Catholic Marriage

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life

(John 14:6)
By Sister Emmanuel - Forgotten Truths

In our Croatian town of 13,000, there has never been a divorce. How can it be? With communism surrounding us, people suffer cruelly as they face daily persecution. When a Catholic couple is married, they are told, “You have found your cross. It is a cross to be loved, to be carried, a cross not to be thrown away, but to be cherished.”

In Herzegovina, the cross represents the greatest love; and the crucifix is the treasure of every home. During the marriage ceremony, the bride and groom place their hands holding the crucifix; then kiss, not each other, but the cross.

If one should abandon the other, they cannot do so without abandoning Jesus Crucified. The Crucifix is the local point of the home.

The Sign of the Cross II

† The Sign of the Cross †

BUT that’s not all! Take a look at what the Church does through the person of the priest at the Altar. Armed with the Omnipotence that was given to Her, She commands not only creatures, but the Creator Himself; not man, but God Himself. At Her voice the Heavens are opened, the Word incarnates and renews all the mysteries of His life, death, and resurrection! Also, in the course of the Action par excellance, that is the Mass, what does the Church do? More than ever, She multiplies the Sign of the Cross; She surrounds Herself with the Sign of the Cross; She walks by means of the Sign of the Cross; She repeats It so frequently that the number could even seem an exaggeration, if it were not deeply mysterious!!! Do you know how many times the priest makes the Sign of the Cross during the Mass? Forty-eight (48) times! I’m wrong, forty-nine (49) times because as long as the Holy Sacrifice is taking place, the priest himself is a living Sign of the Cross. Would the Catholic Church, the great Instructor of nations, the great Teacher of Truth, would She be amused at repeating so frequently in Her most solemn act a useless, superstitious and unimportant sign? If you or your friends think so, then you are guilty of incredulity.

A fourth motive for making the Sign of the Cross as the first Christians did is those people who do not make the Sign of the Cross.
1) The Pagans: Chinese, Indians, Tibetans, savages, adorers of idols, people completely degraded and unhappy. These do not make the Sign of the Cross.
2) Muslims: pigs for sensualism, tigers for cruelty; these do not make the Sign of the Cross.
3) Jews: deeply encrusted in a dense stratum of ridiculous superstitions, living petrification of a decayed race. These do not make the Sign of the Cross.
4) Heretics: (Protestants) - impertinent sect followers, who in their pride and protests, have lost all trace of Truth. Protestants do not make the Sign of the Cross.
5) Bad Catholics: renegades of their baptisms, slaves of human respect, ignorants and arrogants who speak of everything and know nothing, adorers of their bellies, of pleasure, of materials. These do not make the Sign of the Cross.
6) Beasts: Bipeds and quadrupeds of every species; dogs, cats, donkeys, mules, camels, crocodiles, ostriches, hippopotamus. These do not make the Sign of the Cross.

A fifth reason for making the Sign of the Cross is that we are creatures of dust and the Sign of the Cross ennobles us. We are worms of the earth on the cradle, and food of worms in the grave. We are weak, nothing, shamefully confused as any other animal when we are born. However, we are the image of God; we are the crown of creation! God touches our foreheads and imprints the divine sign that ennobles us! It ennobles us because it comes from Heaven! We know that It comes from Heaven because the earth confesses not to have invented It. Go through every country and every century, nowhere will you find a man who claims to have invented the Sign of the Cross, or a Saint who claims to have taught It, or a council that claims to have imposed It! Tertullian says: “Tradition teaches It, practice confirms It, and the Faith observes It.”

A sixth reason to make the Sign of the Cross is that It is a book that instructs our ignorance. Creation, Redemption, Glorification. These three words are necessary to man more than the bread that nourishes him, more than the air he breathes. What doctor will be charged with teaching the indispensable Truth? St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, or another great genius of the East or the West? No! These doctors die; here, there’s need of one that will not die. There’s need of a doctor that is everywhere, that speaks a language intelligible to all, to the savage as well as to the civilized man. Who will be this doctor? You have already said it: The Sign of the Cross! This and only this sign fulfills all the required conditions. It does not die; It is everywhere; Its language is universal. An instant is enough for It to teach us Its lesson! An instant is enough for everyone to understand Its lesson. Behold the Sign of the Cross! Behold the duly established catechist of the human race!!!

When we make the Sign of the Cross we say In the Name not in the names, which teaches us that there is an indivisible unity of the Divine Essence. Through these words a boy or a girl knows more than the philosophers of the old paganism ever knew! Pronouncing the word of the Father a new and immense ray of light shines in our intelligence. This Sign of the Cross tells us that there’s a Being, Father of all fathers, Eternal Beginning of the Being from which creatures take their origin. As we continue saying: And of the Son, the Sign of the Cross continues giving Its lesson. It tells us that the Father of all fathers has a Son similar to Himself; It teaches us that This Eternal Son once made Himself Son of Man in the Womb of a Virgin to rescue man. Man was lost. Then we end by saying: And of the Holy Ghost. This word completes the teaching of the Sign of the Cross; thanks to It we know that there is in God Unity of Essence and Trinity of Persons.

