For decades in the post-conciliar period, people were saying that one should no longer do catechism, but experience the encounter with the Lord. The teaching of doctrine in this way was abandoned and replaced with communication of ‘our experiences’ and the ‘testimony’ of ‘credible’ people. Even in celebrations the testimonies and the homily-ray had great consideration. What do you say about this?
Advent 2021 is finally here! Over the years, during Advent, I have inherited two prized traditions in my family. One is the tradition of Crib making which is quite popular the world over and the other, which has served my soul much better and continues to do so to this day – the “St Andrew’s Christmas Novena.”
He said he prays for his family, children, wife, parents, for happiness and a good family life. “But I can say the reality is I never go to the church to speak with Him about football. Never!”
Advent means “coming.” Our Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that there are three comings of Christ.
“The essential rite of the sacrament of Holy Orders for all three degrees consists in [1] the bishop’s imposition of hands on the head of the ordinand [the matter of the sacrament] and in [2] the bishop’s specific consecratory prayer asking God for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and his gifts proper to the ministry to which the candidate is being ordained [form] [Cf. Pius XII, apostolic constitution, Sacramentum Ordinis].”
For us postmodern people who are living in a permanent state of distraction, constantly multitasking and browsing our devices with scattered minds, the faculty of attention is rapidly deteriorating. Someone wrote that “attention is really another word for love,” because only when we pay attention do we take the attention off ourselves and we become less self-centered, less self-fixated. Any true encounter – and any genuine act of love – needs this movement from the self to the other. It’s the only worthy way to live, to work, to build relationships.
“The Lord is present in the passage of our lives, he accompanies us and will one day also dry our tears. One day, not far off, everything will find its fulfilment in the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of justice and peace.”
We need priests because we, sinners, need mediators who act in the name and with the power of the one single Mediator and Redeemer who is Christ.
St Gregory the Great adds, “Consider well how terrible is the hour of death, and how appalling the remembrance of our sins will be at that time. For the devils will recall all the harm they have done to us, and remind us of the sins which we have committed at their instigation.”
Thus, we should never hesitate to offer to a very ill person or a dying one the possibility of receiving the Anointing of the Sick. And should we ourselves be in that situation, we should not hesitate to ask for it, together with the two other sacraments of Confession and the Viaticum.
The remote matter of this sacrament is olive oil or oil from other plants that has been blessed. The proximate matter is the anointing on the forehead and the hand.
The form, as mentioned above, is the prayer that is recited as the anointing is being done.
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