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Sacraments & Worship

293 articles from the existing collection.

Sacraments & Worship1 min read

Is not the convent system borrowed from the pagan Vestal Virgin system?

No. The convent system occurs in history after the Vestal Virgin system, but not because oi it. Chronological succession does not always imply derivation. It is true that the Vestal Virgins were women, and unmarried, claiming a religious significance. But there the likeness ends. Christianity is the negation of paganism, and the…

Sacraments & Worship1 min read

Priests are only natural human beings. Why are they forbidden to marry?

Because they do not wish to be only natural. They wish to be supernatural. St. Paul was human, but he did not marry. And like St. Paul, Catholic Priests wish to centre their interests in Christ and share their hearts with no one else. Meantime, they are not forbidden to marry as human beings. They are forbidden as Priests. Prior…

Sacraments & Worship1 min read

I have never seen a Nun smile or look pleasant.

You know Nuns only from a distance, if you know them at all. Nuns do not mistake excitement for happiness, but there are plenty of smiles in their own convent environment. In the streets you may not have seen a Nun laugh. But the sight of poor humanity in the streets, rushing and struggling, and worried even in the midst of its …

Sacraments & Worship1 min read

Anyway you allow misguided women to live unnatural lives away from the sunshine and from good men who would bestow upon them their love.

Most things that Christ taught and recommended seem to be misguided to those who are completely irreligious. No one claims that Christian and materialistic principles are in harmony. However, the good Sisters have private grounds for recreation in the sunshine, contrary to the creation of your melodramatic imagination. As for th…

Sacraments & Worship1 min read

We have only the word of the Priest for the fact.

No Catholic Priest would himself believe it were it not the doctrine of Christ. It would be the height of folly to believe it without solid evidence that Christ had taught it. God created substance and qualities, and we cannot deny to Him perfect control over them and ability to change them at His pleasure. And when Christ says,…

Sacraments & Worship1 min read

What is wrong with confessing our sins directly to God in prayer?

Since it is God who has been offended, God has the right to lay down the conditions of forgiveness. You cannot insist that God must forgive you on your own conditions. And Christ certainly did not give His Priests power to forgive sin knowing that no one would have to seek forgiveness from Priests at all

Sacraments & Worship1 min read

Are not Nuns married to Priests?

No. Who in this world could persuade thousands of good women to forego theatres, dances, and worldly amusements, and to take a strict vow of perfect chastity in the sight of God, merely that they might be at the service of Priests who offer them no remuneration, and who strangely enough bind themselves by similarly strict vows u…

Sacraments & Worship2 min read

After Mass, Priests even organise picnics and outings.

The Catholic Church is the only Church which can oblige her people to worship God definitely on Sunday, and many of her churches are filled three or four times on that day. There is nothing wrong with innocent recreation provided it does not interfere with one’s duties to God and attendance at religious worship. Sunday is a day …

Sacraments & Worship1 min read

Are Priests different from other men?

As human beings—no; as called, not to the state of marriage, but to the Priesthood—yes. For this reason, whilst like all others who for one reason or another do not marry, they are obliged to avoid all sins against chastity; they also take upon themselves an additional obligation to do so under pain of sacrilege by vows of chast…

Sacraments & Worship1 min read

It tempts one to give up the Church.

That is foolish, and will not better things. Will you neglect other obligations because you have failed in this, and give up religion on the principle that he who commits one sin might just as well commit a dozen sins? The only thing to do after failure is to repent as men do of other sins, and try again to be faithful.

Sacraments & Worship1 min read

Why do Priests vest so elaborately when going to say Mass?

In Exodus, XXVIII., 2-3, we read of God’s prescriptions of the vestments befitting the dignity of His religion. “Thou shalt make a holy vesture for Aaron thy brother; for glory and for beauty. And thou shalt speak to all the wise of heart, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom: that they may make Aaron’s vestments, in whi…

The Bible2 min read

Do we not read only of adult baptisms in the New Testament?

No. We read of some adult baptisms, but they were not administered precisely because the subjects were adults, but because they happened to be converted as adults. Acts XV commemorates the reception of two complete households into the Church by St. Paul, and we are not told that the adults only in those households were received.…

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