"Pray without ceasing" (2 Thess. v. 17). "Every creature is sanctified by the word of God and prayer" (1 Tim. 4, 5). BY SACRAMENTALS we mean the various prayers, blessings, ceremon...
"Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day" (Ex. xx. 8). THIS commandment teaches us that God wills the whole Sunday to be spent in His honor. We should sanctify it by good work...
"It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins" (2 Mach. xii. 46). NO ONE will deny that the practice of praying for th...
THE Mass is the great sacrifice of the New Law. It was foreshadowed by all the sacrifices ordained by God in the Old Law. They were shadows; it is the substance. We learn from Gene...
"He who is unmarried careth about the things of the Lord, how he may please God" (i Cor. vii. 32). THE Catholic Church recognizes matrimony as a holy state. She recommends celibacy...
BEFORE entering upon an explanation of the ceremonies of the Mass, which is our principal act of public worship, let us examine the meaning of the vestments worn by the priest duri...
"Then they laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Ghost" (Acts viii. 17). BEFORE the coming of the Holy Ghost on Pentecost, the apostles were weak and vacillating....
THE Catholic Church in the celebration of Mass and in the administration of the sacraments employs certain forms and rites. These are called ceremonies. By these ceremonies the Chu...
"He that eateth this bread shall live forever" (John vi. 59) HOLY communion is receiving the body and blood of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. The clergy when saying Mass, except...
"Whom when He saw He said: Go, show yourselves to the priests" (Luke xvii. 14). "Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose sins ye shall forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins ye s...
"And may the angel that delivereth me from all evils bless these boys" (Gen. xlviii. 16). "So I say to you there shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance...
THE angels are pure spirits. They have no body. Consequently the worship they render God is spiritual, interior. The heavenly bodies are not spiritual, but entirely material substa...
"Whatsoever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven" (Matt xviii. 18). OF THE many practices of...
"If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments" (Matt. xix. 17). WHEN Jesus Christ died on the cross for us, He did so in order to lead us into life, to open heaven for all ma...
"Is any man sick among you? Let him bring in the priests of the Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall sa...
"The angel Gabriel was sent from God . . . to a Virgin . . . and the Virgin's name was Mary. And the angel being come in said to her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; bl...
"Amen, amen, I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he can not enter into the kingdom of God" (John iii 5). WHILE most Christians admit the necessit...
"We are ambassadors for Christ; God, as it were, exhorting by us" (2 Cor. v. 20). "As the Father sent me, I also send you" (John xx. 21). "Go ye into the whole world and preach the...
"And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke, and gave to His disciples, and said: take ye and eat. This is My body" (Matt. xxvi. 26). PERHAPS no myste...
"Seven days shalt thou celebrate feasts to the Lord thy God, in the place which the Lord shalt choose" (Deut. xvi. 15). "If he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the h...
"Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under...