularly known as the confessional,

and properly so. It is in the confessional that the sorrow for sin,
as well as the readiness to do penance, is sensibly shown. It is in

the confession alone that we have the sensible token which is the

proper matter of the sensible sign or Sacrament. Hence St. John,

in the words of our text, mentions only confession of sin as the con

dition of forgiveness. He does not say that we are to confess our

sins to a priest. He
simply urges the duty of confessing our sins,

leaving us to find out from the Church, which the Master com
manded us to hear, how we are to confess, and to whom.
We read in the Fourth Book of Kings that Naaman, captain of
58 THE SACRAMENTS.

came to Eliseus the prophet to be healed of his lep

the Syrian host,

rosy. The prophet bade him go and wash himself seven times in
the Jordan if he would be made clean. Naaman, who thought
Eliseus would but wavehand over the leprous sore, and so
his

cleanse him, waxed exceeding wroth, and went his way, exclaim
"Are not Abanah and
ing :
Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better
than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be
clean ?" But his servants said to him : "If the prophet had bid thee
do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much
rather, then, when he saith to thee, Wash and be clean?" Naaman
heeded the wise counsel, went down and dipped himself seven times
in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and lo!

his flesh became as the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. Now,
leprosy is an emblem of sin, and Naaman was a type of the sinner

who seeks to be cleansed from his sin. One might say, after the
manner of Naaman, Why should I go to the priest? Can not God
immediately forgive my sins? Yes, but as of old the prophet sent
Naaman to the Jordan, so the Church, foreshadowed by the prophet,

directs men to the Sacrament of Penance, which is the fountain

open to the house of David and the dwellers in

Jerusalem for the
washing of the sinner. "Let no man/ are the warning words of St.
Augustine, "Let no man say I do penance secretly before God.
Without cause, then, has it been Whatever you shall loose
said,

on earth shall be loosed also in heaven. Without cause have the

keys been given to the Church. made void

. The Gospel of Christ is ;

void are the words of Christ." And upon what easy terms are we
offered forgiveness! the prophet had bid thee do some great
"If

thing, wouldst not thou have done it ? How much rather, then, when
he saith to thee : Wash and be clean ?"
O, words of wisest counsel !

If God required of us as the price of freedom from our sins that we

 PENANCE. 59

should sell all we have and give to the poor ; or that we should take

up the pilgrim s staff and, having crossed the sea, should go on foot
to the springs of the we should do anything most
Jordan; or that
hard, ought not we to do it ? How much rather, then, when He has
made the way so easy for us, offering a free pardon to all who come
to sue for it how much rather ought not we to go, with our humble
and contrite heart, to that tribunal where the Precious Blood of
Christ cleanses the conscience from dead works; where, at the
words of priestly absolution, our sins are rolled away forever, and
we regain the peace of God that passeth all understanding?
60 THE SACRAMENTS.

VI. THE HOLY EUCHARIST.

as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed and broke it, and
"Now

gave to his disciples, saying: Take ye and eat; this is my body. And he
it
took the chalice, and when He had given thanks, gave it to them, saying:
Drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the New Testament which shall be
shed for many unto the remission of sins." Matt. xxvi. 26-28.

SYNOPSIS. /. The Holy Eucharist contains the Author of grace; the Sun
of the spiritual life. The Sacrament that contains the body and blood,
soul and divinity of Jesus Christ under the appearances of bread and wine.
II. The real presence the doctrine and belief of the Church in all
ages. This belief and this doctrine grounded in the word of God. (a) In
the Old Testament, the shadow of the New, which is the substance.
Types or figures of the Eucharist the bread and wine offered by Mel-
chisedech, the unleavened bread taken with the paschal lamb, the manna,
etc. These types not fulfilled if the Eucharist be itself but a figure, (b)
In the New Testament, the divine promise (John vi.); its fulfillment
(Matt, xxvi.}; the mind and practice of the Apostolic Chur i (I. Cor.
x.}. Either Christ is not God, or He has given Himself under the form
of bread to feed the souls of men.
III. The doctrine of transubstantiation the necessary sequel of that of
the real presence. As surely as Christ is the God of truth, so surely are
the words of consecration literally true.
IV. Two other mysteries bound up with the real presence and tran
substantiation: the permanence of the accidents of bread and wine, the
presence of Our Lord s body in heaven and on earth at the same time,
In the things of faith we often go against that which appears to the senses.
Our Lord s presence in the Eucharist altogether different from His
presence in heaven.
V. Form and matter of the Sacrament; minister and subject; persons
who may not receive, persons who are bound to receive.
VI. Symbolism of the Eucharist. Bread, the staff of life, nourishes,
gives growth, makes strong, sates the hungry; corresponding fourfold
effect of the Eucharistic bread in the spiritual order.

