Showing posts with label Blessing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blessing. Show all posts

Monday, April 2, 2007

The Sign of the Cross (first part)

The Sign of the Cross

The modern world, that world that calls itself Christian and to which without a doubt belong all your friends, could be compared to a ship that has suffered shipwreck, many damages, and is about to perish. The Church, compared also to a Ship, has always been battered by strong tempests, which have opened huge gaps through which anti-Christian doctrines, uses, practices and tendencies have long been introduced. I give an urgent warning then, not to the Ship, which is imperishable, but to Its passengers, who are not. What has happened? I do not speak of the world that is openly pagan for its shipwreck is already accomplished. I speak about the world that still pretends to be Christian. This world has thrown into the sea everything, or almost everything!

Where’s common prayer in families? Sunk in the sea –Pious readings, meditation? Sunk in the sea –Graces and blessings during meals? Sunk in the sea –Habitual attendance at Holy Mass, the scapular, the Rosary? Sunk in the sea –Where’s the regular worthy reception of the Sacraments, the laws of fasting and abstinence? Sunk in the sea –The spirit of simplicity and mortification in dress and eating? Sunk in the sea –The Crucifix, holy images, holy water in our bedrooms? Sunk in the sea, sunk in the sea. Meanwhile, the ship continues to sink. The Christian spirit decreases; the opposing spirit gains ground very quickly. We go to Low Mass on Sunday, and God knows with what devotion! We go to Sung Mass 3 or 4 times a year; to Vespers, we do not go anymore! We go to spectacles and to dances; we read everything that we get our hands on; we do not share anything except that which we should not even have!!! Behold the fragile ships into which we trust our own salvation! No wonder there are so many shipwrecks! Poor passengers, separated from the Great Ship, how much you have to cry!

Among all the Catholic practices that have been abandoned so imprudently by the modern world, there is ONE, worthy of respect among them all, that I would like to save from shipwreck at any cost! It is that which your peers openly reject without knowing what they are doing: The Sign of the Cross. It is the time to see to its preservation. Go to a church one day and examine the crowd that comes to the House of God. Many do not make the Sign of the Cross: others make It badly, or just pretend to make It. It is a disconcerting fact: Today’s Christians do not make the Sign of the Cross, make It rarely, or make It badly. On this point, as in many others, we do the opposite of what our ancestors, the Christians of the primitive Church did. They made the Sign of the Cross: they made It well, and they made It frequently.

In the East as in the West, in Jerusalem, in Athens, in Rome, men and women, young and old, rich and poor, priests and faithful observed religiously this Tradition. Tertullian says: “At every moment and for everything, on entering and on going out, when bathing, when dressing, when eating, when going to bed, when we do all other things, we make the Sign of the Cross on our foreheads.” They made the Sign of the Cross, not only on their foreheads, but on their eyes, on their mouths, on their breasts. So, if our Christian ancestors made the Sign of the Cross at every moment, we are obliged to conclude that they were obeying an Apostolic recommendation; they lived around the time of the Apostles, who conversed with the Incarnate Word in Person. This closeness in time to the Apostles is one of the reasons to imitate them and make the Sign of the Cross.

A second reason to imitate the early Christians in making the Sign of the Cross is their sanctity. The first Christians were not only better instructed on the doctrine of the Apostles, but they were most faithful in practicing it. The proof is their holy persons. There is no better established fact than the fact that sanctity was the general character of the first Christians. They loved to lose everything, their goods and their lives in the midst of afflictions rather than offend God. Their heroism lasted as long as the persecutions, that is THREE centuries. They were charitable! Heaven and Earth united to make their love for each other a unique praise in the annals of the world. “See how they love each other and how they are always ready to die for each other” exclaimed the pagans. The Fathers of the Church, actual eye-witnesses, have also continued to render the most splendid testimony of their holiness. Tertullian, addressing the judges, praetorians and consuls of the empire, made this solemn challenge: “I appeal to your processes, O you who are in charge of administering justice. Among that multitude of accused people that is brought daily before your tribunals, which is the assassin, the sacrilegious, the corrupt, the thief who is a Christian? Prisons are overcrowded only with your own people.”

In the world, the traditional use of the Redemptive Sign comes down to us in a parallel line. All the great men, those incomparable geniuses of East and West, whom we call the Fathers of the Church: Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, Ambrose, Gregory, Basil, Augustine, John Chrysostom, Jerome, and so many others, all these respectable beings made the Sign of the Cross, and recommended with ardor to all the Christians to make It at every occasion.

A third motive to make the Sign of the Cross is that the Church uses It. As centuries go by, men change with the times, Laws, habits, fashions, languages, ways of thinking, seeing and judging. The Church alone does not change. Immutable as truth itself, of which She is the Teacher, that which She taught and did yesterday, teaches and does today, will teach and will do tomorrow and always. What are Her thoughts, Her conduct regarding the Sign of the Cross? There is no point on which Her divine immutability is more splendidly visible! For 21 centuries up to today, it could be said that the Church lives with the Sign of the Cross; there’s no instant in which She stops using It. She starts, continues, and undertakes everything with this Sign ().

