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St. Ambrose: The Order of Melchisedech |
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
![[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3...ipo=images]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.da5SbZccELgQ8Z_56Nz1nQHaFB%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=26c045dbf19878524a958b329f46df2c1e098ef4bd927cc31109efcd69437113&ipo=images)
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 |
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 |
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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Cardinal Dolan praises priest who presided at ‘trans’ funeral in New York cathedral |
Posted by: Stone - 02-20-2024, 06:19 AM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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Cardinal Dolan praises priest who presided at ‘trans’ funeral in New York cathedral
The New York archbishop said that Fr. Edward Dougherty 'is a hero' because 'he stopped the (funeral) Mass,' but when questioned that in reality the service was not stopped, Dolan said, 'Then it went on without him,' and he turned around and walked away.
'Transgender' funeral at New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral
X
Feb 19, 2024
(LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York told a Catholic laywoman that Fr. Edward Dougherty, who officiated at the scandalous February 15 funeral service of a transgender activist and atheist in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, “is a hero.”
LifeSite spoke with Wendy Stone Long, who had approached Cardinal Dolan on Saturday, February 17 after his vigil Mass at Blessed Sacrament Parish in New Rochelle, New York. Long told LifeSite that she first asked the cardinal when a Mass of Reparation would take place at the cathedral in order to make reparation for the recent sacrilegious funeral.
Dolan leaned over to Long and whispered into her ear: “You know, I think it’s already happened – they did it on the QT (quiet) so it wouldn’t be disrupted by those protesters.”
When Long insisted that many Catholics would have liked to attend that Mass of Reparation in light of the great scandal of the funeral service, Dolan told her that Fr. Dougherty “is a hero” because “he stopped the (funeral) Mass.” And when Long objected that she herself had watched the entire service and that it was not stopped, Dolan said, “Then it went on without him,” and the cardinal turned around and walked away.
Cardinal Dolan did not use his homily at the Saturday evening vigil Mass in New Rochelle to comment on the scandal that had taken place in his own cathedral some days earlier and since then has not made any public comment on the matter.
Fr. Dougherty officiated the funeral service on February 15. As can be heard on the video of the event, he was told before the service that the originally planned funeral Mass had to be turned into a funeral service. “Funeral service, no Mass,” a clergyman told Dougherty, to which he replied, “OK, OK.” He obviously did not make that decision. He continuously spoke of the trans activist Cecilia Gentili (born a man) as “she” and indicated that Gentili was on the way to heaven. At the beginning of the service, he praised the attendees – hundreds of whom were transgender persons – by stating, “Except on Easter Sunday, we don’t really have a crowd that is so well turned out.” The congregation burst out in prolonged uproarious hoots and yells in response to the priest, who is then laughing.
He also tolerated the innumerable blasphemies and mockeries of the Catholic faith throughout the service, during which the Mother of God was mocked (replacing the words “Ave Maria” with the chant “Ave Cecilia,” as if Gentili was a saint and comparable to Our Lady). With the priest sitting nearby, one homosexual couple exchanged a kiss on the altar. When the “husband” of Gentili called the deceased an “angel,” Fr. Dougherty clapped his hands in approval. Another speaker called Gentili “our saint” who worked so that “sex workers are free.”
At certain points during the service, Fr. Dougherty could be heard laughing at the pranks of the audience. On the high altar of St. Patrick’s, transgenders were hugging and kissing during the remembrance speeches. One friend proclaimed Gentili as “this whore, this great whore” and “Saint Cecilia” to a huge outburst of applause. The crowd and organizers of the funeral event turned it into a political rally complete with cheers, catcalls, and intentions for “gender-affirming health care.” This blasphemous chant filled the entire cathedral as Gentili’s coffin was carried down the aisle, accompanied by Fr. Dougherty, who had stated at the end: “Let us take leave of our sister Cecilia.” He added, “One day we shall joyfully greet her again.”
The sacrilegious event in the most important Catholic cathedral of the United States has led to much criticism. A LifeSite petition requesting that an exorcism of the cathedral be performed has already gained more than 10,000 signatures.
A group of Catholic scholars and authors (among them LifeSite editor-in-chief John-Henry Westen) has urged bishops in the world to recognize the link between this planned provocation in New York City and the weakening stance of the Church toward the LGBT agenda under Pope Francis, especially in light of his approval of blessings for homosexual couples. Should this new move go unhindered, such provocations will soon most likely take place in numerous parishes in the world.
Cardinal Dolan will likely also receive more criticism for this response to Long. “Cardinal Dolan is hiding, he is not taking responsibility for this scandal,” children’s advocate Elizabeth Yore told LifeSite. “A public scandal that took place at a Catholic cathedral demands a public act of reparation, a public Mass of Reparation, not a private one in hiding. Dolan is more afraid of the tranny protest than of the scandal that he has caused in the Church.”
LifeSiteNews reached out to Cardinal Dolan for comment. An update will be provided with his response.