All of the seven Sacraments instituted by our blessed Lord are

holy in themselves and means of holiness to those who receive them
worthily. But there is one of them that, by common consent of be

lievers, is never spoken of save as the Holy or the Most Holy Sac
rament. The other Sacraments contain grace and are channels of

grace ; this contains the Author of grace, and is the unfailing foun

tain of all grace. As the sun is the center of the system of lesser
 THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 61

bodies that circle round it, and the source of light and warmth to all

things that live on the earth, so is the Holy Eucharist the center of the
other Sacraments, and the source of spiritual light and warmth to
the souls of men.
The Holy Eucharist, as the catechism teaches us, is the Sacrament
that contains thebody and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ
under the appearances of bread and wine. The Eucharist is a sacri
fice also, but with that aspect of it I will not deal now. For the
present I will consider it only as a Sacrament, that is to say, a sensi

ble sign of grace instituted by Christ Our Lord for the sanctification

of souls. We discern in it the three things needful to constitute a

Sacrament. The bread and wine together with the words of con
secration are the sensible sign; the words of Our Lord at the Last

Supper are the guarantee of divine institution; and as for the con

ferring of grace, the Eucharist, as has already been observed, con

tains the very Author of grace.
Two things we hold as of faith concerning the Holy Eucharist;
first, that our blessed Lord is really present in this Sacrament under
the appearances of bread and wine ; second, that He is present, not

by coming down from heaven after the manner of His going up

from Mount Olivet, but by the change of bread into His body and
wine into His blood. The former is the doctrine of the Real Pres
ence, the latter that of transubstantiation.
It is and ever has been the faith of Catholics that our blessed Lord
is as truly and as Holy Eucharist as He was in
really present in the
the stable at Bethlehem or in the cottage at Nazareth. And if any
one asks us on what ground we believe this we make answer
is founded upon the teaching of that Church which the
that our faith
Word of God declares to be the pillar and ground of the truth. The
one, holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church so teaches, so has ever
62 THE SACRAMENTS..

taught, and we take her word for it, in this as in other things, with

out an instant of hesitation or shadow of misgiving. Yet the Church

herself, speaking by the mouth of the apostle, would have us be
always ready to give every one that asks a reason for the hope that
is in us. And she refers us, for proofs of this particular doctrine,
to the books of the Old Testament and the New, which she has care
fully guarded throughout all the ages, and which she guarantees to
be inspired of God Himself.
The Old Testament, as St. Paul makes plain to us, was a shadow
of the New, which is the substance. In that old covenant of God
with His chosen people there is ever a looking forward to the new
and perfect one. no poetic fancy, in this instance, but an over
It is

ruling divine purpose which makes "coming events cast their

shadows before." The things of the law were but types of "the

good things to come." And there were many types of the best and
greatest of these good things, that is, of the Holy Eucharist. There
was (i) that most striking figure of the Eucharist, the sacrifice
offered by Melchisedech in bread and wine; (2) the bread of the

proposition which, as we read in the First Book of Kings, only the

pure and holy could receive and only priests could dispense; (3) the
bread baked in the ashes and given by an angel to the prophet Elias,
who went in the strength of that bread forty days and forty nights
unto Horeb the mount of God (III. Kings, xix. 5-9) (4) the un ;

leavened bread taken by the Israelites with the paschal lamb; (5)
the blood of the testament with which Moses sprinkled the people

(Exod. xxiv. and Heb. ix.) ; (6) last, but not least, the manna with
which the children of Israel were fed in the wilderness for forty

years until they entered the land of promise (Exod. xvi. compared
with John vi.).
Now the point that I would make is that none of these types or
 THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 63

figures has been fulfilled if we take the Blessed Eucharist to be itself

but a figure of the body and blood of Christ. A figure,

from the nature of the case, foretokens, not another figure,
but a reality. Hence, as Melchisedech offered sacrifice in

bread and wine, and as Our Lord is a priest forever after the order

of Melchisedech, He must have offered, under the form of bread

and wine, which are the figure and shadow, the very substance of
His body and blood else would the thing prefigured be no better
;

than that which prefigured it. So, since Moses, having, as God s
ambassador, given commandments to the people, delivered to them
the covenant or testament sprinkled with blood, saying, This is the
blood of the testament, Our Lord, of whom Moses was a figure,
having given a new commandment to His disciples and a new testa
ment, also gave in very truth His blood to seal it at the Last Supper ;

else the thing shadowed forth in the Old Law was not fulfilled. So,
once more, since the manna was bread from heaven, the Eucharist
must be a bread from heaven, too, and a more excellent bread by
how much the thing signified is more excellent than that which

shadows it forth; nay, none other than the living bread who came
down from heaven, and who Himself assures us, "The bread that
I will give is My flesh, for the life of the (John vi. 51).
world"

We come now to the New Testament and the proofs of the real

presence that are to be found therein. We have, in the first place,

the express promise of Christ that He would give His flesh as bread
for the life of the world (John vi.). Then we have the fulfillment of
this promise, at the Last Supper, as recorded by the three Evange
lists and by St. Paul (Matt. xxvi. Mark xiv. Luke xxii. I. Cor. ix.).
; ; ;

The divine words are meaning unmistakable This is My

plain, their :

body this;
is My blood. Lastly, we have the mind of the Apostolic
Church as expressed by St. Paul, where he declares that the chalice
64 THE SACRAMENTS.