Among all Her practices, the Sign of the Cross is the principal one, the most common, the most familiar. It is the soul of Her exorcisms, of Her prayers, of Her blessings. That which we see Her do before our own eyes in our churches, She did in the catacombs before the eyes of our forefathers in the Faith. She takes possession of everything through the Sign of the Cross. Everything She uses: water, salt, bread, wine, fire, rocks, wood, oils, balsam, bronze, precious metals, houses, camps, everything is blessed with the Sign of the Cross. Observe above all the conduct of the Church with respect to man who is a living temple of the Trinity. The first thing She does over him, as he comes out of his mother’s womb, is the Sign of the Cross. The last thing, when he re-enters the womb of the earth, is still the Sign of the Cross. This is Her first salutation and also Her last good-bye towards Her dear children.

In the interval between the cradle and the grave how many Signs of the Cross are made over man! At baptism, through which we become children of God, the Sign of the Cross; at Confirmation, through which we are made soldiers of virtue, the Sign of the Cross; in receiving the Eucharist, when we are nourished with the Bread of Angels, the Sign of the Cross; in Confession, through which we recover divine life, the Sign of the Cross; when we receive Extreme Unction, through which we are fortified for the last battle, the Sign of the Cross; at Ordination and Holy Matrimony, through which we become associated to the paternity of God Himself, the Sign of the Cross. Always and everywhere, today as in other times, in the East as in the West, the Sign of the Cross is made over men.

Taken from Il Segno della Croce by Msgr Gaume

Friday, March 23, 2007

Bless Your Children

Bless Your Children

By Archabbot Ignatius

Is the average family as close-knit as it used to be? Hardly. To even a casual observer the declining unity of the modern family is evident. The scattered members of many families seem never to have experienced “how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” Home, in many instances, is a place to be shunned rather than a haven to be sought. Cars, movies, public recreation, and innumerable clubs and organizations are often blamed for causing the breakdown of home life. But they are not the cause of family disunion.  Nor is even an overuse of these things causing the difficulty. An abuse of outside recreation is merely a symptom of the lack of family oneness and home attraction, not its cause. What is lacking is a unifying principle, a bond that will cement the members of a family together so tightly that the disruptive agencies will lose their power.

Natural ties are not strong enough; they can be overcome by natural forces. The bond that can really keep parents and children close to one another is their mutual love “in Christ.” All love comes from God. So family that is close to God will naturally develop stronger ties between its members.

There is a little known custom that can go a long way toward developing this awareness of God’s love and its connection with family living. It’s called the parental blessing.

Parents Have Always Blessed Their Children

Parental blessing is as old as the human race. It began with the oldest patriarchs. Throughout the Old Testament it was the usual method of transmitting divine favors. The blessings conferred on their children by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are known to all who read the Bible. The Bible gives us an authoritative statement on parental blessing:

In word and deed honor your father that his blessing may come upon you; for a father’s blessing gives a family firm roots, but a mother’s curse uproots the growing plantus 3:.

There are many Scriptural instances in which a parent’s blessing is efficacious. Consider young Tobias. He had to undertake a long journey to collect a debt for his aged, blind father. Before departing he received the blessing of the elder Tobias in these beautiful words: “May you have a good journey, may God be with you in your way, and may His Angel accompany you.” God sent the Angel Raphael, disguised as a traveler, to accompany the young man. He protected Tobias and saw that he collected the money. Tobias won the daughter of the debtor for his wife, and when he returned to his father, the father was cured of his blindness. Surely, God answered the blessing of his father.

Christ Wants You To Bless Your Children

Our Lord used to gather little children around Himself and bless them. “Suffer the little children to come unto Me,” He said. “And embracing them, and laying His hands upon them, He blessed them.” Parents of today love their children. They embrace them. Why do they not lay hands upon them in a blessing? Parents so rarely bless their children that one is inclined to think the privilege no longer exists. Has the parental blessing lost its efficacy in the New Testament? Has Christ’s coming changed the essential relations between parent and child? Has matrimony, elevated by the Savior to the dignity of a Sacrament, been lowered in spiritual value? Surely not. Jesus, in the New Testament, has increased the number and capacity of the channels of grace, of which the parental blessing is one.

Jesus wants children to be blessed. Certainly the blessing bestowed by Jesus is more efficacious than that bestowed by parents. So also is the blessing of a Priest. Even so, parental blessing is something so holy, so powerful; that it deserves to be called “Sacramental of the Domestic Hearth.” The picture of the young mother placing hands of benediction on an innocent child is beautiful. No less inspiring is the sight of an aged parent, giving with trembling hands a blessing to a full-grown son or daughter. This is a privilege that belongs to fathers and mothers. Often you are urged to do your duty.  Here you are urged to use a privilege that is yours by divine grant – a privilege that goes with the dignity of parenthood.  Why not bless your children?

