E. E. Holmes

“ We have seen that a National Church is the means whereby the Catholic Church reaches the nation; that her function is (1) to teach, and (2) to feed the nation; that she teaches through her books, and feeds through her Sacraments.
We now come to the second of these two functions—the spiritual feeding of the nation. This she does through the Sacraments—a word which comes from the Latin sacrare (from sacer) , sacred. [1] The Sacraments are the sacred media through which the soul of man is fed with the grace of God. ”

“ In speaking of the Bible, we commonly meet with two extreme classes: on the one hand, there are those who hold that every syllable is the Word of God, and therefore outside all criticism; on the other hand, there are those who hold that the Bible is no more the "Word of God" than any other book, and may, therefore, be handled and criticized just like any other book. ”

“ We offer on the earthly Altar the same Sacrifice that is being perpetually offered on the Heavenly Altar. There is only one Altar, only one Sacrifice, one Eucharist—"one offering, single and complete". All the combined earthly Altars are but one Altar—the earthly or visible part of the Heavenly Altar on which He, both Priest and Victim, offers Himself as the Lamb "as it had been slain". The Heavenly Altar is, as it were, the centre, and all the earthly Altars the circumference. We gaze at the Heavenly Altar through the Earthly Altars. ”

“ It is quite possible for the priest to over-direct, and it is fatally possible for the penitent to think more of direction than of Absolution. It is quite possible to obscure the Sacramental side of Penance with a human craving for "ghostly counsel and advice". Satan would not be Satan if it were not so. But this "ghostly," or spiritual, "counsel and advice" has saved many a lad, and many a man, from many a fall; and when rightly sought, and wisely given is, as the Prayer Book teaches, a most helpful adjunct to Absolution. Only, it is not, necessarily, a part of "going to Confession". ”

“ And notice—to say this, is not to disparage the Scriptures because we exalt the Church. It is to put both Church and Scriptures in their true, historical place. We do not disparage a publication because we exalt the society which issues that publication; rather, we honour the one by exalting the other. Thus, when we say that the creeds interpret the Bible, we do not disparage the Bible because we exalt the creeds, any more than we disparage the Church when we say that the Bible proves the creeds. ”

“ As the Sacrament of Marriage perpetuates the human race, so the Sacrament of Order perpetuates the Priesthood. Holy Order, indeed, perpetuates the Sacraments themselves. It is the ordained channel through which the Sacramental life of the Church is continued.
Holy Order, then, was instituted for the perpetuation of those Sacraments which depend upon Apostolic Succession. It makes it possible for the Christian laity to be Confirmed, Communicated, Absolved. Thus, the Christian Ministry is a great deal more than a body of men, chosen as officers might be chosen in the army or navy. ”

“ No book has spread more discord than the Bible. Every sect in the world quotes the Bible as the source and justification of its existence. Men, equally learned, devout, prayerful, deduce the most opposite conclusions from the very same words. Two men, we will say, honestly and earnestly seek to know what the Bible teaches about Baptismal Regeneration, or the Blessed Sacrament. ”

“ And we must remember that in this offering the whole Three Persons in the Blessed Trinity are at work. We must not in our worship so concentrate our attention upon the Second Person, as to exclude the other Persons from our thoughts. Indeed, if one Person is more prominent than another, it is God the Father. It is to God the Father that the Sacrifice ascends; it is with Him that we plead on earth that which God the Son is pleading in Heaven; it is God the Holy Ghost Who makes our pleadings possible, Who turns the many Jewish Altars into the one Christian Altar. ”

“ We sometimes forget that legislation for the individual may bear even harder {114} on the masses, than legislation for the masses may bear upon the individual. And, after all, this is not a question of "hard versus easy," but of "right versus wrong". Moreover, as we are finding out, that which seems easiest at the moment, often turns out hardest in the long run. It is no longer contended that re-marriage after a State-divorce is that universal Elysium which it has always been confidently assumed to be.
There is, too, a positively absurd side to the present conflict between Church and State. ”

“ As God did "save Noah and his family in the Ark from perishing by water," so does God save the human family from perishing by sin. As Noah and his family could, by an act of free will, have opened a window in the Ark, and have leapt into the waters, and frustrated God's purpose after they had been saved, so can any member of the human family, after it has been taken into the "Ark of Christ's Church," frustrate God's "good will towards" it, and wilfully leap out of its saving shelter. Baptism is "a beginning," not an end. [12] It puts us into a state of Salvation. ”

“ But the privilege of election is the privilege of service. It is like the privilege of a Member of Parliament, the favoured candidate—the privilege of being elected to serve others. Every election is for the sake of somebody else. ”

“ The Priest not only ministers before God on behalf of his people, but he ministers to his people on behalf of God. In this aspect of the Priesthood, he ministers God's gifts to the laity. If, as a Priest, he pleads the One Sacrifice on behalf of the people, as a Minister he feeds the people upon the one Sacrifice. His chief ministerial duty is to minister to the people—to give them Baptism, Absolution, Holy Communion; to minister to all their spiritual needs whenever, and wherever, he is needed. ”