is the communion of the blood of Christ, the bread the partaking of

thebody of Christ (I. Cor. x. 16), and this in so real a sense that
whoever eats or drinks unworthily is guilty of the body and blood
of the Lord, eats and drinks to his own undoing, bringing the judg
ment of God down upon himself (I. Cor. x. n). The apostle
reckons it a sacrilege to receive unworthily, insists upon the need
of ones proving oneself before receiving, that is, of seeing to it that

one be not unworthy, and says of those who behave as if the

Eucharist were ordinary bread that they fail to "discern the body
of the Lord," which must needs be really present to be really dis
cerned.
From these texts it follows that either the real presence is a
divine fact divinely revealed, or Jesus Christ is Words
not God.
could not convey a plainer meaning than those used by Our Lord.
The Jews took Him atHis word, and many of them, not believing
Him to be God, said, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? and
because they found His saying hard, went their way, and walked
no longer with Him. His apostles, believing Him to be God, having
the words of eternal life, took Him at His word, and saw in the

Eucharist, not common bread and wine, but the body and blood of
the Redeemer. The whole Christian world for the first fifteen

hundred years, and the great bulk of Christians since then, have
taken Him at His word, and despite the hardness of the saying,
have firmly believed His body to be present in the Eucharist under
the form of bread and His blood under the form of wine. Now,
if Christ is God, since Christ God, He must have foreseen that
is

those who were to believe in Him would take His words in their
obvious and natural meaning would bend the knee before the taber
;

nacle and adore the Host. Suppose for the sake of argument that

they have been deceived in so taking Him,

it is plain that He could
 THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 65

have forestalled such deception by one word from His mouth. That
word was never spoken. Therefore, as surely as Jesus Christ is
God, veracious and omniscient, so surely is He really present on our
Most Holy Sacrament. The Real Presence is the divinely
altars in the

enacted sequel of the incarnation. Either the Word has not at all

been made flesh, and the Christian religion is false at its very core,

or the Word-made-flesh takes the form of bread to feed the souls of

men.
The doctrine of the Real Presence has, in like manner, its neces

sary sequel in the doctrine of transubstantiation. The former de

fines the divine fact, the latter defines the divine mode in which that
fact is brought about. If Jesus Christ is really present in the
Eucharist, since Jesus Christ is really present in the Euchar
ist, what was bread becomes, by virtue of the divine words
of consecration, His body, and what was wine becomes His blood.
The literal truth of the Real Presence hangs wholly on the literal
truth of the words of consecration. Either Our Lord is really

present by virtue of these words, or He is not really present at all.

But if the words "This is My body," are literally true, that which
"this" no longer bread. The word
stands for is stands for "this"

one thing, not for two things. Now, that a thing should be bread
and not bread at one and the same time, bread and the body of
Christ, involves a manifest contradiction, and Jesus Christ is not
the God of contradictions, but the God of truth. And as surely as
He is the God of truth, so surely are the words of consecration
so surely, by virtue of them, is bread changed into His
literally true ;

body and wine into His blood. Jesus Christ is the Word-made-flesh,
the word of God, the word of omnipotence, the creative word, who
makes the things that are not to be, and changes the inner nature of
the things that are. Keener than any two-edged sword, the divine
66 THE SACRAMENTS.

word reaches even unto the division of substance and accident in the

elements, upholds the latter in its being, transmutes the former into
the living bread that nourishes unto life everlasting and the living
wine that still runs red for the redemption of men.
Bound up with the Real Presence and transubstantiation are two
other mysteries, (i) the permanence of the accidents of bread and
wine after the change of substance, (2) the presence of Our Lord s
body in heaven and on so many altars at one and the same time. The
former mystery lies in this, that the accidents, that is to say, the
taste, color, shape, and all that appears to the senses, remain with

out a subject. We have nothing like this anywhere ;

no parallel to it ;

nothing that can help us to understand it. It is here that the miracle
of the Eucharist differs from the miracle wrought at the marriage
feast in Cana of Galilee. At Cana what at first was water became
wine, not only in substance but in accidents as well. To the sight

and smell and taste of the guests at the wedding feast the water
became wine. But on our altars, after the wondrous change has
been wrought, that which was wine, though in reality wine no

longer, seems such to the senses. And the senses do not deceive us ;

that which was bread has still all the appearances of bread, and

that which was wine all the appearances of wine. Our senses are

conversant with only the outward qualities of things ; they can tell us

nothing of the inner nature. The outward qualities, or accidents,

really remain, and our senses are true when they attest that such is
the case. Relying on this testimony of the senses, the intellect, in

the order of nature, would declare the substance of the bread and
wine to be there, too. But the intellect that has received into itself

the light of divine faith, discerns, as the apostle has it, the body of
the Lord.
In the things of faith, the things of the unseen world, we often go
 THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 67

straight against that which appears to the senses. Take the case of
the incarnation itself. God the Son, the Second Person of the

blessed Trinity,was born of the Virgin Mary. Yet outwardly He in

no wise differed from other men. If you went by what the senses
told you of Him you would set Him down as a mere man. To the

Jews, who went by what sensibly appeared, He was a man merely.

And when He declared He was God, they would have stoned Him
to death as a blasphemer. On the other hand, when Simon Peter
confessed Him to be Christ, the Son of the living God, he went by

faith, not by sense. And Our Lord declared him to be blessed, be

cause he had received from the Father in heaven the faculty of

seeing things other than they seem to the senses. Now, just as
Peter saw one thing and believed another; saw One before him who
was found in fashion as a man, but believed Him to be God; so
we, who have the same gift of faith, see, in this divine mystery, and
taste what seems to be bread, but what we believe to be and is truly
the body of Christ.

