Joseph Berington

“ May thy Holy Spirit come down upon us, and upon these gifts, which we have presented, and may he sanctify them and make this bread, the glorious body of our Lord Jesus Christ, the heavenly body; the life-giving body; the precious body; for the expiation of faults, and the remission of sins, and eternal life, to those who receive it. Amen.--And this chalice, the precious blood of Jesus Christ, the Lord God, who has dominion over all things; the redeeming blood; the life-giving blood; the expiating blood; which was poured forth, for the redemption and life of the world ”

“ LITURGY OF THEODORUS, G. C.-“O Lord our God, graciously receive from us this sacrifice of thanksgivingthat it may be in thy sight a good memorial of all the children of the Holy Catholic Church, of those who have passed out of this world in the true faith: that thou mayest, O God, graciously grant them pardon of all the sins and offences, by which, in this world, in a mortal body, and in a soul subject to inconstancy, they have sinned or offended before thee, because there is no one who does not sin.” ”

“ Reflecting often on these things, I am astonished at the madness, the impiety, the lust of error in some men, who, not content with the Rule of Faith once delivered and received, are ever seeking for something new, and are ever anxious to add to religion, to change, or to take away; as if, what was once revealed, was not a celestial dogma, but a human institution, which, to be brought to perfection, required constant emendation, or rather correction. If novelty must be shunned, antiquity must be held fast : if novelty be profane, antiquity is sacred. ”

“ CYRIL OF JERUSALEM, G. C. “The Church is called Catholic, because it is diffused over the whole earth. Likewise, because it teaches catholicly, and without any omission, all points that men should know concerning things visible and invisible, heavenly and earthly; and because the human race, princes and private men, are subjected to its controul. All kinds of sin, also, and the operations of mind and body, engage its care. In this same Church is every virtue found by whatever name it may be called, in actions, and in words, and in spiritual gifts. ”

“ I entreat you, brethren, by that Lord whom no concealments can deceive, to cease from disguising a wounded conscience. A diseased man, if possessed of sense, hides not his wounds, however secret they may be, though the knife or fire should be applied.—And shall a sinner be afraid to purchase, by present shame, eternal life? Shall he dread to discover his sins to God, which are ill hidden from him, and at the time he holds out assistance to him? ”

“ CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA, G. C.-“ We offer in the Church a holy, vivifying, and unbloody Sacrifice; not believing it to be the common body and blood of man, but the real body and the real blood of the life-giving word. For common flesh cannot give life, which our Saviour himself attested, saying: It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing.” ”

“ Thou, indeed, hast overcome the world; but thou knowest the feelings and the wants of our nature. Beg for us the continuance of peace, that these our public meetings be not dissolved; that the wicked and raging barbarian overthrow not our temples and our altars; that he tread not underfoot thy holy places. That hitherto we have lived in safety, we owe to thy favour : we implore thy protection for the days that are to come; and if a host of prayers be necessary, assemble the choirs of your brother martyrs, and supplicate all together for us. ”

“ EUSEBIUS, G. C. “The Lord foretold not only that his doctrine should be preached wherever man was, but that his Church should be overcome by no assaults. The event has proved the truth of this prediction, silencing the tongues of insolent scoffers. The fame of the gospel has reached to every country which the sun illumines; it is familiar with all people; while its preaching, by a method agreeing with its words, is daily more widely diffused.” ”

“ Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you.” Ibid.
“God is one, and Christ is one, and his Church is one, and Faith is one, and his people, connected by one solid bond, is
Unity cannot be severed; nor the one body, by laceration, be divided. Whatever is separated from the stock, cannot live, cannot breathe apart: it loses the substance of life.” ”

“ The Apostles and Fathers, who prescribed from the beginning certain rites to the Church, knew how to preserve the dignity of the mysteries, by the secrecy and silence in which they enveloped them: for what is open to the ear and the eye, can no longer be mysteries. For this reason, several things have been handed down to us without writing, lest the vulgar, too familiar with our dogmas, should pass from being accustomed to them, to the contempt of them. A dogma is very different from a sermon.-Beautiful and admirable discipline! ”

“ P. 77.-“ Look down on us, O Lord Jesus Christ, our God —who sittest with the Father in the highest heavens, and art here invisibly present with us; and vouchsafe with thy powerful hand, to impart to us thy immaculate body and thy precious blood; and by us, to all the people.” Then dividing the holy bread into four parts, the Priest says: “ The Lamb of God is broken and divided; the Son of the Father ;' he is broken, but is not diminished; he is always eaten, but is not consumed; but he sanctifies those who are made partakers.” ”

“ CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA, [28] G.C.—“Though the mind of man, sometimes, from self-love, depart from the right road, and from true belief, yet almost always does it feel oppression, fearing to charge its thoughts with absurdity. But to form itself is easy, if it will but carefully examine what the Fathers have written, whom all esteem for the truth and rectitude of their opinions: and thus will be discovered what true faith is. For men, whose hearts are upright, wish to follow them. ”

“ We give thanks to Thee, O Sovereign Lord, our God, for the participation of thy holy, pure, immortal, and celestial mysteries, which thou hast given us : we pray and beseech Thee, O good Lord ! lover of mankind, that the communion of the holy body and precious blood of thy only begotten Son, may be to us—a viaticum of eternal life ”

