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| St. Basil of Caesarea: On the Condition and Confusion of the Churches |
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Posted by: Stone - 02-21-2024, 06:27 AM - Forum: Fathers of the Church
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St. Basil of Caesarea: Letter 243: To the bishops of Italy and Gaul concerning the condition and confusion of the Churches
[At the time of St. Basil, the Arian heresy was raging.]
1. To his brethren truly God-beloved and very dear, and fellow ministers of like mind, the bishops of Gaul and Italy, Basil, bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia. Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has deigned to style the universal Church of God His body, and has made us individually members one of another, has moreover granted to all of us to live in intimate association with one another, as befits the agreement of the members. Wherefore, although we dwell far away from one another, yet, as regards our close conjunction, we are very near. Since, then, the head cannot say to the feet, I have no need of you, 1 Corinthians 12:21 you will not, I am sure, endure to reject us; you will, on the contrary, sympathize with us in the troubles to which, for our sins, we have been given over, in proportion as we rejoice together with you in your glorying in the peace which the Lord has bestowed on you. Ere now we have also at another time invoked your charity to send us succour and sympathy; but our punishment was not full, and you were not suffered to rise up to succour us. One chief object of our desire is that through you the state of confusion in which we are situated should be made known to the emperor of your part of the world. If this is difficult, we beseech you to send envoys to visit and comfort us in our affliction, that you may have the evidence of eyewitnesses of those sufferings of the East which cannot be told by word of mouth, because language is inadequate to give a clear report of our condition.
2. Persecution has come upon us, right honourable brethren, and persecution in the severest form. Shepherds are persecuted that their flocks may be scattered. And the worst of all is that those who are being treated ill cannot accept their sufferings in proof of their testimony, nor can the people reverence the athletes as in the army of martyrs, because the name of Christians is applied to the persecutors. The one charge which is now sure to secure severe punishment is the careful keeping of the traditions of the Fathers. For this the pious are exiled from their homes, and are sent away to dwell in distant regions. No reverence is shown by the judges of iniquity to the hoary head, to practical piety, to the life lived from boyhood to old age according to the Gospel. No malefactor is doomed without proof, but bishops have been convicted on calumny alone, and are consigned to penalties on charges wholly unsupported by evidence. Some have not even known who has accused them, nor been brought before any tribunal, nor even been falsely accused at all. They have been apprehended with violence late at night, have been exiled to distant places, and, through the hardships of these remote wastes, have been given over to death. The rest is notorious, though I make no mention of it — the flight of priests; the flight of deacons; the foraying of all the clergy. Either the image must be worshipped, or we are delivered to the wicked flame of whips. The laity groan; tears are falling without ceasing in public and in private; all are mutually lamenting their woes. No one's heart is so hard as to lose a father, and bear the bereavement meekly. There is a sound of them that mourn in the city — a sound in the fields, in the roads, in the deserts. But one voice is heard from all that utter sad and piteous words. Joy and spiritual gladness are taken away. Our feasts are turned into mourning. Amos 8:10 Our houses of prayer are shut. The altars of the spiritual service are lying idle. Christians no longer assemble together; teachers no longer preside. The doctrines of salvation are no longer taught. We have no more solemn assemblies, no more evening hymns, no more of that blessed joy of souls which arises in the souls of all that believe in the Lord at communions, and the imparting of spiritual boons. We may well say, "Neither is there at this time prince, or prophet, or reader, or offering, or incense, or place to sacrifice before you, and to find mercy."
3. We are writing to those who know these things, for there is not a region of the world which is ignorant of our calamities. Do not suppose that we are using these words as though to give information, or to recall ourselves to your recollection. We know that you could no more forget us than a mother forget the sons of her womb. Isaiah 49:15 But all who are crushed by any weight of agony find some natural alleviation for their pain in uttering groans of distress, and it is for this that we are doing as we do. We get rid of the load of our grief in telling you of our manifold misfortunes, and in expressing the hope that you may haply be the more moved to pray for us, and may prevail on the Lord to be reconciled to us. And if these afflictions had been confined to ourselves, we might even have determined to keep silence, and to rejoice in our sufferings for Christ's sake, since "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." Romans 8:18 But at the present time we are alarmed, lest the mischief growing day by day, like a flame spreading through some burning wood, when it has consumed what is close at hand, may catch distant objects too. The plague of heresy is spreading, and there is ground of apprehension lest, when it has devoured our Churches, it may afterwards creep on even so far as to the sound portion of your district. Peradventure it is because with us iniquity has abounded that we have been first delivered to be devoured by the cruel teeth of the enemies of God. But the gospel of the kingdom began in our regions, and then went forth over all the world. So, perhaps — and this is most probable — the common enemy of our souls, is striving to bring it about that the seeds of apostasy, originating in the same quarter, should be distributed throughout the world. For the darkness of impiety plots to come upon the very hearts whereon the "light of the knowledge" of Christ has shone.