The other mystery is the presence of our blessed Lord in heaven

and on our altars at one and the same time. This mystery we simply
believe, as we do somany other mysteries, without trying to account
for or explain it. One thing, however, we must bear in mind. Our
Lord s presence in the Eucharist, though no whit the less real, is

altogether different from His presence in heaven. He is in heaven

as He was while He yet dwelt among men in this mortal life, only
that His body is glorified. But in the Eucharist it is present after a
spiritual manner, after the manner that the soul is in the body, whole
and entire in each part of it, or as God is in the universe, wholly pres
ent in every part of it. A
body has spiritual properties, and
glorified
we know that Our Lord, after His Resurrection, entered the room
where the disciples were gathered, while the doors were shut. The
68 THE SACRAMENTS.

body of Our Lord is present in the

Eucharist, not as a body, not as an
extended thing, but as a substance, for the substance of the bread is

changed into the substance of Our Lord s body and as the substance
;

of the bread is in every particle of the bread, the

body of Our Lord
is in every particle of the host, no matter how small. It is present in
the whole host when undivided, and in every part of the host when
divided; in something of the same way that a man s face is in a

mirror, and is still in every part of the mirror when this is broken in
pieces. But comparisons and illustrations are of little help. They
fall far too short of the great mystery of the Sacramental presence
of the Saviour on our altars, and we can but adore it in humble faith.
By words of consecration the body of Our Lord
virtue of the

is present under the form of bread and the blood under the
form of wine. But since the body has life in it, for having once
risen from the dead Our Lord now dieth no more, where the body
is there in like manner is the soul and the divinity. For this reason
the Church is enabled to administer the Sacrament of the Eucharist
under one kind. He who receives the Sacrament under the form of
bread alone receives a perfect Sacrament, since Christ whole and en
tire is present under the form of bread. It is to a perfect sacrifice, not

to a perfect Sacrament, that the two elements in the Eucharist are

essential.

The form of this Sacrament are the words of Our Lord. The
matter is wheaten bread and wine from the grape. The minister is a
validly ordained priest. The subject is a validly baptized person.
But not every one who is capable of receiving the Eucharist can
lawfully receive it. The person who is in mortal sin can receive it

neither lawfully nor fruitfully ;

and
not to be given to children,
it is

according to the present discipline of the Church, till they reach the
years of discretion. Nor is it to be given to insane persons, or people
 THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 69

bereft of their senses. But a child in danger of death, who knows

enough to distinguish the Eucharist from other food, should receive
it as viaticum and any insane person who once had the use of rea
;

son and led a Christian life, may receive the viaticum at the hour of

death, so there be no danger of irreverence.

The Church enjoins upon the faithful to receive Holy Communion
at least once a year, as well as toward the end of
by way of life

viaticum. This twofold obligation imposed by the Church is

founded upon the divine precept expressed in the words of Our
Lord, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His
blood you shall not have life in you." We are not to understand
that the Church deems it quite enough to receive Holy Communion
once a year. The words of the Lateran Council are, "at least once a

year."
The Church says to her children, "I bid you perform your
Easter duty on pain of being liable to be cut off from me as lifeless

and withered members, on pain of spiritual death, of spiritual starva

tion." Now if a man is to live the life of grace and grow spiritually
it is, of course, not enough just to stave off starvation. The Church
would wish to see her children often, even daily, at the altar where
the bread of life is dispensed. At the same time she does not lay
this upon their consciences, being a wise mother, wise with the wis

dom that is She knows that growth is not a thing that

from above.
can be got by forcing, and that this is as true in the spiritual as it is
in the physical world. She realizes indeed that one who is stub
bornly bent on keeping from food altogether must be made to take
food lest he starve. But she recognizes that such action is not to be
resorted to save in this extreme case, and that only one who eats it is

with a will and has a relish for his food that can get any real benefit
from it. She wishes us to create a relish for the food of our souls
by the exercise of the virtues that become a Christian, by honesty,
70 THE SACRAMENTS.

truthfulness, sobriety, chastity; to foster a spiritual taste by habits

of self-denial ; that we may hunger after this divine food, and so be
found in the number of those whom Our Lord declares blessed, be

cause, having a hunger after righteousness, they shall be rilled.

A word in conclusion on the symbolism of this Sacrament. Most

aptly does bread symbolize the effects of it. Hence Our Lord, in the

sixth chapter of St. John, speaks of it in terms of this symbol only.

Bread is the staff of life. It nourishes, fosters growth, imparts

strength, sates the hungry. A fourfold corresponding effect in the

spiritual order is produced by the Eucharist, which is the bread

of life.

And first, the Eucharist nourishes the life of the soul. "He who
eats Me," says Our Lord, "the same shall live by Me."
again And :

"Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye
shall not have Nothing could be clearer. But it is only
life in you."

the living who eat bread and are nourished by it. Therefore the
man who is dead in mortal sin is not fit to eat the bread of life.
Instead of getting life from it, he does but find fresh cause of death,
and cripple his chance of ever coming to life again.