Based on all this, what does the modern world knows then? This century of intellect, which does not know how to make the Sign of the Cross, knows not more and not less than the pagans knew! This world adores the god-me, the god-commence, the god-vapor, the god-cotton, the god-belly! As means of satisfaction for its concupiscence, it adores the science of matter, of chemistry, of physics, of mechanics, of dynamics, salt, etc. Behold its gods, its cults, its theology, its philosophies, its morals, its life!!!

THE EUCHARIST

THE HOLY EUCHARIST

BELIEF IN THE REAL PRESENCE

I believe, Lord, with a firm and gratifying faith that even when the words of Consecration may have sprung from unworthy lips, like lilies from the mire, in obedience to them Thou wert really and substantially present beneath the forms and appereances of bread and wine. I believe it because Thou, the Absolute Truth; Thou, the Essential and Unfailing Light didst never deceive, art not one to deceive, much less the immense flock of little ones who adore Thee, seek Thee and receive Thee as being truly present; because Thou hast said it. Lord, I believe in Thy creative word.

Why do I believe? Because Christ, the sole Author of the Sacraments, is All-powerful:

He summons the bodies of the dead, and they return to life from the corruption of the grave. He utters a word of command to the most rebellious diseases, either in the sick person’s presence or several miles away, and those diseases leave not a trace behind. He reproves the boisterous winds and waves, and they sing down calm and silent, like a class of prankish schoolboys at the shout of a feared master. He treads the sea, and it sustains Him with rock-like solidity. Over a few loaves and fish, He bestows a single word of blessing, and they multiply indefinitely.

Not once did Christ give a command –and He gave many- to any element of the material world, that He was not obeyed without the slightest resistance or hesitation. In other words, He ever showed Himself an Absolute –we might even say Tyrannycal- Master over matter, doing with it and in it whatever He willed; for the simple reason that it was He Who had brought it into existance out of nothing, endowing it with the capacities He pleased. Will He not, therefore, be able to do with it more, infinitely more, than anything my blunt mind can possibly cope with?

Lord, I believe. For Thou canst annihilate the whole world, if it should please Thee; Thou canst transform it to Thy liking; Thou canst change the substance of bread and wine into Thy own Body and Blood, and thus multiply Thy Presence beyond all human scope and measure. What was possible for Thee became an actual fact, for Thou didst say but the word, and never was it necessary for Thee to voice Thy commands to inert matter twice over. “Ipse dixit et facta sunt” (Ps. 32:9).

Again, why do I believe? Because the whole Church believes. No, I am not alone; I share this belief with millions and millions of human beings from every nation, race, and climate; with all the centuries of Christian history, with people of every age and condition and temperament, with souls joyful and sorrowful, with souls raised aloft in the auroral splendors of grace, or sunk in the night of sin; with the little children who seal the first dawning of reason with an act of faith in Christ’s Eucharistic Presence and their first Holy Communion, as with a morning star; with all those who close their length of days with the heavenly clasp of Holy Viaticum.

I believe with the Church, whose Faith in the Eucharist is Her very life. Wrench from Her this belief, and you will have destroyed Her entire Liturgy, demolished Her Cathedrals and churches, killed Her priesthood, effaced from Her history the most brilliant and holy pages written with Her blood and tears. It was for Thee, O Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament, that She allowed Herself to be persecuted and bled, and allowed remnants of Her vesture and entrails to cleave to the claws of tyrants! Today, the same as in the Catacombs, the same as in the Middle Ages, and in the century that witnessed the institution of the Feast of Corpus Christi; today, as truly as then, and perhaps even more so, this belief in the Eucharist urges the faithful on to the sublimest acts of adoration ever recorded in history.

Resolutions:

I will make more frequent acts of faith in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ upon our altars. This I will also teach others time and time again, until they, of their own accord, go eagerly in quest of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, loving Him and adoring Him in this Sacrament before everything and everyone else, preferring His Presence to every picture or statue or shrine, however devotional or miraculous; giving Him precedence over every popular Saint, over the Most Holy Mother of God Herself, over His most cherished and venerated images.

~ Fr. Eugenio Escribano

An Outrageous Affront against God

ABORTION: An outrageous conspiracy against God and Human Dignity

Children are the most eloquent sign of life and hope. Nevertheless, with support, acceptance, and encouragement from the government their existence is now threatened in the most terrible manner and by the most horrible crime: ABORTION. Abortion is the most unnatural, the most immoral, and the most unjust act against God, and against the unborn children themselves.