“ COUNCIL OF TRENT.
“When the apostle says, that man is justified by faith, and gratuitously, his words are to be understood in that sense which the perpetual consent of the Catholic Church has held, and expressed; to wit, that therefore is man made just by faith, because faith is the beginning of man's salvation, the foundation and root of all justice, without which it is impossible to please God.”—Sess. ”

“ Certainly, if there were not such crimes among them, there would not be so loud a cry against them. The ceremony which they observe when they admit any one to their mysteries, is not less horrible because it is public. They place before the new comer an infant covered with paste, in order to conceal the murder which they will have him commit. At their bidding he gives it several stabs with a knife: the blood runs on all sides; they eagerly suck it up, and the common crime is the common pledge of silence and secrecy. ”

“ It is no great thing for the sinner to do this; whom, whether he will or not, the weight of guilt weighs down and humbles : but when the just man, conscious of many good deeds, utters the sentiments of a sinner, he excites surprise, indicating the true symptoms of a contrite and humble heart." Ibid. p.146.--" It is this compunction of heart, which, like a fire, burns and destroys every vice of the soul: whatever evil it finds, it utterly consumes. ”

“ We confess, O Lord, and our God, the abundant riches of thy grace upon us; although sinners, and of low condition, thou hast made us, through thy manifold clemency, worthy to administer the holy mysteries of the body and blood of thy Christ. ”

“ It is a duty to obey the priests of the Church, who hold their succession from the Apostles, and who, with that succession, received, agreeably to the will of the Father, the sure pledge of truth. But as to those who belong not to that leading succession, in whatever place they may be united, they should be suspected, either as heretics, or as schismatics, proudly extolling, and pleasing themselves, or as hypocrites actuated by vain glory or the love of lucre.But they who impugn the truth, and excite others to oppose the Church of God, their fate is with Dathan and Abiron ”

“ The man Christ Jesus, though in the form of God, he receive sacrifice with his Father, with whom he is one God, yet in the form of a servant he chose rather to be himself the sacrifice than to receive it; lest, even on this occasion, any one should imagine, that sacrifice might be offered to a creature. Thus is he the priest, himself offering, and himself the victim. It was his will that the Church's sacrifice should be the daily sacrament of this oblation; which Church, as it is the body united to its head, learns to offer herself through him. ”

“ For if a coward, when he beholds the bloody arms of a warrior, his shield, his spear, his helmet, is roused to action, and burns to emulate his prowess; shall not we, though of all the most dastardly, when we look on, not the weapons, but the body itself of the Saint, which was deemed worthy to bleed in the cause of Christ, shall not we feel a promptitude of mind to engage in the same warfare?-For this reason it is, that God, until the day of the resurrection, has entrusted to us the bodies of his Saints. ”

“ I may not know the origin of the name; but what has not failed through so long a time, came not surely from any individual man. It has nothing to say to Marcion, nor Apelles, nor Montanus. No heretic is its author.-Is the authority of Apostolic men, of the blessed Cyprian, of so many aged Bishops, so many Martyrs and Confessors, of little weight?-Were not they of sufficient consequence to establish an appellation, which they always used ? Be not angry, my brother: Christian is my name, Catholic is my surname. ”

“ Moses gave us not the true bread, but our Lord Jesus did. He invites us to the feast, and is himself our meat: he eats with us, and we eat him. We drink his blood, and without him we cannot drink: we daily tread in the sacrifices the grapes that are red with his blood,' and of these is the new wine in the kingdom of the Father. ”

“ Leo, then Bishop of Rome, entered the lists, and in an admirable epistle, explained the point of doctrine. Speaking of Eutyches, he says: “What can be more wicked, than to entertain impiety, and not to give ear to those who are more learned and more wise than himself? But they fall into this folly, who, meeting with some difficulties in the search after truth, turn not to the words of the Prophets, nor the epistles of the Apostles, nor the authorities of the Evangelists, but to themselves. And thus, because they refuse to be the disciples of truth, they become the teachers of error. ”

“ The bread, which I shall give you, is my flesh for the life of the world. His blood is rightly expressed by the species of wine ; because, when he says in the gospel, I am the true vine, he sufficiently declares all wine, which is offered in the figure of his passion, to be his blood." —And he who is the Creator and Lord of all natures, who produces bread from the earth; of the bread makes his own proper body, (for he is able, and he promised to do it) and who of water made wine, and of wine his blood. ”

“ I say to thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.—He that does not hold this Unity of the Church, can he think that he holds the Faith? He that opposes and withstands the Church, can be trust that he is in the Church? ”

“ Why do you not confess and discover your malady to him by Confession: Why do you suffer your disease to increase till it be inflamed, and deeply rooted in you? Re-enter into your own breasts ; reflect upon your own ways. You have offended God, you have provoked your Creator, who is the Lord and judge, not only of this life, but of the life to come.—Enquire into the disease wherewith you are seized; be sorry; afflict yourselves, and communicate your affliction to your brethren, that they may be afflicted with you; that so you may obtain the pardon of your sins. ”

“ AMBROSE, L. C.-“If thou wouldst be made just, acknowledge thy fault; for the modest confession of sins, looses the bonds of crimes.” De Pænit. L. ii. c. vi. T. 11. p. 426.—“There are some who ask for penance, that they may at once be restored to communion. These do not so much desire to be loosed, as to bind the Priest; for they do not unburden their own conscience, but they burden his, who is commanded not to give holy things to dogs; that is, not easily to admit impure souls to the holy communion.” ”