4. Reckon then, as true disciples of the Lord, that our sufferings are yours. We are not being attacked for the sake of riches, or glory, or any temporal advantages. We stand in the arena to fight for our common heritage, for the treasure of the sound faith, derived from our Fathers. Grieve with us, all you who love the brethren, at the shutting of the mouths of our men of true religion, and at the opening of the bold and blasphemous lips of all that utter unrighteousness against God. The pillars and foundation of the truth are scattered abroad. We, whose insignificance has allowed of our being overlooked, are deprived of our right of free speech. Join the struggle, for the people's sake. Do not think only of your being yourselves moored in a safe haven, where the grace of God gives you shelter from the tempest of the winds of wickedness. Reach out a helping hand to the Churches that are being buffeted by the storm, lest, if they be abandoned, they suffer complete shipwreck of the faith. Lament for us, in that the Only-begotten is being blasphemed, and there is none to offer contradiction. The Holy Ghost is being set at nought and he who is able to confute the error has been sent into exile. Polytheism has prevailed. Our opponents own a great God and a small God. "Son" is no longer a name of nature, but is looked upon as a title of some kind of honour. The Holy Ghost is regarded not as complemental of the Holy Trinity, nor as participating in the divine and blessed Nature, but as in some sort one of the number of created beings, and attached to Father and Son, at mere haphazard and as occasion may require. "Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears," Jeremiah 9:1 and I will weep many days for the people who are being driven to destruction by these vile doctrines. The ears of the simple are being led astray, and have now got used to heretical impiety. The nurslings of the Church are being brought up in the doctrines of iniquity. What are they to do? Our opponents have the command of baptisms; they speed the dying on their way; they visit the sick; they console the sorrowful; they aid the distressed; they give succour of various kinds; they communicate the mysteries. All these things, as long as the performance of them is in their hands, are so many ties to bind the people to their views. The result will be that in a little time, even if some liberty be conceded to us, there is small hope that they who have been long under the influence of error will be recalled to recognition of the truth.
5. Under these circumstances it would have been well for many of us to have travelled to your reverences, and to have individually reported each his own position. You may now take as a proof of the sore straits in which we are placed the fact that we are not even free to travel abroad. For if any one leaves his Church, even for a very brief space, he will leave his people at the mercy of those who are plotting their ruin. By God's mercy instead of many we have sent one, our very reverend and beloved brother the presbyter Dorotheus. He is fully able to supply by his personal report whatever has been omitted in our letter, for he has carefully followed all that has occurred, and is jealous of the right faith. Receive him in peace, and speedily send him back to us, bringing us good news of your readiness to succour the brotherhood.
"Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us." Ecclesiastes 1:10
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| St. Ambrose: The Order of Melchisedech |
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Posted by: Stone - 02-21-2024, 06:13 AM - Forum: Fathers of the Church
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The Angelus - June 1981
The Order of Melchisedech
A Sermon by St. Ambrose
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THE CHRISTIAN Sacraments are older than the Jewish. You have come to the altar of God, you have seen the sacraments placed there, and you wonder to see there a created thing; nevertheless it is a solemn and an unusual created thing. Someone has said perhaps: God showed great favor to the Jews. He rained manna on them from heaven (Exod. xvi. 15). What more has He given His own faithful; what more has He given to those to whom He promised more?
Take in what I now say. The mysteries of the Christians were before those of the Jews; and more sacred are the sacraments of the Christians than those of the Jews. How can this be? Pay heed to this. Where did the Jews begin? From Judah, the great-grandson of Abraham; or, if you wish to understand it that way, from the Law; that is, when the Jews merited to receive the Law. So they are called Jews from the great-grandson of Abraham, or from the time of the saintly Moses. And if God then rained manna from heaven on the Jews, murmuring against Him, the figure of these holy sacraments preceded this: in Abraham's time, when he collected three hundred and eighteen well-appointed men, and pursued his enemies, and brought his grandchild back from captivity. Then, returning a victor, there met him Melchisedech the priest, and he offered bread and wine (Gen. xiv. 18).
