THESE ARE THE SACRAMENTS


as described by Fulton J. SHEEN

as photographed by Yousuf KARSH


Copyright 1962 by Hawthorn Books, Inc., 70 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY. 


The Scripture translations throughout are from The Holy Bible, 
translated by Ronald Knox, copyright 1944, 1948, 1950 by Sheed and 
Ward, Inc., New York.


Nihil Obstat: William F. Hogan, S.T.D., Censor Librorum

Imprimatur: James A. Hughes, J.C.D., LL.D., P.A., Vicar General, 
Archdiocese of Newark

October 22, 1962



CONTENTS

The Sacraments

I.      The Sacrament of Baptism

II.     The Sacrament of Confirmation

III.    The Sacrament of the Eucharist

IV.     The Sacrament of Penance

V.      The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick

VI.     The Sacrament of Holy Orders

VII.    The Sacrament of Matrimony



THE SACRAMENTS


A Divine Sense of Humor

No one can ever understand the sacraments unless he has what might be 
called a "divine sense of humor." A person is said to have a sense of 
humor if he can "see through" things; one lacks a sense of humor if he 
cannot "see through" things. No one has ever laughed at a pun who did 
not see in the one word a twofold meaning. To materialists this world 
is opaque like a curtain; nothing can be seen through it. A mountain is 
just a mountain, a sunset just a sunset; but to poets, artists, and 
saints, the world is transparent like a window pane--it tells of 
something beyond; for example, a mountain tells of the Power of God, 
the sunset of His Beauty, and the snowflake of His Purity.

When the Lord Incarnate walked this earth, He brought to it what might 
be called a "divine sense of humor." There is only one thing that He 
took seriously, and that was the soul. He said: "What exchange shall a 
man give for his soul?" Everything else was a tell-tale of something 
else. Sheep and goats, wine bottles and patches on clothing, camels and 
eyes of needles, the lightning flash and the red of the sunset sky, the 
fisherman's nets and Caesar's coin, chalices and rich men's gates--all 
of these were turned into parables and made to tell the story of the 
Kingdom of God.

Our Lord had a divine sense of humor, because He revealed that the 
universe was sacramental. A sacrament, in a very broad sense of the 
term, combines two elements: one visible, the other invisible--one that 
can be seen, or tasted, or touched, or heard; the other unseen to the 
eyes of the flesh. There is, however, some kind of relation or 
significance between the two. A spoken word is a kind of sacrament, 
because there is something material or audible about it; there is also 
something spiritual about it, namely, its meaning. A horse can hear a 
funny story just as well as a man. It is conceivable that the horse may 
hear the words better than the man and at the end of the story the man 
may laugh, but the horse will never give a horse laugh. The reason is 
that the horse gets only the material side of the "sacrament," namely, 
the sound; but the man gets the invisible or the spiritual side, 
namely, the meaning.

A handshake is a kind of sacrament, because there is something seen and 
felt, namely, the clasping of hands; but there is something mysterious 
and unseen, namely, the communication of friendship. A kiss is a kind 
of sacrament: the physical side of it is present if one kisses one's 
own hand, but the spiritual side of it is missing because there is no 
sign of affection for another. One of the reasons why a stolen kiss is 
often resented is that it is not sacramental; it has the carnal side 
without a spiritual side; that is, the willingness to exchange a mark 
of esteem or affection.

This book on the sacraments is written because men live in a world that 
has become entirely too serious. Gold is gold, nuclear warfare is 
nuclear warfare, dust is dust, money is money. No significance or 
meaning is seen in the things that make a sound to the ear, or a sight 
to the eye. In a world without a divine sense of humor, architecture 
loses decoration and people lose courtesy in their relationships with 
one another.

When civilization was permeated with a happier philosophy, when things 
were seen as signs of outward expression of the unseen, architecture 
was enhanced with a thousand decorations: a pelican feeding her young 
from her own veins symbolized the sacrifice of Christ; the gargoyle 
peering from behind a pillar in a cathedral reminded us that 
temptations are to be found even in the most holy places. Our Lord, on 
the occasion of His planned entrance into Jerusalem, said that if men 
withheld their praise of Him, "the very stones would cry out," which 
they did as, later, they burst into Gothic Cathedrals.

Now the stones are silent, for modern man no longer believes in another 
world; they have no story to tell, no meaning to convey, no truth to 
illustrate. When faith in the spiritual is lost, architecture has 
nothing to symbolize; similarly when men lose the conviction of the 
immortal soul, there is a decline in the respect for the human. Man 
without a soul is a thing; something to be used, not something to be 
reverenced. He becomes "functional" like a building, or a monkey 
wrench, or a wheel. The courtesies, the amenities, the urbanities, the 
gentility that one mortal ought to have for another are neglected once 
man is no longer seen as bearing within himself the Divine Image. 
Courtesy is not a condescension of a superior to an inferior, or a 
patronizing interest in another's affairs; it is the homage of the 
heart to the sacredness of human worth. Courtesy is born of holiness, 
as ornamentation is born of the sense of the holy. Let us see if 
ornamentation returns to architecture, if courtesy also returns to 
human manners; for by one and the same stroke, men will have lost their 
dull seriousness, and will begin to live in a sacramental universe with 
a divine sense of humor.

Life is a vertical dimension expressed in the soaring spire, or in the 
leaping fountain, both of which suggest that earth, history, and nature 
must be left behind to seek union with the Eternal. Opposite to this is 
an error which substitutes the horizontal for the vertical, the 
prostrate form of death for the upright stature of life. It is the 
disease of secularity and of naturalism. It insists on the ultimacy of 
the seen and the temporal, and the meaninglessness of the spiritual and 
the invisible.

Two errors can mar our understanding of the natural world: one is to 
cut off entirely from Almighty God; the other is to confound it 
substantially with Him. In the first instance, we have the clock 
without the clock maker, the painting without the artist, the verse 
without the poet. In the second instance, we have the forger and the 
forged rolled into one, the melting and the fusing of the murderer and 
the victim, the boiling of the cook and his dinner. Atheism cuts off 
creation from its Creator; pantheism identifies nature with God. The 
true notion is that the material universe is a sign or an indication of 
what God is. We look at the purity of the snowflake and we see 
something of the goodness of God. The world is full of poetry: it is 
sin which turns it into prose.


The Bible Is A Sacramental

Coming closer to the meaning of sacrament, the Bible is a sacramental 
in the sense that it has a foreground and a background. In the 
foreground are the actors, the cult, the temple, the wars, the 
sufferings, and the glories of men. In the background, however, is the 
all-pervading presence of God as the Chief Actor, Who subjects nations 
to judgment according to their obedience or disobedience to the moral 
law, and Who uses incidents or historical facts as types, or symbols, 
of something else that will happen. For example, take the brazen 
serpent in the desert. When the Jewish people were bitten by poisonous 
serpents, God commanded Moses to make a brazen serpent, and to hang it 
over the crotch of a tree; all who would look upon that serpent of 
brass would be healed of the serpent's sting. This apparently was a 
rather ridiculous remedy for poison and not everyone looked on it. If 
one could divine or guess their reason, it would probably be because 
they concentrated on only one side of the symbol; namely, the lifeless, 
shiny, brass thing hanging on a tree. But it proved to be a symbol of 
faith: God used that material thing as a symbol of trust or faith in 
Him.

The symbolism goes still further. The Old Testament is fulfilled in 
Christ, Who reveals the full mystery of the brazen serpent. Our Lord 
told Nicodemus that the brass serpent was lifted up in the desert, so 
that He would have to be lifted up on a Cross. The meaning now became 
clear: the brass serpent in the desert looked like the serpent that bit 
the people; but though it seemed to be the same, it was actually 
without any poison. Our Blessed Lord now says that He is like that 
brazen serpent. He, too, would be lifted up on the crotch of a tree, a 
Cross. He would look as if He Himself was filled with the poison of 
sin, for His Body would bear the marks, and the stings, and the 
piercing of sin; and yet as the brass serpent was without poison so He 
would be without sin. As those who looked upon that brass serpent in 
the desert in faith were healed of the bite of the serpent, so all who 
would look upon Him on His Cross bearing the sins and poisons of the 
world would also be healed of the poison of the serpent, Satan.

The word "sacrament" in Greek means "mystery," and Christ has been 
called by St. Paul "the mystery hidden from the ages." In Him is 
something divine, something human; something eternal, something 
temporal; something invisible, something visible. The mystery of 
Bethlehem was the Son of God taking upon Himself a human nature to 
unite human nature and divine nature in one Person. He Who, in the 
language of Scripture, could stop the turning about of the Arcturus, 
had the prophecy of His birthplace determined, however unconsciously, 
by a Caesar ordering an imperial census. He Who clothed the fields with 
grass, Himself was clothed with swaddling bands. He from Whose hands 
came planets and worlds had tiny arms that were not quite long enough 
to touch the huge heads of the cattle. He Who trod the everlasting 
hills was too weak to walk. The Eternal Word was dumb. The Bird that 
built the nest of the world was hatched therein.

The human nature of Our Blessed Lord had no power to sanctify of and by 
itself; that is to say, apart from its union with divinity. But because 
of that union, the humanity of Christ became the efficient cause of our 
justification and sanctification and will be until the end of the 
world. Herein is hidden a hint of the sacraments. The humanity of 
Christ was the bearer of divine life and the means of making men holy; 
the sacraments were also to become the effective signs of the 
sanctification purchased by His death. As Our Blessed Lord was the 
sensible sign of God, so the sacraments were to become the sensible 
signs of the grace which Our Lord had won for us.

If men were angels or pure spirits, there would have been no need of 
Christ using human natures or material things for the communication of 
the divine; but because man is composed of matter and spirit, body and 
soul, man functions best when he sees the material as the revealer of 
the spiritual. From the very beginning of man's life, his mother's 
fondling is not merely to leave an impress upon his infant body, but 
rather to communicate the sublimely beautiful and invisible love of the 
mother. It is not the material thing which a man values, but rather 
what is signified by the material thing. As Thomas a Kempis said, 
"regard not so much the gift of the lover as the love of the giver." We 
tear price tags from gifts so that there will be no material 
relationship existing between the love that gave the thing and the 
thing itself. If man had no soul or spiritual destiny, then communism 
would satisfy. If man were only a biological organism, then he would be 
content to eat and to sleep and to die like a cow.


What the Sacraments Bring to Man

The sacraments bring divine life or grace. Christ's reason for taking 
upon Himself a human nature was to pay for sin by death on the cross 
and to bring us a higher life: "I have come so that they may have life, 
and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). But, it may be said, that 
man already has life. Indeed he does; he has a biological, 
physiological life. He once had a higher divine life which he lost. 
Christ came to bring that life back to man. This higher life which is 
divine, distinct from the human, is called grace, because it is gratis 
or a free gift of God.

Two tadpoles at the bottom of a pond were one day discussing the prob-
lem of existence. One said to the other, "I think I will stick my head 
out to see if there is anything else in the world." The other tadpole 
said, "Don't be silly, do you think there is anything else in this 
world besides water?" So those who live the natural life ignore the 
beauty of the higher life of grace.

Man may live at three different levels: the sensate, the intellectual, 
and the divine. These may be likened to a three-story house. The 
sensate level, or the first floor, represents those who deny any other 
reality except the pleasures that come from the flesh. Their house is 
rather poorly furnished and is capable of giving intermittent thrills 
which quickly dry up. The occupant of this first floor is not 
interested in being told of higher levels of existence; in fact, he may 
even deny their existence.

On the second floor, there is the intellectual level of existence, that 
of the scientist, the historian, the journalist, the humanist; the man 
who has brought to a peak all of the powers of human reason and human 
will. This is a much more comfortable kind of existence, and far more 
satisfying to the human spirit. Those on the second floor may think 
their floor is "a closed universe," regarding as superstitious those 
who desire a higher form of life.

But there is actually a third floor which is the floor of grace by 
which the human heart is illumined by truths which reason cannot know; 
by which the will is strengthened by a power quite beyond all 
psychological aids, and the heart is entranced with the love which 
never fails; which gives a peace that cannot be found on the two lower 
levels.

There is light outside the window, but it is up to man to open the 
blinds. The opening of the blinds does not constitute light; it is 
rather the condition of its entrance. When God made us, He gave us 
ourselves. When He gives us grace, He gives us Himself. When He created 
us, He gave Himself to us in a way which makes us one with Him.

One often sees signs painted on roadways, "Jesus Saves." Now this in-
deed is true, but the important question is how does He save? What 
relation have we in the twentieth century to Christ in the first? Do we 
establish contact with Him only by reading about Him? If that be all, 
our relationship is not much closer than that which we can have with 
Plato. If Christ is only a memory of someone who lived centuries ago, 
then it is rather difficult to see that His influence will be any 
different than that of Socrates or Buddha.

The answer to the question of how Christ saves is to be found in the 
sacraments. The divine life of Christ is communicated through His 
Church or His Mystical Body in exactly the same way that His divine 
life was communicated when He walked on earth. As He then used His 
human nature as the instrument of divinity, and used material things as 
signs and symbols of the conferring of His pardon, so He now uses other 
human natures and material things as the instruments for the 
communication of that same divine life.

In the earthly life of Our Lord, we read that there were two kinds of 
contact. There was the visible contact with humanity by which His power 
was communicated to the palsied man and to the blind, both of whom He 
touched. But there was also the invisible contact, in which Our Blessed 
Lord showed His power by working miracles at a distance, such as the 
curing of the servant of the centurion of Nazareth. The second kind of 
contact is an anticipation of the way that Christ, Who is now in 
heaven, extends and communicates His power through the sacraments.