The Value of Blessing

If this “Sacramental of the Domestic Hearth” were more frequently administered, there would be happier, contented families. The two indispensable factors for happiness in the home are amiable authority on the part of the parents and loving obedience on the pat of the children. Parents who bless are reminded frequently of their responsible dignity. In their power to bless they recognize the channel of grace that they do not want to obstruct by bad example. It is easy, too, for the child to see God’s representatives in a parent before whom he frequently kneels for blessing. With this recognition come the love, reverence, and obedience that children owe their parents. If your home is not all that you would like it to be, try blessing your children regularly. It will encourage oneness, love, reverence, and obedience.

In the lives of the Saints and the saintly, we find many examples to spur us on in promoting this worthy custom. The last words of the mother of St. Gregory of Nyssa were her words of benediction pronounced over her ten children. The dying mother of St. Edmund called her son from Paris to England to bestow on him her blessing. St. Thomas Moore, even when advanced in years and dignity as the Lord Chancellor of England, never left his father’s home without asking for his blessing. St. Therese, the Little Flower, whose simple sanctity has made her so popular, tells us that the custom of blessing the children prevailed in the Martin home. In her autobiography, she expressly mentions the blessing received from her father on one occasion, the day she entered the convent. She writes: “The next morning, after a last look at the happy home of my childhood, I set out for the Carmel, where we all heard Mass. I embraced my dear ones, and knelt for my father’s blessing. He, too, knelt down and blessed me through tears.”

Some years ago, the papers attracted the attention of readers with the headline: “Bishop Kneels for Mother’s Blessing.”   The Bishop was the Right Reverend F. T. Roch, Bishop of Tuticurin. He met his mother at the railway station. There, in the presence of a crowd of people, he “knelt before his mother to receive her blessing, and the grand old lady, placing her wrinkled hands on the head of her illustrious son, moved many a spectator to tears.”  Fathers and mothers, open up to your children this effective means of grace.  Make a diligent and frequent use of this great privilege.

When To Bless Your Children

When ought parents to bless their children? At night or after evenings prayers is a very good time to give the daily blessing. Before going on a trip, undertaking an important or dangerous task, and during sickness, children ought to get their parents’ blessing.  At the more important turning points in life –entering school, First Holy Communion, marriage, or upon entering a convent or monastery– parents ought to solemnly bless their children.

Send a blessing even to your absent children. Before you go to bed at night, think of the absent sons or daughters. They may be in real need of your help. Your blessing is the most powerful help you can give them. Protect them with the sacred sign of the Cross that you make over them. Include a “God bless you, my child” in your letters.  If possible, your last blessing should be given to all the children when you are at the point of death.

How to Give The Blessing

How is the parental blessing given? It should be done in a simple but reverent manner. Place your hand on the head of the kneeling child and say: “I bless you my child, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” While saying this, make the sign of the Cross upon his forehead with the thumb of your right hand. If you bless all your children at once, simply extend your hand over them all, and trace a Cross over them, while you pronounce the words. Actually, the form of the blessing is not important. Any appropriate words of your own choosing may be used.  Vary them to suit the occasion.  The words of Tobias quoted earlier in this pamphlet may be adapted to any situation. Simply let the words of blessing indicate what you wish for your children.  The children may be in any position for the blessing, though kneeling is naturally more significant.  The Blessing need not be solemn, but it should be serious.

I hope young parents will welcome this happy privilege. I hope that the proud young mother will lay hands of blessing upon their precious baby and continue the custom throughout their lives. And what of the older families, where through ignorance of this sacramental custom, the parental blessing has never been given? Older parents rather reluctantly make a change in their family life. But they will not refuse their blessing if their grown-up sons and daughters ask for it. Nor ought children hesitate in asking for a gift that surpasses all natural gifts that parents can give. Hopefully, some of these parents will offer a blessing to their children, at least on the major events of their lives.

Good fathers and mothers endure labors, fatigue, and pain to give their children natural gifts, life and life’s necessities. Generously add to these bestowals the crowning gift – your blessing. It will help to sanctify all the rest. St. Ambrose says: “You may not be rich, you may be unable to bequeath any great possessions to your children; but one thing you can give them: the heritage of your blessing. And it is better to be blessed than to be rich.” May God doubly bless the parents who bless their children.

Queen of the Holy Rosary Mediatrix of Peace Shrine

W5703 Shrine Road, Necedah, WI 54646

Web-site: http://www.ncedahshrine.org/

E-mail: qhrinfo@necedahshrine.org

Phone: (608) 565-2617 (L-472A)