Who had the bread and wine? Abraham did not have it. But who had it? Melchisedech. He then is the author of the sacraments (Heb. vii. 1 seq.). Who is Melchisedech? He who is made known to us as the King of Justice, the King of Peace. Who is the King of Justice? Can any man be King of Justice? Who then is King of Justice if not the Justice of God, Who is also the Peace of God, the Wisdom of God? Who could say: Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you? (Jn. xiv. 27.)
Let you then grasp, that these sacraments which you receive are prior in time to those of the Law of Moses; whatever the Jews may have to say. And that the Christian people had begun before the Jewish people had begun: we through predestination, they in name.
Melchisedech therefore offered a sacrifice of bread and wine. Who is Melchisedech? He was, says the Apostle, without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but likened unto the Son of God, continueth a priest forever; and this we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews (vii). Without father, he says, and without mother. In this whom does he resemble? The Son of God. For the Son of God, in His heavenly generation, was born without a mother: He was born of the Father alone. And again when He was born of the Virgin, He was born without father: for He was not begotten of the seed of man, but born of the Holy Ghost (Mt. i. 20) and of the Virgin Mary, and brought forth from her virginal womb, in all things as the Son of God.
Melchisedech was also a priest, as Christ is a priest; to Whom it was said: Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech (Ps. cix. 4). Who therefore is the author of the sacraments if not the Lord Jesus? These sacraments have come down from heaven; from whence all counsel comes. It was a truly great and divine miracle that God should rain manna from heaven on His people; and that the people should eat though they did not work.
But perhaps you will say: My bread is ordinary bread. On the contrary, this bread is bread only before the words of the sacred rite. When the consecration has been added, from being bread it becomes the Body of Christ. Let us therefore prove this. How can that which is bread be the Body of Christ? By consecration. Consecration by what words; by whose words? Those of the Lord Jesus. For all the other words which are said previous to this are said by the priest: the praises that are offered to God, the prayer that is offered for the congregation, for rulers, and for others. But when the moment comes to consecrate the venerable sacrament, the priest will no longer use his own words, but will use the words of Christ. It is therefore the Word of Christ that consecrates this sacrament.
Who is the Word of Christ? Who but He by Whom all things were made. The Lord commanded, and the heavens were made. The Lord commanded, and the earth was made. The Lord commanded and the seas were made. The Lord commanded, and every creature was brought forth (Gen. i). You see then how wondrous in work is the Word of Christ.
If then there is such power in the Word of the Lord Jesus, so that the things that were not by It began to be, how much the more can It change what is into another thing? The heavens did not exist, nor the sea, nor the land, yet hearken to David speaking: He spoke, and they were made. He commanded, and they were created (Ps. cxlviii. 5). And accordingly I answer you; that the bread was not the Body of Christ before the consecration. But I say to you that after the consecration it is now Christ's Body. He spoke, and It was made. He commanded, and It was created. You were yourself; but you were your old self. After you were consecrated you began to be a new creature. Do you wish to know what sort of new creature? Everyone, says the Scripture, in Christ is a new creature (I Cor. v. 17).
Understand therefore how the words of Christ have changed every creature; and now change, when He wills, the order of nature. You wish to know in what manner? Listen then; and let us take an example from His own birth. It is the rule of nature that a man is born only from the conjugal relation of man and woman. But because the Lord willed it, because He chose this sacred means (sacramentum), Christ, that is, the one Mediator of God and men, the Man Jesus Christ (I. Tim. ii. 5), was born of the Holy Ghost, and the Virgin Mary. You see then how, contrary to the order and custom of nature, a Man was born of a Virgin?
Consider another example. The Jewish people were hemmed in by the Egyptians, and behind them was the sea. By divine command Moses struck the waters with a rod, and the waves divided; not certainly in accord with nature's laws, but in accord with the grace of the heavenly command (Exod. xiv). And consider another example. The people were thirsty, and they came upon a well. But it was a bitter well. So the saintly Moses cast a certain tree into the well, and the fountain that was bitter was made sweet; that is, it changed the quality of its nature, and was turned into sweetness (Exod xv. 23). Consider a fourth example. An iron axe had fallen into the water, and since it was iron it sank. And Elisaeus cast in a piece of wood, and the iron swam upon the surface of the water; and this purely is contrary to the nature of iron (IV Kgs. vi. 6), which is a far heavier element than water.
From these examples therefore you may understand how great is the power of the heavenly word. If it can work a wonder in an earthly well, if the heavenly word can work wonders in other things, will it not work similarly in the heavenly Sacraments? And so you have learned that the Body of Christ is made from bread; and that wine and water are mingled in the chalice, but that this becomes Blood by the consecration of the heavenly words. But perhaps you will say: 'I see no appearance of blood.' But it possesses a likeness to it. For as you have taken on the likeness of his death, so do you also drink the likeness of His Precious Blood: that there may be no horror of spilt blood, and yet that the price of our Redemption may be efficacious. You have therefore learned that what you receive is the Body of Christ.