“ Once a Priest, always a Priest. When once the Bishop has ordained a Deacon to the Priesthood, there is no going back. The law, ecclesiastical or civil, may deprive him of the right to exercise his Office, but no power can deprive him of the Office itself.
For instance, to safeguard the Church, and for {137} the sake of the laity, a Priest may, for various offences, be what is commonly called "unfrocked". He may be degraded, temporarily suspended, or permanently forbidden to officiate in any part of the Church; but he does not cease to be a Priest. ”

“ Are there souls to be saved and sanctified in Italy?—there is the Church, with its local headquarters at Rome. Are there souls to be saved and sanctified in Russia?—there is the Church, once with its local {4} headquarters at Moscow. Are there souls to be saved and sanctified in England?—there is the Church, with its local headquarters at Canterbury. It is, and ever has been, one and the same Church, "all one man's sons," and that man, the Man Christ Jesus. The Catholic Church is like the ocean. ”

“ How does God forgive sin? Some seem to limit His love, to tie forgiveness down to one, and only one, method of absolution—direct, personal, instantaneous, without any ordained Channel such as Christ left. ”

“ Further, if in the future she has any children by her real husband (unless she has been married again to him, after divorce from her State-husband) these children will be illegitimate. This is the sort of muddle the Divorce Act has got us into. One course, and only one course, is open to the Church—to disentangle itself from all question of extending the powers of the Act on grounds of inequality, or any other real (and sometimes very real) or fancied hardship, and to consistently fight for the repeal of the Act. ”

“ In an old seventh century Service, used in the Church of England down to the Reformation, the Priest is directed: "Here he is to put the Chrism (oil) on the forehead of the man, and say, 'Receive the sign of the Holy Cross, by the Chrism of Salvation in Jesus Christ unto Eternal Life. Amen.'"
[10] The teaching of our Church of England, passing on the teaching of the Church Universal, is very happily summed up in an ancient Homily of the Church of England. It runs thus: "In Baptism the Christian was born again spiritually, to live; in Confirmation he is made bold to fight. ”

“ The Bible says that, under certain conditions, oil and prayer together will effect more than either oil or prayer apart; that oil without prayer cannot, and prayer without oil will not, win the special grace of healing guaranteed to the use of oil and prayer together.
In our days, the use of anointing with prayer is (in alliance with, and in addition to, Medical Science) being more fully recognized. "The Prayer of Faith" is coming into its own, and is being placed once more in proper position in the {163} sphere of healing; anointing is being more and more used "according to the Scriptures". ”

“ The essence of progress is loyalty to the past. Nothing should be touched that is a permanent part of the Ancient Office Books; nothing should be omitted, or added, that is outside the teaching of the Universal Church. ”

“ The soul is not always satisfied with such an easy method of going to Confession. It needs at times something more impressive, something perhaps less superficial, less easy going. It demands more time for {147} deepening thought, and greater knowledge of what it has done, before sin's deadly hurt cuts deep enough to produce real repentance, and to prevent repetition. At such times, it cries for something more formal, more solemn, than instantaneous confession. It needs, what the Prayer Book calls, "a special Confession of sins". ”

“ Thus, the faith of a National Church is not the changing faith of a passing majority; it is the unchanging faith of a permanent Body, the Catholic Church. Different ages may explain the faith in different ways ”

“ He does not wait (as the Baptists teach) until he is old enough to make a free choice of second birth, but as soon as he is born into the world ("within seven or fourteen days," the Prayer Book orders) he is reborn into the Church. Grace does not let nature get ten to twenty years' start, but gives the soul a fair chance from the very first: and so, and only so, is a God of love "justified in His saying, and clear when He is judged".
Adoption.
But there is a second word. The Baptismal Thanksgiving calls the Baptized "God's own child by Adoption". ”

“ He, and he alone, can Consecrate. If a Deacon pretends to Consecrate the Elements at the Blessed Sacrament, not only is his act sacrilege and invalid, but even by the law of the land he is liable to a penalty of £100. [6]
He, and he alone, can give the Blessing—i.e. the Church's official Blessing. The right of Benediction belongs to him as part of his Ministerial Office. The Blessing pronounced by a Deacon might be the personal blessing of a good and holy man, just as the blessing of a layman—a father blessing his child—might be of value as such. ”

“ Matrimony is the legal union between two persons,—a union which is created by mutual consent: Holy Matrimony is that union sanctioned and sanctified by the Church.
There are three familiar names given to this union: Matrimony, Marriage, Wedlock.
Matrimony, derived from mater, a mother, tells of the woman's (i.e. wife-man's) "joy that a man is born into the world". Marriage, derived from maritus, a husband (or house-dweller [1] ) , tells of the man's place in the "hus" or house. ”