Seven Conditions of Life

The physical or the natural life requires seven conditions, five of 
which refer to the person as an individual, and the other two as a 
member of society. The five conditions of leading an individual life 
are: (1) In order to live, one must obviously be born; (2) He must 
nourish himself, for he who does not eat shall not live; (3) He must 
grow to maturity, throwing away the things of the child, and assume the 
responsibilities of adult life; (4) In case he is wounded, he must have 
his wounds bound and healed; and (5) In case he has disease (for a 
disease is very different from a wound), the traces of the disease must 
be driven out. As a member of society two further conditions are 
required: (1) He must live under government and justice in human 
relationships, and (2) He is called to propagate the human species.

Over and above this human life, there is the divine Christ-life. The 
seven conditions of leading a personal Christ-life are the following: 
(1) We must be spiritually born to it, and that is the Sacrament of 
Baptism; (2) We must nourish the divine life in the soul, which is the 
Eucharist; (3) We must grow to spiritual maturity and assume full 
responsibilities as members of the spiritual army of the Church, which 
is Confirmation; (4) We must heal the wounds of sin, which is Penance; 
(5) We must drive out the traces of the diseases of sin, which is the 
Anointing of the Sick; (6) We must live under the spiritual government 
of the Church, which is Holy Orders; (7) We must prolong and propagate 
the Kingdom of God on earth, which is Matrimony.

Every sacrament has an outward or visible sign; for example, in Baptism 
it is water, in the Eucharist it is bread and wine. But the sacrament 
also has a form or formula, or words of spiritual significance given to 
the matter when it is conferred. Three things then are absolutely 
required for a sacrament: (1) Its institution by Christ; (2) An outward 
sign; and (3) The power of conferring the grace or divine life 
purchased for us by the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ.


The Power and Efficacy of the Sacraments

The sacraments derive their power and efficacy from the Passion, Death, 
and Resurrection of Our Lord. Why was a blood sacrifice required to 
bring us the seven-fold sanctification? For several reasons: Life is in 
the blood, but so also is sin. The sins of the alcoholic, the 
libertine, and the pervert are often written on their faces; their 
excesses are recorded in every cell of their body and every drop of 
their blood. If, therefore, sin is to be done away with, there should 
be some shedding of blood, as if to symbolize the emptying of sin. It 
is often the death of soldiers that brings freedom to a nation; it is 
the giving of one's blood to another which heals him of anemia. The 
blood bank from which others may draw healing is hint of another blood 
bank from which souls may be healed of the ravages of sin.

Furthermore, blood is the best symbol of sacrifice, because blood is 
the life of man: when man gives up his blood, he gives up his life. 
Hence, St. Peter writes:


"What was the ransom that freed you from the vain observances of 
ancestral tradition? You know well enough that it was not paid in 
earthly currency, silver or gold; it was paid in the precious Blood of 
Christ; no lamb was ever so pure, so spotless a victim." (I Peter 1:18, 
19)


The blood of Christ had infinite value because He is a divine person. 
The life of a lamb is more precious than that of a fly, and the life of 
a man is more precious than the life of a beast, and the life of the 
God-Man is more precious than the life of any human being.

Our mind, our will and our conscience become completely sanctified 
through the application of the merits of Christ:


"Shall not the Blood of Christ, Who offered Himself, through the Holy 
Spirit, as a victim unblemished in God's sight, purify our consciences, 
and set them free from lifeless observances, to serve the Living God?" 
(Heb. 9:14)


The Application to the Sacraments

Calvary is like a reservoir of divine life or grace. From it, there 
flow seven different kinds of sanctification for man in different 
stages of his spiritual existence. Each of these seven channels is a 
sacrament by which the power of the Risen Christ is bestowed on souls 
by a spiritual and effective contact. This divine life pours into the 
soul when we receive the sacraments, unless we put an obstacle in the 
way, just as water will not flow out of a faucet if we put our hand in 
front of the faucet. But a faucet in a house has no power to quench 
thirst unless there is a reservoir and a pipeline. So the sacraments do 
not confer grace as magical signs; they communicate it only because 
they are in contact with the Risen Christ.

What makes the difference between the sacraments is how each is applied 
to us. The Christ-life affects us in a different way when we are born 
than when we are about to die; in a different way when we reach the age 
of responsibility than when we enter into marriage; in a different way 
when we wound ourselves than when we exercise government. The sunlight 
is the same whether it shines on mud to harden it or on wax to soften 
it. It shines on some flowers and makes them grow; it shines on a wound 
and heals it. So too, the blood of Christ applied at different moments 
of life results in a different kind of power.

A principle of philosophy states: "Whatever is received is received 
according to the mode of the one receiving it." If you pour water into 
a blue glass, it looks blue; if you pour it into a red glass, it looks 
red. If you pour water into the parched earth, it is quite different 
than water poured onto a carpet or into oil. So too, when the blood of 
Christ and its merits flood in upon the soul, it depends upon the one 
receiving it. Does the soul come for strengthening? For nourishment? 
For healing? For a long journey? For induction into the spiritual army? 
The effects will differ as to whether a person is spiritually dead or 
spiritually living If a member of the Church is spiritually dead, then 
it will revive him as does the Sacrament of Penance, or the Sacrament 
of Baptism.



I. THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM

The sunshine, the carbons, and the rain could never share the life of 
the plant unless they died to their lower existence and were assumed or 
taken up into plant life Plants could never share the sensitive and 
locomotive power of animals, unless they died to their lower existence 
and were taken up by the animal. None of the things in lower creation 
could live in man, and share his arts, his sciences, his thinking and 
his loves unless they ceased to be what they were, submitting to the 
death of knife and fire.

Now, since there is a life above the human, the Christ-life, man, or 
the old Adam, cannot share in it unless he dies to himself. But here 
there is no confiscation or violent appropriation as there is when the 
cow eats grass. Christ will not take us up to Himself unless we freely 
give ourselves to Him. This death to the life of sin, this sharing of 
the divine life, is Baptism.


Water: The Material Sign of Baptism

Water is used for cleansing from dust and dirt; therefore, it may be 
the symbol of a spiritual washing from original sin. But it can also 
symbolize both death and life. One can plunge into water and be 
submerged by it; then it is a symbol of death. After the plunge, one 
may rise from the water; then it is a token of resurrection. A descent 
into water has always been a description of penetration into deep and 
mysterious fecundities; the Greeks believed that the whole living 
universe came from water.

From another point of view, water is an excellent symbol of Baptism, 
because it is an open sign of separation. Water very often is the 
natural boundary between city and city, state and state, nation and 
nation, continent and continent, tribe and tribe. Those who live on one 
side of water are "separated" from those who live on the other. In the 
early days, before rapid communication, it was a dramatic experience to 
pass from one territory to another. This symbolism, therefore, was well 
fitted for the Divine Master to indicate the separation of the 
Christian from the world, as the water which was divided in the Red 
Sea, was a symbol of the separation of Israel from the slavery of 
Egypt.

Once the Jews had crossed the Red Sea, another symbol was used to 
"separate" them as the people of God, and that was circumcision. Not 
only was it a token of their covenant or testament with God, but it was 
required of all Israelites who partook of the Passover. In the New 
Testament, the same order is followed. Baptism, or incorporation into 
the Church, is the condition of reception of the New Passover, the 
Eucharist.

As ranchers brand their cattle, as ancient Romans branded their slaves, 
so God branded His own, both in the Old Testament and in the New; with 
circumcision of the flesh in the Old and circumcision of the spirit, or 
Baptism, in the New.

It may be objected, what good does a little water do when poured upon 
the head of a child? One might just as well ask what does a little 
water do when poured into the boiler. The water in the boiler can do 
nothing of and by itself, nor can the water on the head of a child. But 
when the water in the boiler is united to the mind of an engineer, it 
can drive an engine across a continent or a ship across the sea. So 
too, when water is united to the power of God, it can do more than 
change a crystal into life. It can take a creature and convert him into 
a child of God.

Naaman in the Old Testament was something like those today who think of 
the power of Baptism coming from water rather than from the Passion of 
Christ. Naaman was the general of the king of Syria. A maid who came 
from Samaria said that she wished that he had known the great prophet 
of Israel, for he could have cured him. The king then bade Naaman to go 
to Israel where he met the prophet, Eliseus. Eliseus said to him: "Go 
and wash seven times in the Jordan, and thy flesh shalt recover health 
and thou shalt be clean." Naaman was insulted because he was told to go 
to that insignificant river Jordan to bathe:


"'Why', he said angrily, 'I thought he would come out to meet me, and 
stand here invoking the name of his God; that he would touch the sore 
with his hand and cure me. Has not Damascus its rivers, Abana and 
Pharphar, such water as is not found in Israel?'" (IV Kings 5:11, 12)


His servants, however, bade him go wash and be made clean, and he went 
down and washed seven times according to the word of the man of God, 
and his flesh was restored and was made like the flesh of a little 
child when he was made clean. Then he confessed that it was done by the 
power of God: "I have learned, he said, past doubt, that there is no 
God to be found in all the world, save here in Israel" (IV Kings 5:15).


Baptism and the Life of Christ

Under the Old Law people believed in, or yearned for, a Messias who was 
to come. Abraham believed and his faith was accounted to him as 
justice, and he received circumcision as a sign of faith.

What was the faith, therefore, that justified Abraham, who was the 
father of the Jews? It was the faith in the Messias, or the Christ Who 
was to come. There is no salutary faith except in Christ. The Jews 
believed in the Christ Who was to come; we believe in Christ Who has 
come. The times have changed, but the reality of faith has not changed. 
There is only one faith. The faith that saves all men, making them pass 
from carnal generation to spiritual birth.

The reason Our Lord was baptized was because it was part of the whole 
process of emptying, of humiliation, of the Incarnation. How could He 
be poor with us, if He did not in some way conform to our poverty? How 
could He come among sinful men to redeem them, if He did not also 
reveal the necessity of being purged from sin? There was no need of Our 
Blessed Mother to submit to the rite of purification, as there was no 
need of Our Lord to submit to the rite of Baptism by John. He had no 
need personally of having sins remitted, but He assumed a nature which 
was related to sinful humanity. Though He was without sin, He appeared 
to all men as a sinner, as He did on the cross. That was why He walked 
into the Jordan with all the rest of the sinners to demand the baptism 
of penance "in remission of sins. '

In a very special way, Baptism is related to the death and Resurrection 
of Christ. In order to be saved, we have to recapitulate in our own 
lives the Death and the Resurrection of Christ. What He went through, 
we have to go through. He is the pattern, and we have to be modeled 
after Him. He is the die, we are the coins that have to be stamped with 
His image. In all of the sacraments, the virtue of the Passion and 
Resurrection of Christ is in some way applied to us. In Baptism, there 
is a very close relationship between the burial and the resurrection. 
The catechumen is plunged into the water as Christ was plunged into 
death. We say plunged into death because of the words of Our Lord: 
"There is a baptism I must needs be baptized with, and how impatient am 
I for its accomplishment" (Luke 12:50). Baptism not only incorporates 
us to the death of that which is evil in us, but also to the 
Resurrection of Christ, and therefore, to a new life.

There was recently found an inscription on a baptistry erected in the 
time of Constantine in the beginning of the fourth century, and it 
reads: "The waters received an old man, but brought forth a new man." 
St. Paul speaks of this: "It follows, in fact, that when a man becomes 
a new creature in Christ, his old life has disappeared, everything has 
become new about him (II Corinth. 5:17).


The Blessing of Baptismal Water

The water used in Baptism is blessed on Holy Saturday after the Litany 
of Saints, whose intercession is invoked on all those who will receive 
the sacrament. Then follows a prayer asking God to send forth "the 
Spirit of adoption" on those who are to be baptized. God has one Son 
Who exhausts the fullness of His glory, but baptism gives Him millions 
of adopted sons because it makes them partakers of His divine nature. 
The baptismal water is blessed by a prayer which recalls beautifully 
all the events of salvation which were in any way connected with water, 
from the beginning of the world when God's Spirit hovered over the 
water, down to the commandment of Christ to baptize.

Throughout the Old Testament water is represented as a sinister ele-
ment, and is supposed to be the abode of demons. To confirm this idea, 
the "Apocalypse" affirms that there will be no sea in the new earth 
after the resurrection of the just. Water, because of its unholy 
association, is exorcised on Holy Saturday that it may become "holy and 
innocent." The priest then takes the water, divides it into four 
quarters of the globe to symbolize the four waters that branched out of 
Paradise and covered the earth. Next, he breathes upon the water three 
times symbolizing the Holy Spirit, then dips the paschal candle (the 
symbol of the risen Christ) into it three times. Here the consecration 
formula uses the symbolism of human generation: "May the power of the 
Holy Spirit descend into this brimming font, and make the whole 
substance of this water fruitful in regenerative power." And again, 
"Just as the Holy Spirit came down upon Mary and wrought in her the 
birth of Christ, so may He descend upon the Church, and bring about in 
her maternal womb (the font), the rebirth of God's children."

The baptismal font in a church is now generally placed as far from the 
altar as possible. It often is a corner to the left of the entrance. In 
the early Church, the baptistry was sometimes placed outside the 
Church. The reason is that the person about to be baptized was not yet 
a member of the Church and, therefore, was not allowed to participate 
in its mysteries.

