FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46  
47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   >>   >|  
h of His flesh;" "for as many of you," says the Apostle, "as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ."(40) And as the Holy Ghost is inseparable from Christ, our bodies are made the temples of the Spirit of God and our souls His Sanctuary. "Christ loved the Church and delivered Himself up for it, that He might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water, in the word of life; that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish."(41) In Confirmation we receive new graces and new strength to battle against the temptations of life. In the Eucharist we are fed with the living Bread which cometh down from Heaven. In Penance are washed away the stains we have contracted after Baptism. Are we called to the Sacred Ministry, or to the married state, we find in the Sacraments of Orders and Matrimony ample graces corresponding with the condition of life which we have embraced. And our last illness is consoled by Extreme Unction, wherein we receive the Divine succor necessary to fortify and purify us before departing from this world. In a word, the Church, like a watchful mother, accompanies us from the cradle to the grave, supplying us at each step with the medicine of life and immortality. As the Church offers to her children the strongest motives and the most powerful means for attaining to sanctity of life, so does she reap among them the most abundant fruits of holiness. In every age and country she is the fruitful mother of saints. Our Ecclesiastical calendar is not confined to the names of the twelve Apostles. It is emblazoned with the lists of heroic Martyrs who "were stoned, and cut asunder, and put to death by the sword;"(42) of innumerable Confessors and Hermits who left all things and followed Christ; of spotless virgins who preserved their chastity for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake. Every day in the year is consecrated in our Martyrology to a large number of Saints. And in our own times, in every quarter of the globe and in every department of life, the Church continues to raise up Saints worthy of the primitive days of Christianity. If we seek for _Apostles_, we find them conspicuously among the Bishops of Germany, who are now displaying in prison and in exile a serene heroism worthy of Peter and Paul. Every year records the tortures of Catholic missioners who die _Martyrs_ to the Faith in C
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46  
47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Church

 

Christ

 
Saints
 

mother

 

Apostles

 

graces

 

worthy

 

Heaven

 

Martyrs

 

receive


Himself
 

confined

 

calendar

 

twelve

 

Ecclesiastical

 

saints

 

records

 

country

 

fruitful

 

stoned


heroic

 

emblazoned

 

abundant

 

powerful

 

attaining

 

motives

 

strongest

 

offers

 

children

 
sanctity

Catholic

 
asunder
 

fruits

 

holiness

 

missioners

 

tortures

 

consecrated

 

Martyrology

 

number

 

conspicuously


Bishops

 

department

 

continues

 

Christianity

 

quarter

 

Kingdom

 

Germany

 
Hermits
 

serene

 

heroism