The Eucharist fosters the growth of the spiritual life. In the

natural order, man s growth is confined to the period between birth
and adult age. Again, in the natural order, man attains a certain
stature, which he may not overpass. Spiritual growth, on the other
hand, is not limited to a fixed period of time, but extends over the
whole of this mortal life. Neither is it confined within fixed bounds,
for there are no bounds to the possible, and we are bidden to be
perfect even as Our Father in heaven is perfect. We shall "reach the
measure of the years of the fulness of Christ" only by feeding on
the food that Christ has given us. Alas that so many souls should !

be stunted in growth and starved, while this divine banquet is daily

 THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 7 1

spread out before them. For too many Christians the spring time of
spiritual growth comes only when the hair is gray and the body bent
with years.
The Eucharist gives strength to the soul. We are laborers in

Christ s vineyard; and we are soldiers of Christ. But who can

work without bread ? Or what soldier can stand day after day in the
fighting line if he be without his rations? The man that is famished,
starved, is fit for nothing. We can not do Christ s work in the

world, or fight His battles, unless we get strength from the bread of
the strong. The prophet went a day s journey into the wilderness,
and was faint, and lay and slept under a juniper tree. But when he
arose, and ate of the bread that was baked in the ashes, he went in
the strength of it forty days and as many nights to Horeb the mount
of God. So we faint ones are fed by Christ in the wilderness of this

world. Even as He multiplied the five loaves in the desert, and with
them fed the five thousand, so he multiplies without limit the bread
of life, and with it feeds the multitudes who else" must perish of
hunger, far from home.
Lastly, the Eucharist sates the hunger of the soul. Who has not
at some time or other felt the pangs of bodily hunger ? And even if

such a one there be, yet is there no one but has known the hunger
after happiness, the hunger of the heart. Men seek to satisfy this

hunger with what are called the good things of this world. They
are even fain to feed on the husks of swine, like the prodigal of old.
But if they would keep from starving, they needs must return to the
Father s house to receive the bread of life. God alone can satisfy
the hunger of the heart. But the heart that God feeds must fast
from earthly food, even as one must fast from bodily food to feed
on the bread of life. the heart were all expended here," says one
"If

who was fed of God, "nothing of it would be left for heaven, and I
72
THE SACRAMENTS.

wish to take that which loves with me into the other world." Let us
not waste on creatures what was made for the Creator. Let us
learn to fast from earthly food that we may hunger for the divine
banquet in which Christ is received, the memory of His passion re

newed, in which the soul is filled with grace, and a pledge is given us
of future glory.

VII. THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS.

"We have an altar whereof they have no power to eat who serve the taber
nacle." Heb. xiii. 10.

SYNOPSIS. I. Altar, priest and sacrifice go together. Sacrifice the highest

form of worship; offered to God alone; where sacrifice is abolished prayer
deemed highest form of worship.
II. The Eucharist a Sacrament and a sacrifice. Difference between
these two. Sacrifice defined. Four things found in it, victim, priest, im
molation, end for which offered.
III. Sacrifice found in every form of religion from the beginning of
the world. Offered in the outskirts of the earthly paradise, by Jewish
patriarch and priest; by the tribe of Levi from generation to generation.
IV. The sacrifices of the Old Law in themselves of little worth.
Shadows of the one perfect sacrifice to be offered in every place, from the
rising of the sun to its going down. The victim sinless "made sin" for
us. His sacrifice satisfies every requirement of strictest justice.
V. The one perfect sacrifice once offered one thousand nine hundred
years ago on the altar of the cross. None other offered since; that is to
say, none other than the one then offered. Identity of the Mass with the
sacrifice of the cross. The latter no mere event that is done and overt
but, being the work of the Eternal, a standing fact for all time.
VI. Proofs of the Eucharistic sacrifice from St. Paul, from the words
of its divine institution, from its type in the Old Testament, from the
prophet Malachy. The Jewish Pasch and the Christian Pasch type and
antitype.
VII. Conclusion. Obligation of assisting at this divine sacrifice on
Sundays and holy days of obligation. No good work can supply the
place of the Mass. How great store we should set on the treasure of
this holy sacrifice.

Altar, priest, sacrifice, these three go together. There is no altar

but for the offering of sacrifice, no lawful sacrifice without a priest

called of God as Aaron was. Hence, where sacrifice is abolished,

 THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS. 73

the priesthood is done away with, altars are pulled down, and prayer
becomes the highest form of religious worship. And because the
highest form of worship can be offered to God alone, where sacrifice
is no longer offered, no voice is raised in prayer to the saints that

reign with Christ. The human mind is logical even when entangled
in the mazes of error; for error follows from the logical working
out of false principles, as truth does from the logical working out of
true ones. Is prayer, then, the highest form of Christian worship?
Is the Christian religion without a sacrifice? Let the words of the
text supply the answer: "We have an altar, whereof they have no
power to eat who serve the tabernacle." Christians have an altar,
as theJews had theirs ;
therefore Christians have a sacrifice, as the

Jews had theirs. This sacrifice is the Holy Mass.

The blessed Eucharist is at once a Sacrament and a sacrifice

the one great sacrifice of the New Law, As a Sacrament, it is in

one sense an abiding thing, a presence on our altars that is with

us always as a sacrifice, it is an action, transient in its nature, begun
;

and ended all in half an hour. As a Sacrament, it is given to men ;

as a sacrifice, it is offered to God. As a Sacrament, it is the manna

of the soul, the staff of the spiritual life; as a sacrifice it presents

again the price of our redemption, the blood of the Lamb that was
slain from the foundation of the world, a propitiation for the sins

of the whole world.