The baptismal font, if properly erected, has steps going down into it, 
to indicate that it is a pool. Its shape was octagonal, because the 
Resurrection took place on the eighth day, or the day after the Jewish 
Sabbath.

In the Old Testament, circumcision was always performed on the eighth 
day. The son that David had through his sin with Bethsabee died on the 
seventh day. The first seven days were symbols of the bonds of sin; 
hence, the eighth day represented the breaking of those bonds and the 
liberation from them. In the New Testament, Easter is the eighth day 
par excellence, and that was the reason why Baptism was administered on 
Easter.


Baptism in the Early Church

Baptism was usually given the night before Easter Sunday, but the 
baptismal ceremonies began with the opening of Lent. At that time all 
of the candidates, converts, or catechumens had their names inscribed 
by a priest in the Church. They were then brought before a bishop who 
examined the candidates concerning their moral life. Generally, the 
bishop would bring out the fact that the candidate for Baptism had 
lived under Satan, but now he must abandon him This meant a conflict 
and a battle. That is why we still have in the Church the Gospel of the 
temptation of Christ for the first Sunday of Lent, because it was the 
theme of the bishop to the catechumens at the beginning of their 
instructions.

The ceremony of Baptism took place then in three places and in like 
manner today: (1) Before the entrance to the Church, which in the early 
Church was at the beginning of Lent; (2) Inside the Church and before 
one comes to the baptistry, which happened in the middle of Lent in the 
early Church; and (3) Finally, the baptistry itself on Holy Saturday 
night, or Easter morning.

In the baptismal ritual, the stole of the priest at the beginning of 
the Baptism is violet in color; this is because in the early Church, 
the first part of the ceremony of Baptism was during Lent. Toward the 
end of the ceremony, the priest changes his stole to white, following 
again the tradition of the early Church, when Baptism was administered 
on Easter Sunday.


Outside the Church

The Dialogue

The Baptism begins with a dialogue. The ceremony begins with: "What do 
you ask of the Church of God?" The answer is: "Faith." The priest asks: 
"What does faith offer you?" The candidate or his sponsors answer: 
"Eternal life." Note the close connection between faith and Baptism. 
After His Resurrection, Our Lord said to His Apostles: "Go out all over 
the world and preach the gospel to the whole of creation; he who 
believes and is baptized will be saved; he who refuses belief will be 
condemned" (Mark 16:15, 16).

Our Blessed Lord first put belief before being baptized. In order to be 
saved, one must believe and be baptized. One can be saved by faith 
without the sacramental sign of baptism; that is, through desire or by 
martyrdom, but he who refuses to believe will be condemned: "For the 
man who believes in him, there is no rejection; the man who does not 
believe is already rejected; he has not found faith in the name of 
God's only-begotten Son" (John 3:18).

The dialogue begins with "What do you ask of the Church of God?" Why 
the Church? Because the Church precedes the individual, not the 
individual the Church. When a person is baptized, he is not to be 
thought of as another brick that is added to an edifice, but rather as 
another cell united to the Christ-life. The Church expands from the 
inside out, not from the outside in. The foundation cell of the Church 
is Christ, and through Baptism, there is a multiplication of the cells 
of His body until there is a differentiation of functions and the 
building up of the whole Church. As a child is formed in the womb of 
the mother, so the Church, as a spiritual mother, forms and gives birth 
to the children of God. The Christian life resulting from Baptism is 
not an individual and solitary experience. It is a life in the Church 
and by the Church. As St. Paul expresses it: "Through faith in Christ 
Jesus you are all now God's sons" (I Corinth. 12:4).

Baptism does not first of all establish an individual relationship with 
Christ, and then accidentally make one a member of His body, the 
Church. It is the other way around. The baptized person is first made a 
member of the Church, and thus he is incorporated into Christ. Baptism 
is social by nature. We are made members of Christ's body before being 
established in our individual relationship with Christ:


"We, too, all of us have been baptized into a single body by the power 
of a single Spirit, Jews and Greeks, slaves and free men alike; we have 
all been given drink at a single source, the one Spirit." (I Corinth. 
12:13)


Sponsors

In Baptism, infants are incorporated into Christ, not through an act of 
their own will, but through an act of the sponsor who represents the 
Church and assumes responsibility for the spiritual education of the 
infant. The parents, of course, must consent to the baptism; the Church 
refuses to baptize anyone against his or her will, or even to baptize 
an infant unless there is some guarantee that the child will be raised 
in the faith. The sponsors are representatives of the Church, not 
representatives of the parents. They witness the incorporation of the 
infant into the fellowship of Christ.

It may be asked why should a child be baptized when he has nothing to 
say about it? Well, why should a child be fed? Is he asked his advice 
before he is given the family name? If he receives the name of the 
family, the fortune of the family, the rank of the family, the 
inheritance of the family, why should he not also receive the religion 
of the family? In our own country we do not wait until children are 
twenty-one and then allow them to decide whether or not they want to 
become American citizens, or whether they want to speak the English 
language. They are born Americans; so we in Baptism are born members of 
the Mystical Body of Christ. If one waits until he is twenty-one before 
learning something about his relation to the Lord Who redeemed him, he 
will have already learned another catechism, the catechism of his 
passions, his concupiscences, and his lusts.


Exorcisms

Though the Hebrews had passed through the Red Sea, they were, 
nevertheless, followed by the Egyptians; so too, though a person is 
baptized, he is still followed by Satan throughout his life. That is 
why the baptized person is asked to renounce Satan and all of his 
seductions. This renouncing of Satan has as its parallel the attachment 
to Christ or the transfer from one master to another. In Baptism today, 
the ceremonies of exorcism follow rapidly upon one another, and thereby 
have lost the significance which they had in the early Church when they 
were separated by several weeks. This evil that the baptized are 
invited to combat, is not just a moral force or a vague kind of 
paganism; it is a cosmic reality, for the devil is, as Our Lord said, 
the prince of this world. That is why even before the Church begins the 
baptism of a person, it blesses water, oil, and salt, in some instances 
even with exorcisms, in order to snatch them out of the power of Satan.

There is a triple renouncing of Satan which corresponds to the 
threefold profession of faith:

Question: Do you renounce Satan?
     Answer: I do renounce him.

Question: And all his works?
     Answer: I do renounce them.

Question: And all his allurements?
     Answer: I do renounce them.

This question has reference to the words of St. Paul to the Romans: 
"Let us abandon the ways of darkness, and put on the armor of light" 
(Rom. 13:12).

Thus the triple profession of faith accompanies the triple renouncing 
of Satan, and is bound to a gesture; namely, the anointing with the oil 
of catechumens. The one who baptizes dips his thumb in oil, and then 
traces a cross on the breast and between the shoulders of the one to be 
baptized. Formerly the oil was rubbed all over the body. This was also 
done on athletes who were engaging in some sport in the arena, but here 
the signification is spiritual, for it is the beginning of a spiritual 
competition (I Corinth. 9: 24-27).

The exorcisms look both to the future, as well as to the past, to 
remind the catechumen that the struggle against the forces of Satan is 
a confrontation of God and the devil, the devil seeking to dispute the 
souls which Our Lord won, as he tempted Our Lord in the desert.

In the early Church, the renouncing of Satan was done facing the west. 
This is because the west is where the light of the sun disappears; 
therefore, it was regarded even by the ancient Greeks as the place of 
the gates of Hades; also, because Christ on the Last Day said He would 
come from the east to the west: "When the Son of Man comes, it will be 
like the lightning that springs up from the east and flashes across to 
the west" (Matt. 24:27). The baptismal liturgy of Milan reads: "Ye were 
turned to the east for he who renounced the demon turns himself to 
Christ. He sees Him face to face."

In the exorcism, the priest says: "I exorcise you, unclean spirit, in 
the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Come forth, 
from this servant of God [name] for He commands you, spirit accursed 
and damned, He Who walked upon the sea and extended His right hand to 
Peter as he was sinking. Therefore, cursed devil, acknowledge your con-
demnation and pay homage to the true and living God; pay homage to 
Jesus Christ, His Son, and to the Holy Spirit, and depart from the 
servant of God [name], for Jesus Christ, Our Lord and our God, has 
called him [her] to His holy grace and blessing, and to the font of 
Baptism."

When the priest signs the forehead with his thumb in the form of a 
cross, he says: "Then never dare, cursed devil, to violate the sign of 
the cross which we are making upon his [her] forehead through Christ 
Our Lord."

The various exorcisms, the laying on of hands, breathings, and sign of 
the cross are done in the vestibule of the Church. The second act of 
the ceremonies takes place at the entrance of the baptistry. The evil 
spirit has no authority in the holy place; that is why the final 
exorcism of the devil is at the entrance.


The Body in Baptism

Because the body is to become by Baptism the temple of God, because God 
dwells in it, it is fitting that it have an important role in the 
sacrament. Each of the senses are spiritualized in the sacraments: 
hearing, taste, touch, smell, and sight.

The ears of the baptized person are touched with the words, "Be thou 
opened." The Hebrew word Our Lord used in opening the ears of the deaf 
man was "Ephpheta." The assumption is that the person up to this moment 
has been deaf to the hearing of the word of God. Now his ears are 
opened, so that he can understand the word of God, and the confidences 
which God exchanges with him about the Kingdom of Heaven.

Tasting is testing. Before food goes into the stomach, it passes 
through the laboratory of the mouth for either approval or disapproval. 
In the spiritual order, the taste is not for body-food, but soul-food; 
the material element here used as a symbol for tasting Divine Wisdom 
and the Eucharist is salt. Placing salt on the tongue of the candidate 
for Baptism, the Church says: "Satisfy him [her] with the Bread of 
Heaven that he [she] may be forever fervent in spirit, joyful in hope, 
zealous in your service." Scripture bids us: "How gracious the Lord is. 
Taste and prove it" (Psa. 33:9).

The symbolism is that the truths of faith infused at Baptism will be 
preserved from error; that the person may reflect the savor of Christ 
in his life, and this taste of salt may be converted into a yearning 
for the Bread of Life, the Eucharist, which is the end of all the 
sacraments. When the faith is gone, everything is gone, as Our Lord 
warned:


"You are the salt of the earth; if salt loses its taste, what is there 
left to give taste to it? There is no more to be done with it, but 
throw it out of doors for men to tread it under foot." (Matt. 5:13)


The body, during the ceremony, is touched in three places with oil: on 
the breast, between the shoulders, and on the head. The first two 
anointing are with the oil of catechumens, the last with chrism. The 
sign of the cross is made on the breast with oil to indicate that the 
heart must love God; between the shoulders to remind us that we are to 
carry the Cross of Christ; on the head, as a sign of eternal election 
in Christ Our Lord.

The "Apocalypse," describing the end of the world, says the destroying 
angel was "to attack men, such as did not bear God's mark on their 
foreheads" (Apoc. 9:4). The elect will be known, because they have 
already been signed and have lived up to all the Cross commits them to 
in this life.

The last anointing with chrism, which takes place after Baptism, is the 
symbol of the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, oil was poured upon 
the head of the priest (Ex. 29:7), and upon kings (I Kings 10:1), to 
render them holy unto the Lord. Pulled out of the powers of darkness by 
Baptism, the Christian is now transported into the light of God and 
into His kingdom; that is why he becomes royal. St. Leo bade the 
faithful: "Recognize, O Christian, thy dignity."

We associate goodness with sweet odors and badness with foul odors. We 
have a "nose" for detecting the healthy and the unhealthy. This sense 
of smell is spiritualized in Baptism, and is made to symbolize sanctity 
or holiness.

The Church speaks of saints as dying in "the odor of sanctity." Some-
times their bodies after death give forth a sweet odor. The saintly 
Cure of Ars would walk along a line of several hundred persons waiting 
to go to confession. He would pick out one here and there and put them 
first in line. When asked how he could do it, he answered: "I can smell 
sin." As the Church signs the nostrils of the catechumen, she says: "I 
sign you on the nostrils that you may perceive the sweet fragrance of 
Christ."

The eyes of the candidate are anointed, as the Church says: "I sign you 
on the eyes that you may see God's glory." By this is symbolized a new 
kind of vision: the things of God in addition to the things of earth: 
"Fix (your) eyes on what is unseen, not on what we can see. What we can 
see lasts but for a moment; what is unseen is eternal" (II Corinth. 
4:18). Our Blessed Lord spoke of some who had eyes and yet were blind, 
because they had no faith: "Have you eyes that cannot see?" (Mark 
8:18).

As a further example of the role of vision, a lighted candle is given 
to the one baptized. He is bidden to receive this burning light, and 
keep the grace of his baptism without blame. This refers to the words 
of Our Lord: "Your light must shine so brightly before men that they 
can see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in Heaven" 
(Matt 5:16).

We have the same eyes at night as during the daytime, but we cannot see 
at night because we lack the light of the sun. So there is a difference 
in persons looking upon the same reality, such as life, birth, death, 
the world. The baptized person has a light which the others do not 
have. Sometimes the person with the light of faith will regard the 
other person as ignorant or stupid, but actually he is only blind. On 
the other hand, the one who is baptized must not believe that his 
superior insights are due to his own reason, or his own merits. They 
are solely due to the light that has come to him through Christ.

There are various lights in the world: the light of the sun which illu-
mines our senses; the light of reason which illumines science and 
culture; and the light of faith which illumines Christ and eternal 
verities.