To interrupt the process of life from its very first beginning in the womb, with the sole aim to destroy it, is the vilest, the most vicious, and the most brutal crime that a human being can commit. Every child should enjoy the right to be born regardless of how destructively creative science (medicine) has become. It is not only shameful, but a direct affront against God to put an abrupt and sacrilegious end to the life that He alone created and which He alone should decide when to take away. It is not even necessary to believe in God to have the common sense and be able to discern that it is NOT possible, that it is an affront to human INTELLIGENCE and to the human CONSCIENCE to pretend that on the size of a creature depends its right to life.

Even without using the definition of morality, and instead we use that of ethics, in which scientists and psychologists take much pride – at least when it is a matter of plagiarism – ABORTION is wrong. According to Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks S.J., and Michael Meyer from the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics (Santa Clara University), ethics is the criteria of what is good, what is right, and what we should do – which is, in its basic form, the definition of morality. Therefore, morality (or ethics) concerns everyone including atheists, parents, doctors, scientists, psychologists, law-makers, and every being that exists and claims to have the use of reason, and of course, a human soul.

According to the Church and morals (ethics), abortion is a repugnant and abominable act because it transgresses basic human respect for life and mocks human dignity. The State, scientists (doctors), and parents have the responsibility to provide these children, not only the protection they need to be born healthy, but also their other inherent needs, in particular their human dignity and their moral rights. However, just the opposite is being put into practice. As affirmed by Fr. Hasbún, in these days there is a SINISTER CONSPIRACY between three of the most important institutions: Motherhood, Medicine, and the State. Mothers who practice, promote, and defend abortion BETRAY their natural vocation by becoming the assassins, sepulcher, and grave of their very own children.

Doctors opting to perform abortions commit a crime by staining their true mission and the very oath they claim to hold dear: “I will neither prescribe nor administer a lethal dose of medicine... [I will show] utmost respect for every human life from fertilization to natural death and reject abortion that deliberately takes a unique human life.” Scientists and doctors who endorse and perform abortion become negligent and indifferent transgressors of morals, or in their own scientific language, of ethics.

The State that legalizes abortion commits an act of supreme injustice and violates its essential reason to exist (to defend and protect human life) by encouraging, financing, and protecting the crime of abortion and its perpetrators. Fr. Hasbún is right when he says, “Legalized abortion is an act of insane TERRORISM; brutal aggression against a creature that is defenseless, weak, innocent, who does not have any responsibility or fault, yet is still chosen as a victim condemned to pay for the fault of OTHERS...” just as it is the case with terrorism – where innocent civilians end up paying for something for which they are not directly responsible. The only difference is that with abortion these terrorist attacks take place “in the interior sanctuary of the mother's womb.”

There is no little truth in the words of Fr. Hasbún when he says, “A society based in the brutality of abortion is a society that has already opted for violence based in terrorism... a volcano ready to erupt at any moment.” Afterwards, no one should complain about VIOLENCE in the streets, at home, national or international, etc. Mother Teresa once said, "How can you expect your children to be safe in the streets, if they cannot even be safe in their mother's womb?”

A person who complains about violence in the streets and in the schools (such as that perpetrated at Columbine High School), but yet supports abortion has lost all common sense. How can you expect your children to believe you when you tell them that what happened at Columbine is wrong, when you teach them that abortion is right? People who support abortion do not deserve to have the right to become, and much less be called, procreators (parents), doctors (scientists), and judges (makers of justice). Expressions such as “equality, it’s my right, it’s a woman’s right… ” SHOULD NOT be an excuse to let feminists absorb the children’s right to life.

On the contrary, once they were willing to have sexual intercourse and became candidates to become parents, instead of getting an extra right, parents obtained a new responsibility that they should not forget: to bring to completion the pregnancy that resulted from their actions. Unborn children’s rights should not be the object of tyrannical abuse nor of stupid negligence on the part of feminists who seek blind “equality” without worrying to establish a moral and just equilibrium, thereby destroying or sacrificing the rights of the innocent, the voiceless, and the defenseless.

In a true democracy, as Fr. Hasbún affirms, all lives must have the same value and should receive the same protection. The State that legalizes abortion has renounced its right to exercise justice or even to be called a state at all, not to mention a democratic one.... because without life, what do we need the other rights for? Parents, doctors, and the State... institutions that accept and promote abortion, have betrayed the deposit of trust given to them to save, protect, defend and preserve all life by perpetrating an act of absolute injustice: willful murder! All life is sacred, free, untouchable, and intangible from the moment of conception to natural death because in IT we recognize God.

~ Based on a sermon by Fr. Hasbún