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80 Per Cent of Americans Consuming Infertility Chemical Via Popular Cereals |
Posted by: Stone - 02-19-2024, 07:13 AM - Forum: Health
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80 Per Cent of Americans Consuming Infertility Chemical Via Popular Cereals
Biden administration wants to expand use of “highly toxic” chlormequat.
modernity.news [emphasis mine] | 16th February 2024
80 per cent of Americans who consume popular cereals such as Cheerios and Quaker Oats are being exposed to a chemical that delays puberty and causes infertility.
A study by The Environmental Working Group published in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology found that four out of five people tested positive for a harmful pesticide called chlormequat.
“Just as troubling, we detected the chemical in 92% of oat-based foods purchased in May 2023, including Quaker Oats and Cheerios,” the group said.
Animal studies have shown that chlormequat disrupts fetal growth, damages reproductive systems and delays puberty.
What’s even more concerning is that exposure to the pesticide appears to be increasing in recent years.
While chlormequat was detected in 69% of study participants in 2017, that figure has now risen to 90% in the 2023 sample.
“Since chlormequat typically leaves the body within 24 hours, such a high concentration of positive tests indicates that Americans are regularly being exposed to the pesticide,” reports the New York Post.
The US federal government allows the “highly toxic agricultural chemical,” which aids the plant’s growth and makes harvesting easier, to be used on on oats and other imported grains.
The EWG noted that under the Biden administration, the US Environmental Protection Agency has proposed allowing the use of chlormequat on barley, oat, triticale and wheat grown in the US in response to a request by chlormequat manufacturer Taminco.
Cheerios are made by General Mills while Quaker Oats is owned by PepsiCo. Both companies have so far refused to comment on the issue and neither did the FDA.
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US Officials Concede No Active Surveillance On Long-Term Effects Of COVID-19 Vaccines |
Posted by: Stone - 02-19-2024, 07:03 AM - Forum: COVID Vaccines
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US Officials Concede No Active Surveillance On Long-Term Effects Of COVID-19 Vaccines
(Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
ZH | FEB 18, 2024
Authored by Megan Redshaw via The Epoch Times [slightly adapted] (emphasis ours)
In a Feb. 15 hearing by the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, U.S. health officials side-stepped a question when asked whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is actively conducting extended safety surveillance on those who received early COVID-19 vaccines.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) asked Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, whether the FDA is conducting active surveillance and if there are any specific health markers they’re studying that may signal trends requiring further inquiry.
“Every time we go through and do the safety surveillance, we start back, and it goes back to 2020. In some cases where we’re looking for certain things, we might use a different window, but indeed, we have to look from the beginning of the period of surveillance. I can turn it over to Dr. Jernigan because he can speak for CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] in that regard,” Dr. Marks said.
“So with regard to myocarditis, we certainly have been monitoring the issue with various different data systems. I think the most recent data really demonstrates that you’re about eight times less likely to get myocarditis if you’re vaccinated compared to those that are unvaccinated,” Dr. Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the CDC responded.
Rep. Malliotakis told Jernigan she wanted to know about “everything,” not just myocarditis.
Dr. Jerrigan asked her to repeat the question, and she asked again whether the FDA was conducting extended safety surveillance on early recipients of COVID-19 vaccines.
“Most of the reports that we get of adverse events are in the few weeks following the vaccination,” Jernigan said. In terms of monitoring these over time, Jernigan said the agency has “vaccine effectiveness” systems in place at the CDC.
Neither Jernigan nor Marks referenced any active surveillance initiatives being undertaken by their agencies to monitor people who received the original COVID-19 vaccines for long-term health effects.
“There is no system in place for long-term vaccine safety surveillance in this country,” Ms. Liz Willner, founder of OpenVAERS, told The Epoch Times.
“The FDA and CDC do not actively search for safety signals. They did not find the myocarditis or the thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome that led to the withdrawal of the J&J COVID vaccine—those signals were discovered by the European Medicines Agency. The Vaccine Safety Datalink has never corroborated any vaccine safety signals, including myocarditis, because you cannot find what you are not looking for,” she added.
According to the CDC, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a passive reporting system co-managed by the FDA and CDC that relies on individuals to send reports of their experiences to the agencies. It is not designed to determine whether a vaccine caused a health condition. The Vaccine Safety Datalink uses electronic health data from participating sites to monitor and assess the safety of vaccines and is not available to the public.
At one point during the hearing, Dr. Marks was asked whether COVID-19 vaccines have resulted in an increase in cancers and whether “turbo cancers” are real.
“I’m a hematologist oncologist that’s board certified. I don’t know what a turbo cancer is. It was a term that was used first in a paper in mouse experiments describing an inflammatory response,” Dr. Marks said. “We have not detected any increase in cancers with the COVID-19 vaccines.”
The inquiry was part of a long line of questioning to examine the government’s post-marketing surveillance of COVID-19 vaccine safety and the process for adjudication claims for compensation.
FDA Director Dr. Peter Marks said they tried to be prepared for reports that may come into VAERS but received a “tremendous” avalanche of adverse event reports after COVID-19 vaccines were released.
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