The Baptism Itself

The actual moment of Baptism comes when the priest pours water on the 
head of a person, saying: "I baptize thee, in the name of the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Spirit." The personal pronoun "I" refers not only 
to the priest, but to Christ Who speaks through the tongue given Him by 
the Church as He spoke through the tongue given Him by Mary. As the 
portals of the flesh once opened to the life of the human, now the womb 
of the Church opens and exults: "A child is born."

St. Augustine said this is a greater act than the creation of the 
world, for it blots out our debt of sin to God, original sin if it be 
an infant, original and personal sins if it be an adult. The full 
effects of this act will be mentioned later.


The Lighted Candle and Baptism

Because the Sacrament of Baptism opened the eyes of the soul to see, it 
was called the sacrament of illumination: "Remember those early days, 
when the light first came to you" (Heb. 10:32). Once asleep to the 
wonders of Redemption, eyes are now awake to receive Christ, the light 
of the world (John 1:19) and to become sons of light (I Thess. 5:5).

Because Baptism is the sacrament of faith, it is the sacrament of 
light. This baptismal candle in the early Church was always kept by the 
person baptized, and was lighted on the anniversary of one's baptism 
and on feast days, and brought to the church for the Easter vigil and 
the renewal of baptismal vows. Then later, if the person was married, 
the candle was lighted at his wedding. If he was ordained, it was 
lighted at his ordination, and when he died, it was lighted again as he 
went to his Judge.


The White Robe of Baptism

That the body is now the temple of God is further indicated by putting 
on a white robe after the Baptism itself. Today this is often only a 
small white cloth, but its symbolism still remains: "The body is for 
the Lord."

In the Transfiguration, Our Blessed Lord's garment was white (Matt. 
17:2) as a symbol of holiness and purity. White was the color of the 
vestments in the Old Testament. It was the color of the veil which 
divided the sanctuary. It was the attire of the high priest. It was the 
color of festivity (Eccles. 9:8), and of triumph (Apoc. 6:2), and a 
symbol of glory and majesty (Matt. 28:3). The prayer that is said at 
Baptism is a petition that this garment be kept without stain: "Receive 
this white garment. Never let it become stained, so that when you stand 
before the judgment seat of Our Lord you may have life everlasting." 
Dante, in his practical knowledge of human nature, knowing that many do 
not keep it sinless, described purgatory as a "place where we go to 
wash our baptismal robes."

The white robe further symbolizes the recovery of the vestment of light 
which was man's before the Fall. As Gregory of Nyssa said: "Thou hast 
driven us out of paradise and called us back; Thou hast taken away the 
fig leaves, that garment of our misery, and clothed us once more with 
the robe of glory."

Because Baptism in the early Church was by immersion, there was an 
additional symbolism attached to the new garment that was put on, 
namely, to signify the entirely new life that came to one after one was 
"buried with Christ in His Death" (Rom. 6:4). The neophyte did not 
resume the clothing he had taken off. He put on a new white garment, 
which he wore at all services during the entire Easter octave. A week 
later, in the early Church, there was "the sabbath of the removal of 
white robes." These were solemnly taken off and deposited in the 
treasury of the baptismal Church.


Effects of Baptism

The first effect of Baptism is the restoration to friendship with God 
which was lost by original sin. The baptized person is made a partaker 
of the divine nature and, therefore, a sharer in divine life. There is 
more difference between a soul in the state of grace which begins in 
Baptism and a soul not in the state of grace than there is between a 
baptized person in the state of grace on this earth and a soul in glory 
in heaven. The relation of the first two is the relationship between a 
crystal and an elephant: one cannot beget the other. The second 
relationship is that of an acorn and an oak. The acorn has the 
potential of becoming an oak; the baptized person in grace has the 
potential to enjoy the glory of God. That is why Baptism is said to 
make the person a new creature: "In fact, when a man becomes a new 
creature in Christ, his old life has disappeared, everything has become 
new about him" (II Corinth. 5:17).

This sharing of the divine nature makes us the adopted sons of the 
eternal Father. Just as Christ is the Divine Son Incarnate; so we 
become adopted children, as distinct from the natural Son:


"But all those who did welcome him, He empowered to become the children 
of God." (John 1:12)

"Those who follow the leading of God's Spirit are all God's sons." 
(Rom. 8:14)


The Dauphin, the father of Louis XVI, gave a lesson on the effect of 
Baptism to his two sons. They had been baptized as infants but in 
emergency. It was only years later, when they had reached the age of 
reason, that the ceremonies were performed. Immediately after Baptism, 
it was noted that the names of the two children were registered after a 
common laborer about the palace. The royal father said:


"See, my children, in the eyes of God, men of all conditions are equal. 
In His sight, faith and virtue are all that matters. One day you will 
be greater than this child in the eyes of the world; but if he is more 
virtuous than you, then he will be greater than you in the sight of 
God."


This likeness to God or the unlikeness will be the determinant of our 
future state. A mother knows her daughter is her own because that child 
shares her nature; a mother also knows the child next door is not her 
own because of the diversity of nature and parentage. So it will be 
with Christ on the last day. He will look into a soul and see His 
divine resemblance and say: "Come, ye blessed of My Father. I am the 
Natural Son and you are the adopted children"; but to those who have 
not that likeness, Christ will say: "I know you not"--and it is a 
terrible thing not to be known by God.

Another effect is incorporation in the Mystical Body of Christ. Baptism 
is not just a bond existing between the person and Christ: to be united 
to Christ is to be united with the Church, for the Church is His body. 
The Church is not an organization, but an organism. As circumcision was 
an incorporation into the spiritual body of Israel, so Baptism is 
incorporation into the spiritual body of the Church. A physical body is 
made up of millions of cells, and all of these coordinate and cooperate 
into a unity, thanks to the soul which organizes them, the invisible 
mind which guides them, and the visible head which directs them. So 
too, all the baptized are incorporated into the Mystical Body, thanks 
to the Holy Spirit which vivifies it; thanks to the invisible head, 
Christ, Who rules the organism of the Church; and thanks to the visible 
head, its Vicar of Christ, who directs it on earth.

The two most common errors concerning the Church are these: (1) the 
belief that Christians came first and then the Church; and (2) that to 
justify the Church one must go to the New Testament--which antedated 
the Church.

In regard to the first error, the Christians did not come before the 
Church. The physical body of Christ was the beginning of the Church, 
and the Apostles constituted its first prolongation. The Church, or the 
body of Christ, was not composed of the will of individual Christians; 
the latter were not first brought to Our Lord and then inducted in some 
way into the Church. The Church has its origin not in the will of man, 
nor in the flesh of man, but in the will of Christ, Our Lord. The 
Apostles were the ministers of the Lord Himself. The world is called 
into the Church, but the world does not make the Church by sending men 
into it.

Regarding the second error, the Church was in existence throughout the 
entire Roman Empire, before a single book of the New Testament was 
written. Long before St. Paul wrote any of his epistles, he said that 
he had "persecuted the Church." The Church was in existence before he 
wrote about it so beautifully. The Gospel came out of the Church; the 
Church did not come out of the Gospel.

Because Baptism makes us a cell in the body of Christ, it is called the 
door of the Church. Each new generation of baptized Christians is taken 
up into that already existing unity. St. Peter, changing the analogy, 
describes those who are inducted into the Church as living stones:


"Draw near to Him; He is the living antitype of that stone which men 
rejected, which God has chosen and prized; you too must be built up on 
Him, stones that live and breathe, into a spiritual fabric." (I Peter 
2:4, 5)


The very fact that the ceremony of Baptism begins outside of the 
Church, or at the door of the Church, and that the adult to be baptized 
is led in by a stole, confirms the fact that the unbaptized is not yet 
a member of the Church.


The Infusion of Virtues

Another effect is the infusion of virtues. A virtue is something like a 
habit. There are two kinds of habits: infused habits, such as the 
infused habit of swimming which a duck has when it is born; and 
acquired habits, such as playing the violin or speaking a foreign 
language.

Baptism infuses seven virtues into the soul, the first three of which 
relate to God Himself, namely, faith, hope, and charity. We are thus 
enabled to believe in Him, hope in Him, and love Him. But four other 
virtues, called moral virtues, are related to the means of attaining 
God; these are prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. By the 
right use of things for God's sake, by paying our debts to God, by 
being brave about witnessing our faith and temperate about even the 
legitimate pleasures of life, we reach God more quickly.

One of the reasons there is little difficulty in convincing children of 
the existence of God and the divinity of the Church is that they 
already have the gift of faith infused in their souls at the moment of 
Baptism. This faith, however, requires practice and intellectual 
fortification. If one woke up suddenly and became endowed with the gift 
of playing the organ, he would still have to practice to retain the 
gift. So, even though the gift of faith is infused, it nevertheless 
requires practice. In the adult, Baptism demands faith, but faith 
supposes that one has already received the word of God:


"Only, how are they to call upon him until they have learned to believe 
in him? And how are they to believe in him, until they listen to him?" 
(Rom. 10:14)


It may be asked why adults who already have the faith are said to need 
Baptism. If the adult is already justified by faith, Baptism is 
necessary in order that he may be incorporated visibly and 
sacramentally to Christ in His Church. Furthermore, they receive, in 
virtue of Baptism, a fuller grace. In the case of children, the habit 
of virtue becomes a conscious act later on. The faith is not just a 
profession of doctrine, but is the commitment to Our Lord and Savior.

Another effect, which is closely bound up with grace, is the indwelling 
of the Trinity in our souls, from which arises a triple relationship 
with the Godhead. First is the relationship with God the Father. The 
baptized may now say "Our Father." By nature, we are only creatures of 
God; by Baptism, we are sons:


"The spirit you have now received is not, as of old, a spirit of 
slavery, to govern you by fear; it is the spirit of adoption, which 
makes us cry out, Abba, Father." (Rom. 8:15)


We also have relationship with the Son of God, Who is "the firstborn of 
many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). The baptized person will, therefore, try to 
reproduce in his soul the image of Christ. As it is put in "Imitation 
of Christ":


"Who will give me, Lord, to find You and You alone, and to offer You my 
whole heart...You in me, and I in You, and therefore together, evermore 
to dwell."


Finally, there is union with the Holy Spirit. At the moment of Baptism 
the priest says, "Depart, unclean spirit, and give place to the Holy 
Spirit." St. John writes: "This is our proof that we are dwelling in 
Him and He in us; He has given us a share of His own Spirit" (I John 
4:13). The Spirit within us is a moving Spirit, illumining the mind and 
strengthening the will to sanctify ourselves and others:


"Nor does this hope delude us; the love of God has been poured out in 
our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom we have received." (Rom. 5:4)


The world, therefore, is divided into the "once born" and the "twice 
born": between the sons of the old Adam, and the sons of the new Adam, 
Christ; between the unregenerate and the regenerate. There is a real 
inequality in the world. There are "superior" and "inferior" peoples, 
but the basis of distinction is not color, race, nationality, or 
wealth. The superior people of the earth are the supermen, the Godmen; 
the inferior people are those who have been called to that superior 
state but, as yet, have not embraced it. But the reborn must follow the 
laws of divine life, for which the Lord has prepared other sacraments.



I I. THE SACRAMENT OF CONFIRMATION

In the biological order, a creature must first be born, then it must 
grow. In the supernatural order of grace, divine life is born in the 
soul by Baptism; then it must grow "in age and grace and wisdom before 
God and men." The soul who receives the sacraments of Baptism and 
Confirmation is born spiritually and matures spiritually. It receives 
citizenship in the Kingdom of God and is inducted into God's spiritual 
army and the lay priesthood of believers. This soul is "born of the 
Virgin Mary"--the Church--and begins its apostolate as Our Lord began 
his preaching after the descent of the Holy Spirit at His baptism in 
the Jordan.

Confirmation, like every other sacrament, is modeled upon Christ, and 
reaffirms some aid or gesture in His life. It is bound up with Our 
Lord's Baptism in the Jordan when the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in 
the form of a dove.

Our Lord had a double priestly anointing corresponding to two aspects 
of His life: the first, the Incarnation, made Him capable of becoming a 
victim for our sins, because He then had a body with which He could 
suffer. As God He could not suffer; as Man He could. This first aspect 
culminated in the Passion and Resurrection, which one participates in 
by Baptism.

But the sacrament of Confirmation is particularly a participation in 
the second anointing of Our Lord, that of the coming of the Spirit in 
the Jordan, which ordained Him to the mission of preaching the 
apostolate. This reached its culmination on Pentecost, when He filled 
His Church--His Mystical Body--with His Spirit. Pentecost is to the New 
Testament what the gift of the law is to the Old Testament, only it is 
more perfect.

The descent of the Holy Spirit on Christ in the Jordan had a double 
effect on Our Lord. It prepared Him for combat:


"Jesus returned from the Jordan full of the Holy Spirit, and by the 
Spirit He was led on into the wilderness, where He remained forty days, 
tempted by the devil." (Luke 4:1)


It prepared Him for preaching the Kingdom of God:


"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; He has anointed me, and sent me out 
to preach the gospel to the poor, to restore the brokenhearted; to bid 
the prisoners go free, and the blind to have sight; to set the 
oppressed at liberty, to proclaim a year when men may find acceptance 
with the Lord." (Luke 4:18, 19)


About three years later, at the Last Supper, Our Blessed Lord promised 
to send the Spirit to His Apostles, disciples, and followers, which He 
did fifty days after the Resurrection on Pentecost. It would seem 
better if Our Lord had remained on earth, so that all ages might have 
heard His voice and thrilled to the majesty of His person; but He said 
it was better that He leave, otherwise the Spirit would not come. If He 
remained on earth, He would have been only an example to be copied, but 
if He sent the Holy Spirit, He would be a life to be lived.

