“Scio, cui credidi…” (I know whom I have believed. 2Tim 1:12)
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen
My dearly beloved in Our Lord,
Dear First Communicant,
Being a Catholic is a question of believing.
Easter is the feast of believing, of the Faith: “And if Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.” (1Cor 15:14) For Christ had foretold that he would suffer and die, and rise again from the dead. If therefore he only died and was buried, but did not rise from the dead, he is a liar and impostor, not the Son of God. But if he has risen from the dead, then he has truly fulfilled all his prophecies, and all the prophecies of the Old Testament about the Messiah to come. And he has proven beyond any doubt that he is God. For how else could he have risen from the dead?…
Thus not only the fact to be believed is certain, but also the foundation of the entire Christian Faith is laid: God’s authority. The first paragraph of Ch. 3 in the Dogmatic Constitution “Dei Filius” (Vatican I, April 24, 1870) states:
“Since man is wholly dependent on God as his Creator and Lord, and since created reason is completely subject to uncreated truth, we are bound by faith to give full obedience of intellect and will to God who reveals. But the Catholic Church professes that this faith, which is the beginning of human salvation, is a supernatural virtue by which we, with the aid and inspiration of the grace of God, believe that the things revealed by Him are true, not because the intrinsic truth of the revealed things has been perceived by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. For, "faith is," as the Apostle testifies, "the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not" (Heb 11:1).”
Therefore the Catholic faith is the surest and the most incontestable knowledge and science.
It is exactly the other way round with “modern science”, as we see in the present conundrum around the “coronavirus”. Day after day, week after week, month after month the populace is being indoctrinated with the mantra: “We follow the science… we believe in the science.” Human science – as opposed to knowledge for which God vouchsafes through His authority – is all about facts. Thus it makes no sense at all for doctors, politicians, economists etc to postulate that anyone should believe in the science. That kind of science has a more proper name of its own, which is ideology. Facts are facts, and they do not need to be believed. If we are asked to believe in the facts, that means that the facts are not clear or proving the point made, to say the least…
As St Thomas Aquinas chants in the Office of Corpus Christi, Holy Communion is a manifold act which the Catholic poses: “O sacrum convivium…-
O sacred banquet! in which Christ is received - the memory of his Passion is renewed - the mind is filled with grace - and a pledge of future glory to us is given. Alleluia.”
We receive Our Lord, for he spoke to the Apostles: “This is my body… This is my blood.” These words are so clear that not even the apostate Martin Luther dared to change or interpret them. The Holy Council of Trent, in its XIIIth session (Oct. 11, 1551), ch. 1, teaches: “First of all, the holy council teaches and openly and plainly professes that after the consecration of bread and wine, our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is truly, really and substantially contained in the august sacrament of the Holy Eucharist under the appearance of those sensible things.”
The Holy Eucharist renews the memory of his Passion, since in fact it does much more still, namely it reenacts Our Lord’s Sacrifice.
The mind is filled with grace, receiving the visit of the author of grace.
A pledge of future glory to us is given, as the name of Holy Communion expresses: It is the anticipation of the eternal communion of the Blessed and Saints in Heaven.
None of this can be subject to discussion or interpretation, let alone changes intended by the modernists. You believe it because you profess the Catholic Faith; or you do not believe it because anyway you do as you like.
As for you, dear First Communicant, take great advantage of this first encounter with Our Lord in the Sacrament most holy, the Sacrament divine. May it be followed by many fervent communions, and ultimately the eternal and true communion with Our Lord in Heaven.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
P. Arnold Trauner (paterarnold@hotmail.com), njemački i engleski
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