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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
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