By sacrifice, in its widest sense, is meant any good work done to

honor God and unite us with Him in holy fellowship. In this sense

prayer is a sacrifice, and so is sorrow for sin, of which the Psalmist

says, "A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit."

But in the strict and
proper sense, sacrifice means the offering to God and immolation of
some sensible thing in token of His sovereign dominion over all
creatures, and of our subjection to Him. That which is offered
74 THE SACRAMENTS.

must be something sensible, for sacrifice an outward sign or token

is

of the worship that is in the heart, and every such sign of inner

thought or feeling is, from the nature of the case, perceptible by the
senses. God, from the cradle of the race, bade men offer things that
are sensible, as when Cain offered the first fruits of the earth and
Abel the firstlings of the flock. But that which is offered must be
immolated, else it will be only a gift, and no true sacrifice. "For

every high priest," says St. Paul, "is ordained to offer" not only

"gifts"
but "sacrifices" as well (Heb. viii. 3). Immolation is the
real sacrificial action, the distinctive note of sacrifice. Hence, in the

olden time, the thing offered in sacrifice had always to be destroyed,

if a solid substance, by
breaking it up or burning it, if a liquid, by
pouring it out on the ground, if an animal, by shedding its blood.
And to God alone can a victim be immolated. "I am the Lord thy
God, thou shalt not have strange gods before me." The great end
of sacrifice is the worship of God, but it is offered also to satisfy the

justice of God for our sins, to obtain favors from Him, and to re

turn Him thanks. Corresponding to these four ends, there were

in the Old Law four kinds of sacrifice, holocausts, or whole burnt

offerings, sin offerings, peace offerings, and thanks offerings. A

sacrifice is an act of divine worship, and as we must worship God,
not after our own caprice, but in the way He has appointed, no one
can take upon him to offer sacrifice unless he be called of God as
was Aaron. Under the law of nature, from Adam to Moses, the
priests were the first born, and also the heads of families ;
under the
Mosaic Law, the sons and descendants of Aaron, of the tribe of
Levi; under the New Law, the one high priest is Christ, and men
are His ministers, sharing His priesthood forever after the order of
Melchisedech.
In all lands, among all peoples, in all forms of religion, Jewish or
 THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS. 75

Pagan, from the beginning of the world down to the coming of

Christ, there was sacrifice. The pagan Plutarch
you testifies that if

were to go round the world you might find cities without walls, or
literature, or wealth; but a city in which sacrifice is not offered to

obtain blessings and avert evil no one, he says, ever saw. The im
pulse to offer sacrifice seems to be implanted in the nature of man,
at least since the fall. He feels his own weakness, he is conscious
of his own sinfulness, and a natural instinct prompts him to seek
help and make atonement for by immolating a victim to some
sin

higher power. The pagans, who knew not the one true God, offered
sacrifice to idols the Jews, of old God s chosen people, offered sacri
;

fice to Jehovah, the maker of heaven and earth, almighty and eternal.
From the very cradle of the race, as I have said, there was sacri

fice. It was offered in the outskirts, as it were, of the earthly para

dise, while the pair whose sin and fall made sacrifice a necessity

were yet in the flesh. When Noah stepped out of the ark, after the
waters of the flood had receded, his first act was to erect an altar

and offer a victim to the Most High. So did the patriarchs, by

God s own order; so did Moses in the land of Egypt, when the

paschal lamb was slain and its blood sprinkled for the deliverance
of his people ;
so did Aaron, the high priest of God, and the men of
the tribe of Levi, from generation unto generation, God Himself
having set them apart and ordained them for this special purpose.
But the sacrifices of the Old Law, in themselves, were of little
worth. Not by the blood of goats and oxen could the sins of the
world be blotted out. The sacrifices of the olden time were but
symbols ;
they did but shadow forth the one great and perfect sacri
fice of the New Law. "Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but
a body thou hast fitted to me. Holocausts for sin did not please thee.
Then said I, Lo ! I come ;
in the head of the book it is written of me
?6 THE SACRAMENTS.

that I should do thy will, O God." The words are spoken in the

person of our high priest, the Son of God, who came into the world,
and was born of a virgin, and thus became also the Son of Man, true

God and true man in one person. "Sacrifice and oblation thou
wouldst not." God had no pleasure in the sacrifices offered by sinful

men, save in so far as they adumbrated the sacrifice of the Sinless

One. But He that was sinless was "made sin" for us. By a miracle
of His wisdom and power He took upon Himself, without sin, our
sinful nature, and by a further miracle of His goodness and mercy
"blotted out the handwriting of the decree that was against us,
. . .
fastening it to the cross." And the atonement He made for

sin, the redemption He wrought with His blood, while, on the one

hand, a gratuitous act of pure clemency, satisfied, on the other hand,

every requirement of the strictest justice. How, it has been asked,
is it just that the innocent should suffer for the guilty? The inno
cent, the Sinless One, suffered, not as sinless, but as having been
"made sin" for us. "A
body thou hast fitted to me." When the Son
of God took upon Himself our nature, when He "was made of a
woman," and born of a woman, He became, not man merely, but the
Son of Man, yea, of the man who had sinned. "Let us make MAN
in own image and likeness," it was said from the beginning. In
our

creating Adam, God made, not a man, but Man, that is, the whole
human race. The Son of God, therefore, in becoming the Son of
Man, became a member of the human family, and, on the principle
of race solidarity, became answerable for the sins of His fellow men.
Had He become man otherwise than by being "made of a woman"
and born of a woman, He would not have been of the race of Adam,
the fallen race, for the race is propagated by birth. In that case, He
would not have been "made for us, nor would the shedding of
sin"