Though Our Lord knew on Holy Thursday that His Apostles were distressed 
because He spoke of His approaching death, He consoled them with the 
advantages of His leaving this earth and yet remaining in it, in 
another way:


"So full are your hearts with sorrow at My telling you this. And yet I 
can say truly that it is better for you I should go away; he who is to 
befriend you will not come to you unless I do go, but if only I make my 
way there, I will send him to you." (John 16:6, 7)

His perpetual presence, even in His glorified state, would have limited 
His moral and spiritual influence. He might have become to man the type 
of Christ that Hollywood presents--a celebrity. Instead of being in our 
hearts, He would only have been in our senses.

Would men ever have thought of spiritual fellowship with Christ, when 
physical fellowship might be had; when good and bad would have had 
equal perception of Him; when He would be external to the soul of man, 
not internal? Where would faith be, if we saw? And would not the world 
have tried to recrucify Him, though that would have been impossible 
after His Resurrection?

These questions are in vain; Divine Wisdom said it was better that He 
depart from the globe for, once in glory, He would send His Spirit, 
"the Truth-giving Spirit to guide you in all Truth." Great men 
influence the earth only from their funeral urns; but He, Who gave the 
earth the only serious wound it ever received--the empty tomb--would 
rule it at the right hand of the Father through His Spirit.

This Spirit He sent upon the Church on Pentecost, like a soul entering 
a fetus; chemicals which are disparate and disconnected became a living 
thing. So the Apostles, with their individual whims and ignorances, 
were, under the pentecostal fires, fused into the visible, living, 
Mystical Body of Christ. It is not to the point in a book on the 
sacraments to describe this; but it is to the point to say that 
Confirmation is a kind of Pentecost to a baptized soul. Christ dwelling 
in the flesh would normally be in one place only at one time, but His 
Spirit, unbound by fleshy bonds, could cover the earth, working on a 
million hearts at once. Nor would such hearts be without comfort at His 
physical absence, for the Spirit He called "another Comforter."

It is the Son, Christ Our Lord, Who reveals the Heavenly Father. We 
would never know the mercy and love of the Father, if He had not sent 
His Son to walk this earth and pay our debt for sin. But who reveals 
the Son? It is the Holy Spirit.

We know what goes on in other minds because we, too, have minds or 
souls; we know what goes on in the mind of Christ because we are given 
His Spirit. The natural or unbaptized man cannot perceive the things of 
God, for they are spiritually discerned. As the scientist knows nature, 
so the Christian, thanks to the Spirit, knows Christ:


"He will not utter a message of His own; he will utter the message that 
has been given to Him; and He will make plain to you what is still to 
come. And He will bring honor to me, because it is from me that He will 
derive what He makes plain to you. I say that He will derive from me 
what He makes plain to you, because all that belongs to the Father 
belongs to me." (John 16:13-15)


It is through the Spirit received in Confirmation that Christ walks the 
earth again in each obedient Christian; it is through the Spirit that 
we are sanctified, comforted, and taught to pray.

These and other words of Our Lord about sending the Spirit of Truth who 
will enlarge our knowledge of Him, prove that the whole truth is not 
available to us in written records. Pentecost was not the descent of a 
book, but of living tongues of fire. Confirmation gives the lie to 
those who say that "the sermon on the mount is enough for them." Our 
Lord's teaching, as recorded in the Gospels, was implemented, 
complemented, and revealed in its deeper meaning through the spirit of 
truth He gave to His Church. We indeed know Christ by reading the 
Gospels, but we see the deeper meaning of the words, and we know Christ 
more completely when we have His Spirit. It is only through the Spirit 
that we know He is the divine Son of God and Redeemer of humanity:


"Those who live the life of nature cannot be acceptable to God; but you 
live the life of the spirit, not the life of nature; that is, if the 
Spirit of God dwells in you. A man cannot belong to Christ unless he 
has the Spirit of Christ." (Rom. 8:8, 9)


Because an added measure of the Spirit is given in Confirmation, it was 
administered, even in the early Church, not by disciples but by 
Apostles or by the bishops who had the fullness of the priesthood.

The deacon Philip went to a city of Samaria and preached Christ to 
them. He converted and baptized many. But, in order to "lay hands on 
them" or confirm them, it was necessary for the Church in Jerusalem to 
send Peter and John (Acts 8:5-17). Later on we read about Confirmation 
at Ephesus by the Apostle Paul: "When Paul laid his hands on them, the 
Holy Spirit came upon them" (Acts 19:6).


Administration of the Sacrament

The candidates kneel with hands joined before the bishop, who, ex-
tending his hands over the ones to be confirmed, says:


"Almighty, everlasting God, Who has deigned to beget new life in these 
thy servants by water and the Holy Spirit, and has granted them 
remission of all their sins, send forth from heaven upon them Thy Holy 
Spirit, with His sevenfold gifts: The spirit of wisdom and 
understanding. Amen. The spirit of counsel and fortitude. Amen. The 
spirit of knowledge and piety. Amen. Fill them with the spirit of fear 
of the Lord, and seal them with the sign of Christ's cross, plenteous 
in mercy unto life everlasting. Through the selfsame Jesus Christ, Thy 
Son, Our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the 
Holy Spirit, God eternally. Amen."


Dipping his thumb in holy chrism, he confirms the person saying:


"[Name] I confirm thee with the chrism of salvation. In the name of the 
Father [making the sign of the cross] and of the Son [making the sign 
of the cross] and of the Holy Spirit [making the sign of the cross]."


Then he gives the one confirmed a slight blow on the cheek, saying, 
"Peace be to you."

Other prayers and a penance follow, all of which are destined to make 
the Christian a witness, a teacher to an unbelieving world, and even a 
martyr, if need be, for the Church. Two of the effects and obligations 
of the Church deserve special consideration, and this follows.


The Sacrament of Combat

Every sacrament is related to the death of Christ, but Confirmation 
intensifies that resemblance. Baptism gives the Christian a treasure; 
Confirmation urges him to fight to preserve it against the three great 
enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil.

The military character of the sacrament is evidenced in the following 
four symbols or acts:


(1) The forehead is anointed with chrism in the sign of the cross. The 
cross, by its nature, evokes opposition. The more one crucifies his 
passions and rejects the false teachings of the world, the more he is 
slandered and attacked. Calvary united not only the friends of Our 
Lord; it also united His enemies. Those who were opposed to one another 
merged their lesser conflicts for the sake of the greater hate. Judas 
and the Sanhedrin, Pharisees and Publicans, religious courts and Roman 
overlords--though they despised one another, nevertheless they rained 
common blows of hammer and nails on the hands and feet of Christ:


"It is because you do not belong to the world, because I have singled 
you out from the midst of the world, that the world hates you. (John 
15:18, 19)


When the Little Flower, St. Therese, prepared herself for Confirmation, 
she saw that it implied crucifixion:


"I went into retreat for Confirmation. I carefully prepared myself for 
the coming of the Holy Spirit. I cannot understand why so little 
attention is paid to the sacrament of love. Like the Apostles, I 
happily awaited the promised Comforter. I rejoiced that soon I should 
be a perfect Christian, and have eternally marked upon my forehead the 
mysterious Cross of this ineffable sacrament. On that day I received 
the strength to suffer, a strength which I much needed, for the 
martyrdom of my soul was about to begin."


(2) The interior grace of the sacrament gives fortitude and other gifts 
destined for the battle of the Spirit. The Apostles on Pentecost were 
made witnesses to the Resurrection of Christ, and the word "witness" in 
Greek means "martyr." So, in Confirmation, the Christian is marked with 
power and boldness on the forehead, so that neither fear nor false 
modesty will deter him from the public confession of Christ. Cattle are 
often branded with the owner's name; and slaves or soldiers in the 
emperor's service were tattooed so that they could be easily recognized 
if they ever deserted the service. Plutarch states it was a custom to 
brand cattle that were destined for sacrifice, as a sign that they were 
set apart for something sacred. Herodotus tells of a temple in Egypt in 
which a fugitive might take the right of sanctuary: once he did so, he 
was stamped, marked, or tattooed as an indication that he was the 
property of God and, therefore, was inviolable and sacrosanct.

The spiritual significance of marking is anticipated: "...all alike 
destroy till none is left, save only where you see the cross marked 
upon them" (Ezechial 9:6). On the last day, the elect will be sealed on 
their foreheads in the name of the Lamb and of His Father, to protect 
them from destruction (Apoc. 7:3). Confirmation, then, is the sealing 
of a person in the army of the Lord. St. Paul says: "Do not distress 
God's Holy Spirit, whose seal you bear until the day of your redemption 
comes" (Eph. 4:30).


(3) A slight blow on the cheek is given the person confirmed to remind 
him that, as a soldier of Christ, he must be prepared to suffer all 
things for His sake. To deny one's faith for a passing carnal pleasure, 
or to surrender it under ridicule, is far more serious in the eyes of 
God than a soldier deserting his duty. Peguy, bemoaning a want of 
spiritual bravery, writes:


"Shame upon those who are ashamed. It is not a question of believing or 
not believing; it is a question of knowing what is the most frequent 
cause of loss of faith. No cause can be more shameful than shame--and 
fear. And of all the fears the most shameful is certainly the fear of 
ridicule; the fear of being taken for a fool. One may believe, or one 
may not believe. But shame upon him who would deny his God to avoid 
being made a mark for witticisms. I have in mind the poor, timorous 
wretch who looks fearfully on every side to be sure that there is not 
some high personage who has laughed at him, at his faith, at his God. 
Shame upon the ashamed. Shame implies a cowardice that has nothing to 
fall back upon. Shame upon those who are ashamed."


(4) The combative character of Confirmation is further shown by the 
fact that its ordinary minister is the bishop, who is, as it were, a 
general in the military of the Church. Because Confirmation gives an 
increase of the Holy Spirit over Baptism, it is fittingly administered 
by the one who has the fullness of the priesthood. When the bishop 
extends his arms over those confirmed, as a successor of the Apostles, 
he imitates Peter and John who laid hands on new converts of Samaria, 
so that "they received the Holy Spirit" (Acts 8:1). He also imitates 
Paul at Ephesus: "When Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit 
came upon them" (Acts 19:6). The bishop is not a hoarder of his 
authority; he is a dispenser of it, as was Our Blessed Lord Who told 
His Apostles that they were to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 
18:19-20).

The bishop, as the authority in the Church, incorporates the one con-
firmed into adult responsibilities. From now on, the one confirmed does 
not lead an individual Christian life: he becomes commissioned in the 
army. Confirmation is, therefore, the first great manifestation of the 
relation established between the authority of the Church and Christian 
personality.


Confirmation Both Personal and Social

Every sacrament has been set as a kind of balance between the in-
dividual and the community. The individual is baptized, but his Baptism 
incorporates him into the community of believers--the Church. The grace 
descends into the soul of the individual, but the grace is for the 
perfection of the Mystical Body. This is true also of the sacrament of 
Confirmation for, even more than Baptism, it orients us toward the 
community or fellowship of believers. Love is a union by which one 
escapes from egotism. When one reaches spiritual adulthood, one is open 
for a wider love. Children live for themselves; adults cease to live 
exclusively for themselves, particularly those who reach the "perfect 
age" in the spirit. The combat of Baptism was, we said, a "personal" 
combat: in Confirmation, the combat is "ex officio" military, and under 
the orders of the chief. Baptism is principally the battle against 
invisible enemies: in Confirmation, it is the battle against social 
enemies, such as the persecutors of the Church.

The mystical death one undergoes in Baptism is individual: in 
Confirmation, the mystical death is communal. We are prepared to die, 
to be a martyr, or a witness to Christ for the sake of the "body which 
is the Church." Confirmation then relates us to the community; that is 
why the Spirit was given on Pentecost when all the Apostles were 
assembled together with Mary in their midst.

Confirmation makes us soldiers of Christ. Soldiers do not come together 
of and by themselves to constitute an army. Rather, it is the political 
authority of government which summons the soldiers and constitutes them 
as an army. So it is in Confirmation. The Church does not have a 
spiritual military because her members volunteer for service. It is 
rather that the Church makes them grow spiritually to a point where 
they can carry spiritual arms and be authorized as her combatants 
bearing the "breastplate of justice fitted on...the shield of 
faith...the helmet of salvation...and the sword of the spirit" (Eph. 
6:14, 16, 17).


The Sacrament of the Lay Apostolate

The laity are summoned by Confirmation to share in the apostolate of 
the Church, to be witnesses to Christ before those who know Him not, to 
be prophets or teachers in an unbelieving world and, together with the 
priesthood, to offer their bodies as a reasonable sacrifice to the 
Heavenly Father:


"You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a 
people God means to have for Himself; it is yours to proclaim the 
exploits of the God Who has called you out of darkness into His 
marvelous light." (I Peter 2:9)


The laity share in the general priesthood of the Church because all are 
members of Jesus the priest; but they do not share in the ministerial 
or hierarchical priesthood which comes with Holy Orders, in which there 
is a personal representation of Christ, such as offering the 
eucharistic sacrifice and absolving sins.

The laity have a double consecration through Baptism and Confirmation, 
which gives them a certain participation in the priesthood of Christ.

