Frequenting the Sacraments
by VP
Posted on Sunday February 09, 2025 at 12:00AM in Sunday Sermons
Confessional, Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Toulouse
"Let the peace of Christ reign in your hearts."—Col. 3. 13.
"FREQUENT Confession and Holy Communion are, my dear brethren, the food which we need to take with us in climbing the mountain of heaven. If we try to get along without them, we shall faint by the way. Do not imagine, then, that confession is only a means of getting rid of mortal sin; do not think for a moment of putting off confession till you have fallen into a mortal sin, or, perhaps, into quite a number of them.
For though we are not required by any positive law to go to confession unless we have fallen into mortal sin, still we are required to keep out of mortal sin, and we cannot do this without going to confession before we have fallen into it. So it comes to the same thing; we really are obliged, for the honor of God and the care of our own souls, to go to confession when we have nothing but venial sin on our conscience, and to go quite often too. Confession and Holy Communion may be compared, not only to food, but to medicine; and to a medicine such as people would take in a place, for instance, where the fever and ague, or some other disease, is prevalent, not to cure themselves of the disease, but to keep from taking it. For we all are in a place where the terrible disease of sin prevails; and we ought to go to confession often, so as not to take it.
But some good people do not seem to understand this at all; and there is a remark, common enough, and which I suppose you may have heard made about this matter of frequent confession. It is this: "I don't see what these people have to tell who go to confession so often." One who makes such a remark as that cannot, it would seem, have any idea of the reason why people are urged to frequent Sacraments at all. He would stay away from confession, for his part, till he "did something,”—that is, fell into some mortal sin. For such a one, if when the time came for his Easter duty, he had by good luck fallen into no mortal sin, the only course would be, one would think, to do something on purpose, so as to have something to tell. He does not understand that these people who go to confession often are not supposed to have any grave burden on their consciences.
Of course they will be likely to have venial faults, which, though the Easter penitent might not think them matters for absolution, really are so. And by the help of the Sacraments they may be overcoming these faults. But a good enough reason for their going to confession once a month, or even oftener, would be simply to avoid grievous sins; on the principle that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
They go so often, also, in order to get light, as well as strength, to avoid sin; to know beforehand what they ought to do. You may think that they ought to have sense enough to tell for themselves without bothering the priest about it; but if I am not mistaken, many who think so will find, if they look back a little, that there were some occasions when they did not know exactly which course to take, and had to go very much at hazard. Perhaps they asked about it afterwards, and perhaps they forgot all about it. But why not ask about these matters beforehand? For, after all, though you can read, there are some things rather special to yourself and your own circumstances that you cannot get from books. It is good to have a guide sometimes, who has more thorough knowledge than you, to show you the way; to point the road up the mountain which you have to climb.
You consult a lawyer, or a doctor, about your temporal matters; why not consult a priest about spiritual matters, in the place where he waits to help you so far as he can, and where the Holy Ghost also will help him to help you? For Almighty God has commissioned the priest specially to guide the faithful in spiritual matters, as you know; and he can often show others the way where he cannot well find it for himself.
But even if the priest does not help you much, our Lord Himself will, in the Sacraments which He has provided. He will guide and direct you by means of them,
if you will only come to Him in them. That is one great reason why He
is there. I hope I have now said enough, my dear brethren, to give you
some idea of the necessity of approaching the Sacraments frequently, if you really have a purpose of amendment, and a desire to save your soul. Too much could not be said. Think of the matter
seriously, and you will see this necessity more and more, and will
seriously purpose to go often and regularly to confession and Holy
Communion." Five-minute Sermons for Low Masses on All Sundays of the Year by the Paulist Fathers, 5th Sunday after Epiphany
St. Cyril of Alexandria, (412-444)
by VP
Posted on Sunday February 09, 2025 at 12:00AM in Saints
All hail to thee, Mary, Mother of God, Virgin Mary!
Our Lady and Child, Saint John Baptist Catholic Church, Front Royal VA
"466.The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God's Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed "that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man."(89) Christ's humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God, who assumed it and made it his own, from his conception. For this reason the Council of Ephesus proclaimed in 431 that Mary truly became the Mother of God by the human conception of the Son of God in her womb: "Mother of God, not that the nature of the Word or his divinity received the beginning of its existence from the holy Virgin, but that, since the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born from her, the Word is said to be born according to the flesh."(90)" Catechism of the Catholic Church
St. Cyril of Alexandria before the Fathers of the Council of Ephesus:
"Hail thou bearer of light, incorruptible vessel!
Hail Mary! At once Virgin, Mother, and Handmaid.
Virgin because of Him who is born of thy virginity;
Mother because of Him whom thou didst bear upon thy breast and whom thou has nourished with thy milk;
Handmaid because of Him who has taken to Himself the position of a slave.
Hail Mary! Temple in which God has been received, the great holiness of which the prophet David proclaimed when he said: Thy temple is holy and wonderful in thy justice (Ps. Lxiv.60)
Hail Mary! The jewel of the earth; Hail Mary! Incorruptible dove; Hail Mary, Inextinguishable lamp, for of thee is born the Sun of Justice; Hail Mary! Dwelling-place of Him whom no other dwelling can contain; thou, in whom was contained the only Son of God, the God-word; thou, who with neither toil nor sowing hast made the undying ear of corn to flourish; Hail Mary! Mother of God, of whom the prophets have foretold, and through whom the shepherds gave glory to God at the manger, singing with the angels that moving hymn, Glory to God on high in heaven: peace on earth among men of goodwill; Hail Mary! Mother of God, because of whom the choirs of angels sing, the archangels exult and chant hymns which make us tremble."
Source: Christian Spirituality, Volume 1 Newman Press, 1922 - Asceticism page 240