His blood have been an atonement for sin, since justice requires that
 THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS. 77

satisfaction be made, if not by the person, at least in the nature, that

has sinned. "The
prince of this world Our Lord, cometh," said "and

in me he hath not anything." Neither had he, for Our Lord was

personally sinless. But He was racially guilty, for God the Father
saw in Him the representative of the family of man, made in the
image and likeness of a race of sinners, and therefore delivered
over to die, between two of these sinners, upon a cross. "And bear

ing his own cross, he went forth to that place which is called Cal

vary, but in Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucify him between two
others, one on each side and Jesus in the midst." The two others

were sinners, "malefactors" St. Luke calls them, but what was their
guilt in God s eyes compared with that of the One who, though sin

had yet been "made

less, sin" for us !

Thus was offered, on the hill of Calvary, for the first time in the

history of the world, a victim worthy of the Most High God, even
His only-begotten Son. But that was well-nigh nineteen hundred
years ago, and has there been no sacrifice since then? Certainly
none other than the one then offered on the altar of the Cross. That
was a finished sacrifice, yet in the sense that every work of the
eternal is finished finished, but abiding still. It is written that God
rested on the seventh day from all the works that He made. Yet
Our Lord could say, "The Father worketh still, and I work." The
work of creation, and of the institution of things, was finished on
the seventh day, but the work of conservation, of the maintenance of
things in their primeval constitution, still goes on. Nor is conser
vation a new work, but the original creative work prolonged for
ever. God spoke and things came into being, not to pass away, but
to endure, and to endure by virtue of the word spoken from the be
ginning. And the same word, now "made flesh," spoke at the Last
Supper, instituting the sacrifice of the New Law in His own body
78 THE SACRAMENTS.

and blood, spoke on the Cross, consummating the sacrifice of His own
body and blood, and the self-same sacrifice still endures by virtue of
the selfsame word. "Such a sacrifice," says Cardinal Newman,
"was not to be forgotten. It was not to be it could not be a mere
event in the world s history, which was to be done and over, and
was to pass away except in its obscure, unrecognized effects. If that

great deed was what we believe it to be, what we know it is, it must
remain present though past ;
it must be a standing fact for all times."

Such is this work of the eternal, like Himself, ever ancient and ever
new, past yet always present, done and over yet always being done
anew, over and over again. "As often as this commemorative sac
rifice is celebrated, the work of our redemption is carried on," and
will be carried on till that work is done till the last man has been
redeemed. For "the death of the Lord" is to be "shown forth,
until He come."

"The chalice of benediction which we bless, is it not the com

munion of and the bread which we break, is it
the blood of Christ?

not the participation of the body of Christ?" These words of St.

Paul are but an echo of the words of Christ: "This is my body;
this is my blood of the New Testament. Do this for a commemora
tion of me." What this? This that He did, giving His own body
and blood under the forms of bread and wine. Here was a rite
and ceremonial, like the rite and ceremonial of the Jewish Pasch, the
ceremonial being a breaking and blessing of bread, a blessing and

pouring out of wine, the rite a consecration of these elements into

the body that was broken and the blood that was shed on the Cross.
The bloody sacrifice was offered once, and once for all, without rite

or ceremonial. It was offered by the high priest alone, while the

men whom He made sharers of His priesthood were scattered as

sheep before the wolf. But never was sacrifice offered by a congre-
 THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS. 79

gation, or body of worshippers, without fitting rite and ceremonial.

Therefore did Christ, with fitting rite and ceremonial, institute, for
Christian worshippers, the unbloody sacrifice, which is unbloody, not
that it is without real blood, but that the blood is not really shed.
And because the blood that is offered is the selfsame blood that
was once really shed, the unbloody sacrifice, with its rite and cere
monial, is the selfsame as the bloody sacrifice. Christ, our high

priest, trod the winepress alone. But the price, His blood of the
New Testament, is a sacrifice to God, a Sacrament and gift to men ;

as a sacrifice, pleading the merits of His Passion, speaking better

than the blood of Abel ;
as a Sacrament, "cleansing the conscience
from dead works to serve the living God."

We read in Genesis that Melchisedech, king of Salem, and priest

of the Most High, offered sacrifice in bread and wine. To this Mel
chisedech, Abraham, though priest himself and patriarch of God s

chosen people, offered tithes of all he possessed, thus doing him

homage as his superior in priestly rank. Now Melchisedech was a

figure of Christ, who is priest forever according to the order of
"a

Melchisedech." Therefore Christ has offered sacrifice after the

manner of Melchisedech. And because He is "a
priest forever," He
still does so, in the holy Mass where He is both High Priest and
Victim. This precisely is what was foretold by the prophet Mai-
achy a time when the bloody sacrifices of the Jews should cease,
and in every place, from the rising of the sun to its going down,

there should be offered to the Most High a clean oblation, and this,
too, among the Gentiles, "for
great is my name among the Gentiles,
saith the Lord of hosts." We have, then, an altar whereof they
can not partake who serve the tabernacle, and whereof they will
not partake who, having eyes see not, and having ears hear not, the

things that make for their peace.