The ministerial or hierarchical priesthood, however, has the third and 
specific consecration from Holy Orders. There are thus two sorts of 
priesthood: the first is external and reserved for the hierarchical 
priesthood; the second is internal and common to all the faithful.

The person who is confirmed always has a personal and, in some in-
stances, a canonical mission. He has a personal mission inasmuch as, 
through his own personal contact, he must help bring other souls to 
Christ--just as Andrew brought Peter, Philip brought Nathaniel, the 
Samaritan woman brought her townspeople, and Philip converted the 
eunuch of the Ethiopian court.

But the mission given by Confirmation requires a wider outlook than the 
personal work of witnessing and converting. It is not only individual 
souls, but also the milieu, the environment--the whole social order in 
all its political, scientific, journalistic, medical, legal, 
recreational, and economic structures which also has to be 
Christianized.

This canonical mission of spiritualizing the world in an organized way 
is dependent on the hierarchy and the teaching authority of the Church. 
There is some communication of this teaching office in the ceremony of 
the imposition of hands. The laity do not participate in the hierarchy, 
but they participate in the apostolate of the hierarchy. The Apostles 
and their successors have a divine mission to teach; the laity receive 
from the hierarchy a canonical mission to teach.

What makes Catholic Action is not the fact that Catholics are organ-
ized, but that they have received a mission to bear witness to Christ 
over and above their own personal witnessing to Christ in the holiness 
of their lives. The laity are not just the Church taught; they 
participate in the Church teaching. As Leo XIII said, the laity cannot 
arrogate to themselves this authority, but when circumstances demand 
it, they have the right to communicate to others, as echoes of the 
magisterium of the Church, that which they themselves have learned. And 
Pope Pius XII addressed a new group of cardinals as follows:


"The laity must have an ever clearer consciousness, not only of 
belonging to the Church, but of being the Church; that is, of being the 
community of the faithful on earth under the guidance of their common 
leader, the Pope, and the bishops in communion with him. They are the 
Church."


"The Acts of Apostles" twice shows that when the disciples were 
scattered by persecution, the laity immediately began to preach God's 
word and increase the Church (Acts 8:4, Acts 9:19), something that is 
happening today in persecuted lands. Aquilla and his wife, Priscilla, 
completed the instructions of Apollos (Acts 18:26), and later on became 
the trusted helpers of St. Paul (Rom. 16:3). Apollos, who never seems 
to have received any ministerial consecration, was a vigorous preacher 
of Christ (Acts 18:27, 28).

There have even been laymen who taught theology. For example, John 
d'Andrea was professor of canon law at Bologna from 1302 to 1348. 
Wilfred G. Ward was professor of dogmatic theology at St. Edmund's 
Seminary of London, England, from 1851 to 1858.

More and more, the Church is emphasizing the teaching mission conferred 
by Confirmation. In mission lands, catechists number tens of thousands. 
Abroad and at home, the canonical mission of teaching is conferred 
implicitly on teachers when the bishops appoint them to parochial 
schools.



III. THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST

A young wife, who had been taking instructions for a year, told the 
writer she could believe everything in the faith except the Eucharist. 
Upon inquiring about her husband, it was learned that he was in the 
Pacific on military duty. In answer to further questions, she admitted 
that she corresponded with him every two days and that she had his 
photograph before her in the house.

We argued there was nothing wanting for perfect happiness. What more 
could she want than the constant memory of him through the photograph 
and a written communication in which heart poured out to heart. But she 
protested that she could never be truly happy except through union with 
her husband.

But, it was retorted, if human love craves oneness, shall not divine 
love? If husband and wife seek to be one in the flesh, shall not the 
Christian and Christ crave for that oneness with one another? The 
memory of the Christ who lived twenty centuries ago, the recalling of 
His mercy and miracles through memory, the correspondence with Him by 
reading the Scriptures--all these are satisfying, but they do not 
satisfy love. There must be, on the level of grace, something unitive 
with divine love. Every heart seeks a happiness outside it, and since 
perfect love is God, then the heart of man and the heart of Christ 
must, in some way, fuse. In human friendship the other person is loved 
as another self, or the other half of one's soul. Divine friendship 
must have its mutual "indwelling": "He who dwells in love dwells in God 
and God in him" (I John 4:17). This aspiration of the soul for its 
ecstasy is fulfilled in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.


The Eucharist: Sacrifice and Sacrament


The Sacrament of the Eucharist has two sides: it is both a sacrifice 
and a sacrament. Inasmuch as biological life is nothing but a 
reflection, a dim echo, and a shadow of the divine life, one can find 
analogies in the natural order for the beauties of the divine. Does not 
nature itself have a double aspect: a sacrifice and a sacrament? The 
vegetables which are served at table, the meat which is presented on 
the platter, are the natural sacraments of the body of man. By them he 
lives. If they were endowed with speech, they would say: "Unless you 
have communion with me, you will not live."

But if one inquires as to how the lower creation of chemicals, 
vegetables or meats came to be the sacrament or the communion of man, 
one is immediately introduced to the idea of sacrifice. Did not the 
vegetables have to be pulled up by their roots from the earth, 
submitted to the law of death, and then pass through the ordeal of fire 
before they could become the sacrament of physical life, or have 
communion with the body? Was not the meat on the platter once a living 
thing, and was it not submitted to the knife, its blood shed on the 
soil of a natural Gethsemane and Calvary before it was fit to be 
presented to man?

Nature, therefore, suggests that a sacrifice must precede a sacrament; 
death is the prelude to a communion. In some way, unless the thing 
dies, it does not begin to live in a higher kingdom. To have, for 
example, a communion service without a sacrifice would be, in the 
natural order, like eating our vegetables uncooked, and our meat in the 
raw. When we come face to face with the realities of life, we see that 
we live by what we slay. Elevating this to the supernatural order, we 
still live by what we slay. It was our sins that slew Christ on 
Calvary, and yet by the power of God risen from the dead and reigning 
gloriously in Heaven, He now becomes our life and has communion with us 
and we with Him. In the divine order, there must be the Sacrifice or 
the Consecration of the Mass before there can be the sacrament or the 
Communion of the soul and God.


Relation of Baptism and the Eucharist

Baptism is the initiation to the Christian life, and corresponds in the 
biological order to the beginning of life. But the birth to Divine Life 
comes only through a death; that is to say, an immersion under water 
which mystically symbolizes dying and being buried with Christ. The 
Eucharist is a sacrifice; it also incorporates us to the Death of 
Christ. Baptism, however, is a more passive representation of that 
death, particularly in an infant, where the will of the infant does not 
submit to it, except through the sponsors. The Eucharist is a much more 
active representation of the death of Christ because the Mass is an 
unbloody presentation of the sacrificial death of Christ outside the 
walls of Jerusalem.

The Fathers of the Church were constantly struck by the relationship 
between Baptism and the Eucharist; the blood and the water which flowed 
from the side of Christ on the Cross had deep significance. Water was 
the symbol of our regeneration and, therefore, betokened Baptism; 
blood, the price of our Redemption, was the sign of the Eucharist.

This brings up the question, if there is a relationship to the death of 
Christ in both sacraments, what is the difference between them? One of 
the differences is that in Baptism and the other sacraments, except the 
Eucharist, we are united to Christ simply by a participation of His 
grace, but in the Eucharist, Christ exists substantially, and is really 
and truly present--Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. In the Eucharist, 
man realizes more fully his incorporation to the Death and Resurrection 
of Christ than in Baptism. In the physical order, birth always gives 
resemblance to parents; but when a mother nourishes her child, there is 
a new bond established between the child and the mother. So in Baptism, 
there is a resemblance to the Divine nature created, inasmuch as we are 
made "other Christs"; but in the Eucharist, we receive the very 
substance of Christ Himself. Because of the close relationship between 
the two sacraments, the Council of Mayence in 1549 directed pastors to 
administer Baptism in the morning during the course of the Mass, or at 
least as soon after Mass as possible.

There is somewhat the same relationship existing between Baptism and 
the Eucharist, as there is between faith and charity or perfect love. 
Baptism is the sacrament of faith, because it is the foundation of the 
spiritual life. The Eucharist is the sacrament of charity or love 
because it is the re-enactment of the perfect act of love of Christ; 
namely, His death on the Cross and the giving of Himself to us in Holy 
Communion.


The Old Testament and the Eucharist

It would take pages to reveal the prefigurement of the Sacrament of the 
Eucharist in the Old Testament. Melchisedech offering bread and wine 
was a figure of Christ Himself, Who chose bread and wine the night of 
the Last Supper as the elements for both the sacrifice and the 
sacrament. The manna that fell in the desert was also a symbol of the 
Eucharist, which Our Blessed Lord said was Himself: "I myself am the 
living bread that has come down from heaven" (John 5:51). St. Paul, 
picking up the analogy, said that what the Jews ate in the desert was a 
figure of our spiritual food: "They all ate the same prophetic food.... 
It is we that were foreshadowed in these events (I Corinth. 10:3, 6).

The blood of the paschal lamb, sprinkled on doorposts to preserve the 
Jews from destruction, was a sign not yet of a reality, but a figure of 
the blood of Christ sprinkled on our souls, which would save us from 
evil. Because the paschal lamb was a figure of Christ, it was on the 
feast of the Passover that Our Blessed Lord gave to His Church the 
Eucharist which He had promised over a year before at Capharnaum.


The Eucharist as a Sacrifice, or the Mass

The Mass has three important parts: the Offertory, the Consecration, 
and the Communion. In the order of human love, these correspond to 
engagement, the marriage ceremony, and the consummation of the mar-
riage. When a man becomes engaged to a woman, he generally brings her 
the gift of a precious ring; it is not of tin or straw, because these 
represent no sacrifice. Regardless of how much he might pay for the 
ring, he would still tear off the price tag, in order that his beloved 
might never establish any correspondence between the price of the gift 
and his love. No matter how much he gave her, the gift to him would 
seem inadequate. The ring is round in order to express the eternity of 
his love which has neither beginning nor end; it is precious, because 
it is a symbol of the total readiness to give his whole personality to 
the beloved.

The Mass, too, has an engagement which corresponds to the Offertory of 
the Mass, in which the faithful bring gifts of bread and wine, or its 
equivalent, that which buys bread and wine. As the ring is a symbol of 
the lover offering himself to the beloved, so too, the bread and wine 
are the symbols of a person offering himself to Christ. This is 
apparent in several ways: first, since bread and wine have 
traditionally nourished man and given him life, in bringing that which 
was the substance of his life, he is equivalently giving himself. 
Second, the readiness to sacrifice himself for the beloved is revealed 
in the bread and wine; no two substances have to undergo more to become 
what they are than do wheat and grapes. One passes through the 
Gethsemane of a mill, the other through the Calvary of the winepress 
before they can be presented to the Beloved on the altar. In the 
Offertory, therefore, under the appearance of bread and wine, the 
faithful are offering themselves to Christ.

After the engagement comes the marriage ceremony in which the lover 
sacrifices himself for the beloved, and the beloved surrenders 
devotedly to the lover. The groom practically says, "My greatest 
freedom is to be your slave. I give up my individuality in order to 
serve you." The joining of hands in the marriage ceremony is a symbol 
of the transfer of self to another self: "I am yours and you are mine. 
I want to die to myself, in order to live in you, my beloved. I cannot 
live unto you, unless I give up myself. So I say to you, 'This is My 
Body; this is My Blood'."

In the Mass, the faithful are already present on the altar under the 
appearance of bread and wine. At the moment of the Consecration of the 
Mass, when the priest as Christ pronounces the words "This is My Body" 
and "This is My Blood," the substance of the bread becomes the 
substance of the body of Christ, and the substance of the wine becomes 
the substance of the blood of Christ. At that moment, the faithful are 
saying in a secondary sense with the priest: "This is my body; this is 
my blood. Take it! I no longer want it for myself. The very substance 
of my being, my intellect, and my will--change! Transubstantiate!--so 
that my ego is lost in Thee, so that my intellect is one with Thy 
Truth, and my will is one with Thy desires! I care not if the species 
or appearances of my life remain; that is to say, my duties, my 
avocation, my appointments in time and space. But what I am 
substantially, I give to Thee."

In the human order, after the engagement and the marriage is the 
consummation of the marriage. All love craves unity. Correspondence by 
letter, or by speech, cannot satisfy that instinctive yearning of two 
hearts to be lost in one another. There must, therefore, come some 
great ecstatic moment in which love becomes too deep for words; this is 
the communion of body and blood with body and blood in the oneness 
which lasts not long, but is a foretaste of Heaven.

The marital act is nothing but a fragile and shadowy image of Communion 
in which, after having offered ourselves under the appearance of bread 
and wine and having died to our lower self, we now begin to enjoy that 
ecstatic union with Christ in Holy Communion--a oneness which is, in 
the language of Thompson, "a passionless passion, a wild tranquility." 
This is the moment when the hungry heart communes with the Bread of 
Life; this is the rapture in which is fulfilled that "love we fall just 
short of in all love," and that rapture that leaves all other raptures 
pain.

The Sacrifice of the Mass may be presented under another analogy. 
Picture a house which had two large windows on opposite sides. One 
window looks down into a valley, the other to a towering mountain. The 
owner could gaze on both and somehow see that they were related: the 
valley is the mountain humbled; the mountain is the valley exalted.

