Sacraments Of Initiation Quotes

Sacramental attachments to a dying a resurrected savior was a common idea in the Roman Empire. The religion of Mithraism, very popular in the army and open only to males, bathed the initiate in the blood of a bull.

As for the vice of lust - aside from what it means for spiritual persons to fall into this vice, since my intent is to treat of the imperfections that have to be purged by means of the dark night - spiritual persons have numerous imperfections, many of which can be called spiritual lust, not because the lust is spiritual but because it proceeds from spiritual things. It happens frequently that in a person's spiritual exercises themselves, without the person being able to avoid it, impure movements will be experienced in the sensory part of the soul, and even sometimes when the spirit is deep in prayer or when receiving the sacraments of Penance or the Eucharist. These impure feelings arise from any of three causes outside one's control. First, they often proceed from the pleasure human nature finds in spiritual exercises. Since both the spiritual and the sensory part of the soul receive gratification from that refreshment, each part experiences delight according to its own nature and properties. The spirit, the superior part of the soul, experiences renewal and satisfaction in God; and the sense, the lower part, feels sensory gratification and delight because it is ignorant of how to get anything else, and hence takes whatever is nearest, which is the impure sensory satisfaction. It may happen that while a soul is with God in deep spiritual prayer, it will conversely passively experience sensual rebellions, movements, and acts in the senses, not without its own great displeasure. This frequently happens at the time of Communion. Since the soul receives joy and gladness in this act of love - for the Lord grants the grace and gives himself for this reason - the sensory part also takes its share, as we said, according to its mode. Since, after all, these two parts form one individual, each one usually shares according to its mode in what the other receives. As the Philosopher says: Whatever is received, is received according to the mode of the receiver. Because in the initial stages of the spiritual life, and even more advanced ones, the sensory part of the soul is imperfect, God's spirit is frequently received in this sensory part with this same imperfection. Once the sensory part is reformed through the purgation of the dark night, it no longer has these infirmities. Then the spiritual part of the soul, rather than the sensory part, receives God's Spirit, and the soul thus receives everything according to the mode of the Spirit.

The process of disintegration described earlier with regard to the rites of initiation is apparent here, again, with regard to the theology of initiation and membership. In Augustine, membership was located within the threefold unity of faith, Baptism, and “Catholic peace” or Church unity. In Suárez, who refers back to Augustine but misunderstands him, it was faith, righteousness, and baptismal character. In Benedict XIV, who refers back to Suárez, it is now only baptismal character, which—it is important to stress—depends only upon “the proper form and matter” (validity). The initial, more restrained sacramental minimalism of Augustine has undergone such a “development of doctrine” as would be unrecognizable to Augustine himself.

Faith is not a meritorious cause of election, but it is constantly attested as the sole condition of salvation. Faith merely receives the merit of atoning grace, instead of asserting its own merit. God places the life-death option before each person, requiring each to choose. The ekletos are those who by grace freely believe. God does not compel or necessitate their choosing. Even after the initial choice of faith is made, they may grieve and quench the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19). Faith is the condition under which God primordially wills the reception of salvation by all. “He chooses us, not because we believe, but that we may believe; lest we should say that we first chose Him” (Augustine). Faith receives the electing love of God not as if it had already become efficacious without faith, but aware that God’s prescience foreknows faith like all else. In accord with ancient ecumenical consent, predestination was carefully defined in centrist Protestant orthodoxy as: 'The eternal, divine decree, by which God, from His immense mercy, determined to give His Son as Mediator, and through universal preaching , to offer Him for reception to all men who from eternity He foresaw would fall into sin; also through the Word and Sacraments to confer faith upon all who would not resist; to justify all believers, and besides to renew those using the means of grace; to preserve faith in them until the end of life, and in a word, to save those believing to the end' (Melanchthon).

By contrast, when you read people who have thought seriously about the deeper historical and cultural forces that have shaped the modern West, you find a rather different picture emerging.22 Fidelity scores higher than novelty. Loss of influence is not a cause for panic. The doctrines, experiences, and practices that the church needs today are much the same as the ones she needed in the eighteenth century, and the tenth, and the second. We are responsible for obedience not outcomes, faithfulness not fruit; if we do not see the results we used to by praying, worshiping, reading Scripture, serving the poor, preaching the gospel, sharing the sacraments, and loving one another, we carry on with those things regardless and walk by faith not by sight. Genuine revival, when it comes, is at God’s initiative rather than ours. In the meantime, we wait, rejoicing always, praying without ceasing, giving thanks in all circumstances, and resolving not to be anxious about tomorrow, for we have no idea what tomorrow will bring.