THE WORDS of the Lord make and consecrate His own Body and Blood. And would you know by what heavenly words It is consecrated? Here then are the words. The Priest says: Grant us, he says, that this oblation may be attributed to us, confirmed, an offering of our reason, acceptable to Thee, as the figure of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who, on the day before He suffered took bread in His holy hands, looked up to heaven to Thee, Holy Father Almighty, Eternal God, and giving thanks, He blessed, broke it, and gave what was broken to His Apostles and to His Disciples, saying: Take ye, and eat ye all of this; for this is my body, which shall be broken for many (Lk. xxii. 19 V.I.)
In like manner also, on the day before He suffered, after He had supped, He took the chalice, looked up to heaven to Thee, Holy Father Almighty Eternal God, and giving thanks He blessed it and gave to His Apostles and Disciples, saying: Take ye and drink ye all of this; for this is my blood (Mt. xxvi. 27).
Consider all this. There are the words of the Evangelist up to Take ye, whether of the Body or the Blood. From there on they are the words of Christ: Take ye, and drink ye all of this; for this is my blood. Consider each word.
Who, he says, on the day before He suffered took bread in His holy hands. Before it is consecrated it is bread. When the words of consecration have been added, it is the Body of Christ. Then listen to Him saying Take ye, and eat ye all of this; for this is my body. Again, before the words of consecration, it is a chalice filled with wine and water. Where the words of Christ have wrought, there the Blood of Christ, Which has redeemed His people, is made. You see then in how many ways the words of Christ are able to change all things. Lastly, the Lord Jesus Himself testifies to us that we receive His Body and Blood. Are we to doubt His honesty and His testimony?
Now return with me to the main subject of my sermon. It was a great and venerable sign that manna rained from heaven upon the Hebrews (Exod. xvi. 13). But reflect. Which is the greater wonder: the manna from heaven, or the Body of Christ? The Body of Christ, the Creator of heaven. Then again he who ate manna is dead; but he that will eat of This Body his sins will be forgiven him, and he shall not die for ever.
So not without meaning do you say: Amen; in that moment confessing in spirit that you receive the Body of Christ. What the tongue confesses, let the heart hold fast.
That you may know that this is a divine mystery, its Figure preceded it. Learn then how great is this sacrament. Consider what He says: As often as you shall do this, do it in commemoration of Me, until I come again (cf. I Cor. xi. 26). And the Priest says: Mindful therefore of His most glorious passion, and of His Resurrection from the dead, and of His Ascension into heaven, we offer Thee this immaculate Host, this reasoning victim, this unbloody sacrifice, this holy Bread, and the Chalice of eternal life; and we beg and pray that by the hands of the Angels thou wilt receive this Offering upon Thy heavenly altar, as Thou didst deign to receive the gifts of Thy servant, Abel the Just, and the sacrifice of Abraham our father, and that which the High Priest Melchisedech offered to Thee.
So then, as often as you shall receive, what does the Apostle say to you? As often as you shall receive, you shall announce the death of the Lord. If we announce His death, we announce the forgiveness of sins. If as often as His Blood is shed, it is shed unto the remission of sins, I ought to receive It always; that my sins may always be forgiven. I who am always sinning ought always to have what heals me.
May the Lord our God preserve you in the grace He has given you, and may He deign to enlighten yet more the eyes He has opened, through His only Son, the Lord God our King and Savior, through Whom and with Whom be there to Him, together with the Holy Ghost, praise, honor, glory, magnificence, from all ages, and now, and for ever and ever, world without end.
Amen.
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| Holy Mass in Montana - March 17, 2024 |
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Posted by: Stone - 02-20-2024, 04:27 PM - Forum: March 2024
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Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - Passion Sunday
Date: Sunday, March 17, 2024
Time: Confessions - 6:00 PM
Holy Mass - 6:30 PM
Location: West Glacier, MT area [call for directions]
Contact: Andrea 406-260-8034
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| Holy Mass in Canada [Bay Tree area] - March 12, 2024 |
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Posted by: Stone - 02-20-2024, 03:42 PM - Forum: March 2024
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Holy Sacrifice of the Mass - Feast of St. Gregory the Great
Date: Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Time: Confessions - 8:30 AM
Holy Mass - 9:00 AM
Location: Bay Tree, Alberta [contact coordinator below for details]
Contact: Jim 780-353-3101
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