The Sacrifice of the Mass is something like that. Every church, in a 
way, looks down on a valley, but the valley of death and humiliation in 
which we see a cross. But it also looks up to a mountain, an eternal 
mountain, the mountain of heaven where Christ reigns gloriously. As the 
valley and the mountain are related as humiliation and exaltation, so 
the Sacrifice of the Mass is related to Calvary in the valley, and to 
Christ in heaven and the eternal hills.

All three, Calvary, the Mass, and the glorified Christ in heaven are 
different levels of the great eternal act of love. The Christ Who 
appeared in heaven as the lamb slain from the beginning of the world, 
at a certain moment in time, came to this earth and offered His Life in 
Redemption for the sins of men. Then He ascended into heaven where that 
same eternal act of love continues, as He intercedes for humanity, 
showing the scars of His Love to His heavenly Father. True, agony and 
crucifixion are passing things, but the obedience and the love which 
inspired them are not. In the Father's eyes, the Son-made-Man loves 
always unto death. The patriot who regretted that he had only one life 
to give to his country, would have loved to have made his sacrifice 
eternal. Being man, he could not do it. But Christ, being God and man, 
could.

The Mass, therefore, looks backward and forward. Because we live in 
time and can use only earthly symbols, we see successively that which 
is but one eternal movement of love. If a motion picture reel were 
endowed with consciousness, it would see and understand the story at 
once; but we do not grasp it until we see it unfolded upon the screen. 
So it is with the love by which Christ prepared for His coming in the 
Old Testament, offered Himself on Calvary, and now re-presents it in 
Sacrifice in the Mass. The Mass, therefore, is not another immolation 
but a new presentation of the eternal Victim and its application to us. 
To assist at Mass is the same as to assist at Calvary. But there are 
differences.

On the Cross, Our Lord offered Himself for all mankind; in the Mass we 
make application of that death to ourselves, and unite our sacrifice 
with His. The disadvantage of not having lived at the time of Christ is 
nullified by the Mass. On the Cross, He potentially redeemed all 
humanity; in the Mass we actualize that Redemption. Calvary happened at 
a definite moment in time and on a particular hill in space. The Mass 
temporalizes and spatializes that eternal act of love.

The Sacrifice of Calvary was offered up in a bloody manner by the 
separation of His blood from His body. In the Mass, this death is 
mystically and sacramentally presented in an unbloody manner, by the 
separate consecration of bread and wine. The two are not consecrated 
together by such words as "This is My Body and My Blood"; rather, 
following the words of Our Lord: "This is My Body" is said over the 
bread; then, "This is My Blood" is said over the wine. The separate 
consecration is a kind of mystical sword dividing body and blood, which 
is the way Our Lord died on Calvary.

Suppose there was an eternal broadcasting station that sent out eternal 
waves of wisdom and enlightenment. People who lived in different ages 
would tune in to that wisdom, assimilate it, and apply it to 
themselves. Christ's eternal act of love is something to which we tune 
in, as we appear in successive ages of history through the Mass. The 
Mass, therefore, borrows its reality and its efficacy from Calvary and 
has no meaning apart from it. He who assists at Mass lifts the Cross of 
Christ out of the soil of Calvary and plants it in the center of his 
own heart.

This is the only perfect act of love, sacrifice, thanksgiving, and 
obedience which we can ever pay to God; namely, that which is offered 
by His Divine Son Incarnate. Of and by ourselves, we cannot touch the 
ceiling because we are not tall enough. Of and by ourselves, we cannot 
touch God. We need a Mediator, someone who is both God and Man, Who is 
Christ. No human prayer, no human act of self-denial, no human 
sacrifice is sufficient to pierce Heaven. It is only the Sacrifice of 
the Cross that can do so, and this is done in the Mass. As we offer it, 
we hang, as it were, onto His robes, we tug at His feet at the 
Ascension, we cling to His pierced hands in offering Himself to the 
Heavenly Father. Being hidden in Him, our prayers and sacrifices have 
His value. In the Mass we are once more at Calvary, rubbing shoulders 
with Mary Magdalen and John, while mournfully looking over our 
shoulders at executioners who still shake dice for the garments of the 
Lord.

The priest who offers the Sacrifice merely lends to Christ his voice 
and his fingers. It is Christ Who is the Priest; it is Christ Who is 
the Victim. In all pagan sacrifices and in the Jewish sacrifices, the 
victim was always separate from the priest. It might have been a goat, 
a lamb, or a bullock. But when Christ came, He the Priest offered 
Himself as the Victim. In the Mass, it is Christ Who still offers 
Himself and Who is the Victim to Whom we become united. The altar, 
therefore, is not related to the congregation as the stage to an 
audience in the theatre. The communion rail is not the same as 
footlights, which divide the drama from the onlooker. All the members 
of the Church have a kind of priesthood, inasmuch as they offer up with 
the Eternal Priest this eternal act of love. The laity participate in 
the life and power of Christ, for "Thou hast made us a royal race of 
priests to serve God" (Apoc. 5:10).

The expression, sometimes used by Catholics "to hear Mass," is an 
indication of how little is understood of their active participation, 
not only with Christ, but also with all of the saints and members of 
the Church until the end of time. This corporate action of the Church 
is indicated in certain prayers of the Mass. For example, immediately 
before the Consecration, God is asked to receive the offering which "we 
Thy servants and Thy whole household make unto Thee"; and after the 
Consecration the faithful again say, "We Thy servants, as also Thy holy 
people, do offer unto Thy most excellent majesty of Thine own gifts 
bestowed on us." All participate, but the closer we are to the mystery, 
the more we become one with Christ.

No man can ever come to the real fullness of his personality by 
reflection or contemplation; he has to act it out. That is why through 
all ages man laid his hand on the best of the herd and destroyed it in 
order to indicate the offering and surrender of himself. By laying his 
hands on the animal, he identified himself with it. Then he consumed 
it, in order to gain some identification with the one to whom it was 
offered. In the Mass, all the ancient dim foreshadowings of the supreme 
sacrifice are fulfilled. Man immolates himself with Christ, bidding Him 
to take his body and his blood. Through this destruction of the ego, 
there is a void and an emptiness created, which makes it possible for 
Divinity to fill up the vacuum and to make the offerer holy. Man dies 
to the past, in order that he may live in the future. He chooses to be 
united with his Divine King in some form of death, that he may share in 
His Resurrection and glory. Thus dying he lives; chastened he is not 
killed; sorrowful he always rejoices; giving up time, he finds 
eternity. Nothingness is exchanged for everything. Poverty turns into 
riches, and having nothing, he begins to possess all things.


The Eucharist as a Sacrament, or Holy Communion

Running through the universe is the law that nothing lives unless it 
consumes. Plant life, obedient to this law, goes down to the earth, 
eats and drinks from it its waters, phosphates, and carbonates, and 
circulates them through its organism. The animal, because endowed with 
a higher life than that of the plant, is in still greater need of 
nourishment. It needs not only the nourishment of the mineral order, 
the air, the sunlight and the like, but also the nourishment of plant 
life. The instinct of the animal is to seek food. The animal roaming in 
the field, the fish swimming in the water, the eagle soaring in the 
air, all are in search of daily bread, for without knowing it, they 
acknowledge that life is impossible without nourishment, that life 
grows only by life, and that the joy of living comes from communion 
with another kind of life.

Because men, as well as animals, have bodies, they are under the neces-
sity of feeding these bodies. The food for which they clamor is more 
delicate because the human body is more delicate. The body is not 
content, as the plant, to take its food from the ground, raw, uncooked, 
and unseasoned. It seeks the refinement that comes with a higher 
creature but in doing so, acknowledges the law that every living thing 
must nourish itself.

Man has a soul, as well as a body. The spiritual part of him demands a 
food which is above the material and the physical and the biological. 
Some would call a halt to the law, that all life must nourish itself, 
and assert that the soul can find its satisfying food here below 
without any appeal to a higher life. But the broken minds and tortured 
hearts testify to the fact that nothing can satisfy the soul hunger of 
man, except a nourishment suited to his soul and its aspirations for 
the perfect. A canary does not consume the same kind of food as a boa 
constrictor, because its nature is different. Man's soul being 
spiritual demands a spiritual food. In the order of grace, this divine 
food is the Eucharist, or the communion of man with Christ and Christ 
with man.

This is not something contrary to the natural law, for if the chemical 
could speak, it would say to the plant: "Unless you eat me, you shall 
not have life in you." If the plant could speak, it would say to the 
animal: "Unless you eat me, you shall not have life in you." If the 
animal, plant, and air could speak, they would say to man: "Unless you 
eat me, you shall not have life in you." With the same logic, but 
speaking from above and now below, because the soul is spiritual, Our 
Blessed Lord actually says to the soul: "Except you eat the Flesh of 
the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you." 
The law of transformation works consistently through nature and grace. 
The lower transforms itself into the higher, the plant transforms 
itself into the animal when taken as food; man is transformed by grace 
into Christ when he takes Christ into his soul, for it is a quality of 
love to transform itself into the object that is loved.

Why should we be surprised that He gives Himself to us as food? After 
all, if He furnishes food for the birds and the beasts in the natural 
order, why should He not furnish it for man in the supernatural order? 
If the plant nourishes its seed before it is ripe, and if the bird 
brings food to its young before they can fly, shall we deny to Him that 
which we allow to a creature? To every infant at the breast, the mother 
virtually says: "Take, eat and drink; this is my body and blood." The 
mother would be untrue to nature if she said, "This represents my 
body," knowing that it is her body. So too, the Lord would be untrue to 
fact if He said: "This is not My Body and Blood. It is only a 
representation or a symbol of it." The analogy with the mother, 
however, breaks completely down, because here a nourishment is on the 
same level, that of the human with the human. But in the Eucharist, the 
nourishment is on two different levels: The divine and the human.


Union with the Life of Christ

If Christianity were only the memory of someone who lived over nineteen 
hundred years ago, it would not be worth preserving. If He Who came to 
this earth is not God, as well as Man, then we are dealing merely with 
the fallible and the human. But even granting that He is God in the 
flesh, how do we contact Him? Certainly, not by reading books about 
Him, although they are edifying and instructive; obviously not by 
singing hymns, though these do help us emotionally. The human heart 
craves contact with the beloved. If we can have contact with nature 
through the food we eat; if lower creation winds up somehow inside of 
my body, why should not means be provided in order that there might be 
communion of the soul? This is one of the first effects of Holy 
Communion: we receive from Christ what we gave to Him. We gave to him 
our human nature--when, in the name of all humanity, Mary gave Him 
manhood, like unto us in all things save sin. He divinized that human 
nature because it was made substantially one with His Divine Person. In 
Communion, He gives it back to us, purified, regenerated, ennobled, a 
promise and a pledge of what our nature is to be on the Last Day in the 
resurrection of the just. Our Blessed Lord made it so clear, it is 
almost difficult to understand how one misses it:


"As I live because of the Father, the Living Father who has sent me, so 
he who eats me will live, in his turn, because of me." (John 6:58)


"...That they may all be one; that they too may be one in us, as thou 
Father, art in me, and I in thee; so that the world may come to believe 
that it is thou who has sent me. And I have given them the privilege 
which thou gavest to me, that they should all be one as we are one." 
(John 17:21, 22)

In the natural order, a living thing assimilates its food and 
incorporates it into its own substance. In the Eucharist, the roles are 
reversed. The Eucharist is food for our soul, but the power of 
assimilation here belongs to Christ, and it is He Who, feeding us, 
unites us and incorporates us with His life. It is not Christ Who is 
changed into us, as is the food we eat; it is we who are incorporated 
in Him. With John the Baptist we say: "He must become more and more; I 
must become less and less."

The moment of communion is that special intimacy reserved to real 
lovers. There are three intimacies in life: hearing, speaking, and 
touching. Our first contact with anyone who loves us is to hear his 
voice, our second is to see him, the third--and this is reserved only 
for intimates--is the privilege of touch. We hear of Christ in the 
Scriptures, we see Him by the eyes of faith, but we touch Him in the 
Eucharist. He only asks that we should purge our consciences of sin and 
come to Him, ready to receive what He wants to give us for He knows 
that we need Him.


Second Effect: Union with the Death of Christ

Holy Communion is incorporation not only to the life of Christ, but 
also to His death. This second aspect is sometimes forgotten. St. Paul 
mentions it: "So it is the Lord's death that you are heralding, 
whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, until he comes" (I 
Corinth. 11:26). In another place, St. Paul tells us that we are to 
fill up in our own body that which is wanting to the Passion of Christ. 
To save our souls, the life of Christ must be duplicated in our own 
life. What He did in His birth, at Calvary, in His Resurrection, and 
Ascension, we must do. But we cannot enter into those heavenly 
blessings except through the touch of the Cross, namely, through 
penance, mortification, and self-denial, and a death to our egotism.

Hence, the Church insists that we be in the state of grace in order to 
receive Our Lord in the Eucharist. As a corpse cannot receive 
nourishment, so neither may one without the divine life in his soul 
receive the divine nourishment. In addition to this, the Church demands 
a certain amount of fasting before Communion. This is to remind us that 
the Eucharist is not only a sacrament of life, but also the sacrament 
of mortification. Only when we are stamped with the sign of the Cross 
will we be stamped with the glory of His Resurrection. From the moment 
of His death on Calvary until the end of time when He comes in glory, 
the dying Christ is continually at work representing His death on the 
altar, and urging us to represent it in our detachment from the seven 
pallbearers of the soul--the seven capital sins.