The priestly hierarchy ran to seven grades or stages of initiation. One became successively Raven, Bridegroom or Newly-wed (Nymphus), Soldier, Lion, Persian, Heliodromus or 'Messenger of the Sun' and finally Father. Each of the mystae attaining these titles wore the costume appropriate to his office, and the frescoes of Sta Prisca give us some idea of them. They were respectively under the protection of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, the Moon, the Sun and Saturn. The Raven served the guests, the Nymphus gave them light. Marked on his forehead (perhaps branded), the Soldier who had been consecrated by the rite of a crown proffered on a sword-point (Tert., Cor., 15, 3), in his turn put candidates for initiation to the test. The Lion, who was purified by having honey instead of water poured on his hands, looked after the fire. The Persian was the 'guardian of the fruit' (Porph., Antr., 16). In the sacramental meal, the Heliodromus represented the Sun beside the Father representing Mithras. The Raven and the Lion wore masks suitable to their name.

Let us go a step farther. From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge- a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in pros- perity. As the number of her adherents dimin- ishes, so will she lose many of her social privi- leges. In contrast to an earlier age, she will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, she will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. Undoubtedly she will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. In many smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care will normally be provided in this fashion. Along- side this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly. But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. In faith and prayer she will again recognize her true center and ex- perience the sacraments again as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholar- ship.

The Period of Inquiry: This time allows prospective converts to learn about the Catholic Church by attending Mass, spending time with the Lord in an adoration chapel, meeting with a priest or knowledgeable Catholic, or even by listening to Catholic radio or television. Above all else, the catechumen should pray for guidance through the RCIA process in order to develop a personal relationship with God through his son, Jesus Christ. The Order of Catechumens: An inquirer who wishes to become Catholic enters the order of catechumens. In order to do this, he is required to select a sponsor, a practicing Catholic who will guide and support him through the process and will be present when he receives the sacraments of initiation. Catechesis: The catechumen is formally taught the doctrines of the Faith and instructed in how to live the Christian life. This period culminates in

the Rite of Election, where the Church formally recognizes a person’s desire to become Catholic. The Sacraments of Initiation: For most people, the RCIA process reaches its climax at the Easter Vigil, where non-Christian catechumens receive baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist. Catechumens from other Christian denominations with valid baptisms receive confirmation and the Eucharist. It is a joyous occasion that celebrates how God has brought his children into full communion with Christ’s “one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church.

Although the move from Calvinism to Arminianism began in the seminary classroom, it came to have a profound influence on American culture through the events of the Second Great Awakening. The revivals of the first Great Awakening were supernatural events, wrought by the power of God’s Spirit. The same could be said of the new wave of revivals that began in the 1790s and continued well into the nineteenth century. Like its predecessor, the Second Great Awakening began and flourished in Calvinist churches, where it was believed that because revival is a work of God alone, it is “peculiarly illustrative of the glorious doctrines of grace.”29 However, since it was only natural to want the awakening to continue, some Christian leaders—especially Methodists—sought to devise methods for promoting revival. Their concern for personal salvation was commendable. However, rather than relying on God to bless the ordinary means of grace (prayer, the ministry of the Word, and the sacraments), they adopted the “New Measures” associated with the invitation system: the protracted camp meeting, the “anxious bench,” the altar call. These pragmatic techniques were susceptible to manipulation, especially where it was considered important to count the number of converts. Preachers stressed the necessity of “coming forward to receive Christ,” with the unintended consequence of con-fusing a human decision (to come forward) with a divine transformation (spiritual conversion). In short, there was a shift from revival to revivalism.30 This transition was rooted in an Arminian theology of conversion, which maintained that sinners were neutral—free to choose their own spiritual destiny. Whereas the Puritans had insisted that depravity prevented anyone from choosing for Christ apart from the prior work of the Holy Spirit, the new revivalists called on people to exercise their own ability to receive the gospel. Gardiner Spring described this as the difference between a revival that is “got up by man’s device” and one that is “brought down by the Spirit of God.”31 The difference can be illustrated by comparing Jonathan Edwards, who described revival as “a very extraordinary dispensation of Providence,”32 with Charles Finney, who insisted that a revival is not supernatural but the natural “result of the right use of the constituted means.” Like most revivalists, Finney explicitly rejected the doctrines of grace. Early in his ministry he left the Presbyterian church and repudiated Calvin’s views “on the subject of atonement, regeneration, faith, repentance, the slavery of the will, or any of the kindred doctrines.”33 The view he eventually adopted was not merely Arminian but actually Pelagian. Finney believed that sinners could initiate their own conversion: “Instead of telling sinners to use the means of grace and pray for a new heart, we called on them to make themselves a new heart and a new spirit and pressed the duty of instant surrender to God.