8o THE SACRAMENTS.

"For Christ our Pasch is sacrificed." The Christian Pasch fol

lowed the Jewish Pasch, and fulfills it. The relation of antitype and

type between the two is as striking as it is significant. In the former

a lamb was slain and offered; in the latter is slain and offered the
Lamb that taketh away The former wrought
the sins of the world.

redemption of the first born from temporal death, and deliverance

of God people from bondage to tyrant; the latter works redemp
s

tion of the new born from eternal death, and deliverance of God s

people, both Jew and Gentile, from a far worse bondage, in so much
as Satan is a far more heartless tyrant and harder taskmaster than
was Pharaoh. The Jew ate the flesh of the lamb with unleavened
bread; the Christian eats the flesh of the Lamb under the form of
unleavened bread. "I am the living bread that came down from
heaven." "And the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of

the world." The

Jewish Passover wrought deliverance from
first

bondage; the second passover served but to commemorate the first,

and to shadow forth that which was to come. So the first Christian
Passover, at the Last Supper and on Calvary, wrought our deliv
erance; the second, on the altars of our churches, serves to com
memorate the first and to apply its merits for in the New Law is

no shadow, but the reality. And just as every subsequent Passover

of the Jews, though commemorative and typical, was a true sacrifice,

so every subsequent Christian Passover, though commemorative

is

and symbolic, a true sacrifice, yea, the one true sacrifice of the New
Law. But while in each subsequent Jewish Passover a different
lamb was slain, and the sacrifice therefore was numerically different
from the preceding, in each subsequent Christian Passover the same
Lamb is offered and partaken of which was slain once for all on
Calvary. The sacrifice is therefore numerically the same as that
which was offered at the Last Supper and on the Cross. No explana-
 THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS. 81

tion need be given, no explanation can be given, why the Mass is a

sacrifice, other than this full and ample one, that it is not a new
sacrifice at all, but in all that appertains to the constitution of sacri

fice, in its inner essence, in every essential respect, the same sacrifice
as that of the Cross ;
that it is in reality the sacrifice of the Cross, in a

mystery and by a miracle of Christ s power, prolonged forever.

Every altar is a Calvary, where the same Victim is ever offered by
the same High Priest, under the veil of the things that appear to
sense.

The Church commands us, on pain of mortal sin, to assist at the

holy sacrifice of the mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation.

Sunday is the Lord s day. The other six days of the week He has
made over to us the first He reserves as His own. And the way He
;

would have us sanctify it, the duty He lays upon us, is to hear Mass.
We are earnestly exhorted to sanctify the Sunday in other ways, to
give more time to prayer and meditation, to read good books, to at
tend the vesper service, to assist at benediction, to visit the sick, to
comfort the sorrowful; all these things we are exhorted to do, but
we are commanded to hear Mass, and this, as I have said, on pain
of mortal sin. The other works are good, are excellent, each in its

way, but none of them can supply the place of this one, or make up
for default in this. Of course there is such a thing as being excused
from hearing Mass on Sunday. We are not called upon to put forth
an heroic effort to satisfy this obligation; but we are called upon
to make an honest effort we are called upon to make some exertion
;

and put ourselves to some inconvenience. As for those who live

under the shadow of the church, or even within sound of the church
bell, there can hardly be any excuse for missing Mass on Sunday
save sickness or the like.

And oh, if we did but realize, as did the Christians of the olden
89 THE SACRAMENTS.

time, as the saints of God have done in every age, what a treasure
we have in the holy Mass, we surely should set greater store by it,

and put forth greater effort to assist at it more frequently and more
devoutly. If we had faith even as a grain of mustard seed, we should
surmount every obstacle and even move a seeming mountain of
difficulty in order to be present at this august sacrifice. For faith
assures us that here the mystery of our redemption is indeed re
newed; the same body that was pierced for us on Calvary is mys
tically broken for us on the altar the same blood that flowed from
;

the wounds in those blessed hands and feet, and trickled from the
spear wound in the heart, is once more poured out for us, and cries
to heaven with a better pleading than that of Abel. It is good to

pray at home, it is good to give alms, it is good to visit the sick, it

is good to comfort the sorrowful ; but it is better than any of these,

better than all of these together, to assist humbly and devoutly at

the holy Mass. Through this adorable sacrifice, as the Fathers of

Trent tell us, God being appeased, grants grace and the gift of re
pentance, and pardons sins and crimes even the most enormous. Oh,
if we did but know God, as the angels know it who
this great gift of

come down from heaven in troops whenever it is offered, we should

think nothing of coming miles and miles to be present at holy Mass.
We should even be found daily assisting at it, like the sainted
Monica, who "never for a day absented herself from the altar
whence she knew that Victim to be dispensed, by which the hand

writing that was against us is blotted out."*

^Confessions of St. Augustine, bk. IX. c. 13.

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MacDonald, Alexander,

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