We are the wax and He is the seal. He wants to see something of His 
victimhood in us; and it is up to every Christian, therefore, to lead a 
dying life: to be more humble when we are thwarted, more patient when 
things go wrong, dying a little to the world and to our selfishness, 
being ever happy to "herald His death in our body until He comes."


Third Effect: Communion with the Mystical Body of Christ

No one was ever so wrong as the professor who said: "Religion is what a 
man does with his solitariness." If man is solitary, he is like a cell 
that is isolated from the body. The body can live without an individual 
cell, but the cell cannot live without the body. No man can live the 
divine life without some incorporation either in fact, or in desire, 
with the Mystical Body of Christ which is the Church. But the Mystical 
Body of Christ can live without an individual member. Our Blessed Lord 
described our union with Himself the night He gave the Eucharist, as 
that of the "vine and the branches." St. Paul speaks of us, too, as 
being many and yet one because we all eat the one bread. There is no 
autonomic individualism in the Scriptures or in humanity. The whole 
historical existence is transformed; that is to say, both humanity and 
the visible creation. The first was transformed through the 
Incarnation; the second, through the sacraments and its symbols which 
animate personality.

As there is a lymph which passes through the human body, each cell 
drinking of that life; so too, the Eucharist is the Divine lymph of the 
Mystical Body of Christ on which every member feeds. The members of the 
Church are not little spiritual islands each cherishing its own 
isolation. What blood plasma is to the physical body, the Eucharist is 
to the Mystical Body--the bond of its unity: "The one bread makes us 
one body, though we are many in number" (I Corinth. 10:17).


The Tabernacle

The Blessed Sacrament is present in the Tabernacle day and night. There 
Christ dwells, body, blood, soul, and divinity, under the sacramental 
appearances of bread. How do we know it? Because Christ told us so! Is 
there any other fundamental evidence? None other than that; but is 
there any other reason in the world as strong as the word of God 
Himself? Hence, the Eucharist is above all other sacraments--it is the 
sacrament of faith.

The faithful believe that Christ is as really and truly present sacra-
mentally in the Tabernacle as you are present while you read this book. 
It is this that makes the Church different from any other building. Not 
a pulpit, not an organ, not a choir, but Christ is the center. As the 
tabernacle was the center of worship in the Old Testament, so the 
tabernacle and the altar are the center of worship in the New 
Testament. Visitors to the Church say they "feel the difference," 
though they know nothing about the Eucharist, as they might feel heat 
and know not the nature of fire. But to the faithful members of 
Christ's Mystical Body, here is Christ! Before His Eucharistic 
presence, the downcast eyes of sin find wealth of purging tears; here 
the heart wounded by betraying loves breaks its silence to the 
invitation of the Living Savior: "Child, give Me thy heart." Here the 
knee is humbled in genuflection and the heart exalted in adoration; 
here priests make their "Holy Hour" in answer to the invitation of 
their Lord in the Garden. Here is the trysting place of love, for this 
is the "bread which is come down from heaven" (John 6:41-2) and will 
remain with us "unto the consummation of the world" (Matt. 28:20). Here 
Emmaus lives again as His disciples recognize Him in the breaking of 
the bread.



IV. THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE

The Sacrament of Penance is for spiritual wounds received after 
Baptism. Original sin was washed from the infant in Baptism, and in the 
case of the adult, personal sins as well. But the Lord is "practical." 
He knows that the white robe given in Baptism is not always kept 
immaculate; that the "just man falleth seven times a day," and that the 
offenses against us should be forgiven "seventy times seven." 
Therefore, in His mercy, He instituted a sacrament which is a tribunal 
of mercy for spiritual healing.

There have been those who say that there is no difference between the 
Sacrament of Penance and psychoanalysis because, in both, the human 
mind, when disturbed, seeks to throw off its burden. True it is that as 
the hand will go to the eye to provide relief from a speck, so the 
tongue will come to the aid of the heart to secure relief. As 
Shakespeare put it: "My tongue will tell the anger of my heart; Or else 
my heart, concealing it, will break." We are not here criticizing the 
psychoanalytic method, but only the error of saying that there is no 
difference between it and the Sacrament of Penance. But the differences 
between psychoanalysis and confession are enormous.


Contrast of Psychoanalysis and Confession

Psychoanalysis is the avowal of an attitude of mind; confession is an 
avowal of guilt. The first comes from the subconsciousness, the other 
from conscience. A person can be proud of his state of mind; some are 
proud of being atheists, or immoral, or gangsters. Many a patient will 
tell a psychiatrist, "Have you ever heard a case like mine, Doctor?" On 
the contrary, no one is ever proud of his guilt. Even in isolation, the 
sinner is ashamed. It takes no courage to admit that one is "mental" 
but guiltless; but it takes a tremendous amount of heroism, of which 
few are capable, to take the burden of one's own guilt to Calvary and 
lay one's hands at the feet of the Crucified and say: "I am responsible 
for this."

Psychoanalysis proceeds according to a theory, and not always one 
theory. Confession, however, is based upon conformity or non-conformity 
to the absolute standard of the law of God. Psychoanalysis does not 
agree on a particular theory by which a mental state is to be judged. 
There are three main theories: one attributes mental disturbances to 
sex (Freud); another to an inferiority complex (Adler); and the third 
to a drive toward security (Jung). The analyst, because he is guided by 
a theory, is never required to have any moral fitness for his task; his 
personal ethical right to receive confidences is never raised. He may 
be living with his sixth wife, and yet advise people how to be happy in 
marriage.

But in confession, it is different. The deliverances of the penitent 
are always on the moral plane--not on the psychological. The penitent 
knows that he is before a judgment, not a theory, and that the 
confessor who hears his sins stands in the place of God. Because the 
priest is the mediator between God and man, the Church always asks that 
the priest who absolves the penitent be himself in the state of grace; 
that is to say, a participant in divine life. The avowal of guilt, 
therefore, on the part of the penitent is not subject to the individual 
whims, theories, idiosyncrasies, and kinks of the one who hears it, but 
to the divine law, and to the order and the moral standards of Christ 
Who taught that one must be holy to make holy.

A third difference is that in psychoanalysis, there is the probing by 
an alien or outside mind; in confession, it is the penitent himself who 
is his own prosecuting attorney and even his own judge. In analysis, 
there is often a seeking out of attitudes to bolster up a theory; but 
in a spontaneous confession, the penitent analyzes his own faults and 
confesses them without having them wander and riot in "free 
association" and then be submitted to "private interpretation of the 
subconscious" which took the place of private interpretation of the 
Bible. Man naturally accords pardon to others who have done injury by a 
simple avowal of faults, without someone else dragging them out. One 
indispensable condition of receiving pardon in the sacrament is this 
open avowal of guilt, such as the prodigal son made when he returned 
again to the father's house.

Another difference is that what is told in the confessional is 
absolutely secret, and may never be divulged, or made part of a book, 
or turned into a case history, such as is often done with the material 
that is brought out in a psychoanalytic examination. The offenses man 
commits against God do not belong to any man; hence, he may not make 
use of them. The material of confession belongs to God, and sins may 
never be revealed by the confessor until God does so on the Day of 
Judgment. The confessor's ears are God's ears, and his tongue may never 
speak what God has heard through his ears.

Another difference is in the attitude that a person assumes in confes-
sion and psychoanalysis. In one instance, the mentally disturbed person 
is on a couch; in confession, he is on his knees. There is a passivity 
about the admission of a mental state on a couch; but there is a humble 
activity on the part of one who admits moral guilt while on his knees. 
In the psychological examination, there is never any such thing as 
contrition or satisfaction. In confession, sorrow and the making up for 
our sins are integral parts of the sacrament. When one sees a string of 
confessional boxes in a large church, with feet protruding from under 
the curtains like wiggling worms, one realizes that man has reduced 
himself almost to the humble state of the worm, in order that he might 
rise again, restored to the glorious friendship of the Christ Who died 
for him.

A final and important difference between psychoanalysis and confession 
is this: in psychoanalysis, the admission of mental states comes from 
ourselves; in confession, the impetus or the desire to confess our sins 
is from the Holy Spirit. The night of the Last Supper, Our Blessed Lord 
said that He would send His Spirit to convict the world of sin (John 
16:8). It is only through the Spirit of Christ that we know we are 
sinners, as we see our lives in relationship to the Cross. The Holy 
Spirit summons the soul to find its way back to the shelter of the 
Father's arms. When a person is in sin, he is in exile from home, a 
dweller in a foreign land who looks forward to the joy of return. It is 
an urge to share in the joy of the Good Shepherd as he carries back the 
lost sheep and the straying lamb to the sheepfold of the Church.

The reason this summons must come from God is that we are captives of 
sin. Just as a prisoner cannot release himself from the chafing bars or 
chains, so neither can the sinner without the power of the Spirit. To 
God alone belongs the initiative in this sacrament. It is His voice 
which calls us to repentance. We may make our confessions because our 
conscience urges us to do so, but the voice that speaks to us is the 
voice of the Holy Spirit telling us of God's mercy and love and 
righteousness. Under the impetus of the Holy Spirit, the soul feels 
like Lazarus risen from the dead.


Two Basic Requirements for the Sacrament

In order that there might be a Sacrament of Penance, two things are 
required, both of which are, from a human point of view, almost 
impossible to find. First, one must create the penitent and, secondly, 
one must create a confessor. To create a penitent, one must take a man 
in his pride, enveloped in a glacial silence, which refuses to unburden 
its guilt, and say to him: "Thou shalt come to a man and kneel before 
him--a man who is perhaps no better than you are--and you shall tell 
him what you hide from yourself and your children. You shall tell him 
that which makes you blush; and you shall do all of this on your 
knees."

However difficult it may be to create a penitent who will confess 
everything with a firm purpose of amendment, it is even more difficult 
to create the confessor. Where find one empowered by God with authority 
to forgive sins? How train the human heart to heal the wounds of 
others, and then seal his lips forever that what he has learned as 
God's representative be never revealed to men?

Only God could bring these two creations together, for outside of His 
power and mercy, we would say: "Humanity is too proud, you will never 
have penitents"; "Humanity is too indiscreet, you will never have con-
fessors." And yet the sacrament exists. There are penitents because 
there are confessors, and there are penitents and confessors because 
Christ is God.


The Sacrament Deals with Sins

When a baby is born, it is generally healthy; but as time goes on, it 
becomes subject to diseases and organic troubles which oppress and tor-
ment life. In the spiritual order, too, though the soul is made clean 
and free from all sin by Baptism, it nevertheless contracts stains and 
spiritual diseases during life. These are known as sins. If the sin is 
serious enough to rupture the divine life within, then it is called 
"mortal" because it brings death to the life of Christ in the soul. If 
the wrong done does not destroy the divine life, but only injures it, 
it is called "venial."

A serious sin always produces in the soul a three-fold effect. The 
first is self-estrangement. A sinner feels in his inmost being like a 
battlefield where a civil war rages. He no longer is a unit but a 
duality in which two forces within him struggle for mastery.

Serious sin estranges the sinner from his fellow man, because a man who 
is not at peace with himself will not be at peace with his neighbor. 
World wars are nothing but the projection, into great areas of the 
earth's surface, of the psychic wars waging inside of muddled souls. If 
there were no battles going on inside of hearts, there would be no 
battlefields in the world. It was after Cain's murder of Abel that he 
asked the anti-social question, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

The most serious effect of sin is not alienation from self and from 
fellow man; it is the estrangement from God. Inasmuch as grace is the 
divine life within the soul, it follows that a serious sin is the 
destruction of that divine life. That is why the "Epistle to the 
Hebrews" asks: "Would they crucify the Son of God a second time, hold 
Him up to mockery a second time, for their own ends?" (Heb. 6:6) Sin, 
therefore, is a second death. The merits we gained are lost; but those 
merits can be regained, thanks to the mercy of God, in the Sacrament of 
Penance.


Instituted by Christ

The Sacrament of Penance was instituted by Christ in the form of a 
judgment, for the remission, through sacramental absolution, of sins 
committed after Baptism and granted to a contrite person confessing his 
sins.

All through the Old Testament there was a preparation for this 
sacrament, inasmuch as God strove to induce men to acknowledge their 
sins before Him. To elicit a confession, God said to Adam: "Hast thou 
eaten of the tree?" God said to the first murderer: "Where is thy 
brother?" In Mosaic legislation, a sinner brought a sin offering, which 
was burned in a public place, to show that the sinner was not afraid to 
admit his guilt. The prophet, Nathan, heard David's confession after 
his sin with Bethsabee, and assigned to him a penance. John the Baptist 
heard the confession of those who came to hear him preach. These were 
only types and figures of the sacrament that was to come, because 
forgiveness became possible only through the merits of Our Lord's 
Passion.

No one questions the fact that Our Blessed Lord had the power to 
forgive sins. The Gospels record the miraculous cure of the paralytic 
at Capharnaum. Our Lord first told the paralytic that his sins were 
forgiven him, whereupon those round about laughed at Him. In response 
the Savior told them that it was just as easy to cure the man as it was 
to forgive his sins; so He cured the paralytic: "To convince you that 
the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins while He is on earth" 
(Mark 2:10).

Our Blessed Lord was saying that God in the form of Man had the power 
to forgive sins; that is to say, through the instrumentality of the 
human nature, which He received from Mary, He was forgiving sins. Here 
is an anticipation of the fact that it is through humanity that He will 
continue to forgive sins; i.e., through those who are endowed with 
sacramental power to do so. Man cannot