When we speak of Poland’s baptism, we are not simply referring to the sacrament of Christian initiation received by the first historical sovereign of Poland, but also to the event which was decisive for the birth of the nation and the formation of its Christian identity. In this sense, the date of Poland’s baptism marks a turning point. Poland as a nation emerges from its prehistory at that moment and begins to exist in history.

Feeling of deep and profound peace Certainty that all things will work out for the good Sense of my own need to contribute to others Conviction that love is at the center of everything Sense of joy and laughter An experience of great emotional intensity Great increase in my understanding and knowledge Sense of the unity of everything and my own part in it Sense of new life or living in the world Confidence in my own personal survival Feeling that I couldn’t possibly describe what was happening to me The sense that all the universe is alive The sensation that my personality had been taken over by something much more powerful that I am As we escape the subjective self and rise above our suffering to view our experience objectively, we abandon the limitations of our local minds in the embrace of nonlocal consciousness. Later researchers built on Greeley’s initial findings. They found seven commonalities, including a sense of unity, enlightenment, awe, and bliss. The sensory vividness of the “enlightenment” experience exceeded that of everyday life. In his 1954 classic The Doors of Perception, philosopher Aldous Huxley called this “the sacramental vision of reality.” All mystics have similar experiences, whether they are Hindu sadhus begging as they wander the countryside, Buddhist monks isolating themselves in caves high in the Himalayas, or Christian nuns engaged in contemplative prayer. Harvard University’s first professor of psychology, William James, after his own transcendent experiences, observed in 1902 that “our normal waking consciousness . . . is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.” He said that no account of the universe would be complete without accounting for these states.

Even if I wanted to appeal to some objective ground for womanhood, I was being trained to think in a strictly secular, postmodern mode—a mode that favors the particular over the universal, that denies the existence of any objective ground from which to approach this question. In this understanding, all of our conceptual categories, our entire sense of reality, is fundamentally created through language—our words make the world, rather than express it. Any meaning we ascribe to bodily realities is arbitrary and ultimately fictitious. There is no room in this worldview for a sacramental understanding of maleness and femaleness. The cosmos has been flattened; there are no natural signs of divine realities, because there are no divine realities. There is no givenness to our bodily nature at all, no grand order to which we belong and through which we come to understand ourselves. Sexual difference itself is reduced to mere biology, something we can manipulate at will, rather than something that is intrinsic to our being, that concerns the whole person, not merely chromosomes or body parts. I turned to feminism to discover the significance of my womanness, and I was initiated into an ideology where womanness itself is ultimately renounced. What I was unknowingly seeking, and unable to find in either secular or evangelical feminism, was the understanding of woman as a sign. It is not merely the priest who serves as an icon during the Mass; every man and every woman is a living icon, carrying in his or her body a divine sign that reveals the sacred bond between God and humankind.

In some Communion liturgies the congregation will be asked to examine their hearts before receiving the sacraments, the language being borrowed from 1 Corinthians 11: 28: “Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup.” The current of individualism that runs so deeply through white Christianity leads us to think of this important part of the Lord’s Supper in highly individualistic terms. So, for example, we might recall an unacknowledged sin that can be confessed before coming to the table. This is all well and good, but the context for Paul’s admonition to examine ourselves is one in which class divisions and disparities had not been dismantled by the church. He is urging the church to consider how they, corporately, had succumbed to their society’s divisive hierarchies. The call to examine ourselves can include unconfessed individual sin, but we understand it more fully when we see it as an invitation to the entire community. Though it may initially seem strange, Holy Communion is a natural time for us to reflect on how racial discipleship has deformed our desires and assumptions.