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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
9
The Twelve Candles.
2. Churches are consecrated to show the condition,
progress and sanctification of the Catholic Church,
which it obtained through the passion of Christ, for
the material building signifies the Spiritual Church.
First, then, appears the cross which is its standard,
for under that standard the Saviour wished His fol
lowers to be enrolled, and to fight their spiritual bat
tles. Twelve candles are lit before so many crosses
placed around the inside of the church, to show that
the twelve Apostles carried the standard of the cross
throughout the world, and enlightened it by their
preaching. Next, the Bishop with the clergy and the
people, go around the building three times, sprinkling
it with Holy Water, striking the door three times
to eject and shut out the devil; the third time the
doors are opened and the Bishop enters, saying:
“Peace be to this house.” This reminds us that for
three hundred years Christ and His Vicar with the
faithful walked around the world, sprinkling it with
the stream of God’s word, and with the blood of
martyrs. He knocked three times at the doors of
the benighted world by miracles, by the innocence
and holiness of the life of His followers, by the con
stant and fearless preaching of the Gospel, to drive
out idolatry and demon-worship. He succeeded in
this after three hundred years under Constantine the
Great, for then the Christians obtained liberty to
come and go, peace was given to the Church and
idolatry was vanquished. Afterwards the Bishop
traces on the floor the Greek and the Latin alphabets
in the form of a cross to indicate that the Gospel had
passed from the East to the West, from the Jews to
the Gentiles. Water is mixed with wine, salt and
ashes and the building sprinkled by means of a
branch of hyssop dipped into the mixture. Water
represents baptism and the other sacraments, the
ashes, the death of Christ, whence they derive their
efficacy; salt and wine figure the fruitful preaching,
by which baptism is promulgated; the hyssop, a lowly
plant having its roots among rocks, represents strong
faith, the effect of baptism. The crosses oA the walls
are anointed with holy chrism because under Con
stantine the Cross was publicly planted and honored
in the world, and its veneration made easy and pleas
ant to the Christians. Relics are placed in the altar
because at that period also the relics of the Saints
began to be treated with honor, just as the Saints
themselves were no longer an object of persecution,
but of veneration.
Writing the Alphabet.
3. Churches are consecrated that every Christian
may be reminded that, by baptism, he has become the
temple of God, and that this temple must also be set
aside for God and kept holy. Thence as the Bishop
goes around the church three times and strikes the
door, in like manner God by His messengers goes
around, as it were, and moves the mind of' the infidel
or of the sinner to faith or penance and knocks at
the door of his heart by His benefits, the promise
of rewards and the threat of punishments. As the
Bishop writes the alphabet on the ashes with the
crozier, in like manner God, by His ambassadors,
writes the principles of faith in the heart of the
catechumen, and to the heart of the sinner already
baptized He brings home the thought of death and
the purpose of amendment. The sprinkling with
Holy Water and the lighting of candles remind us
that in baptism we wore immersed in water three
times, and that we received a candle to express the
living, burning faith, with which we must meet the
Divine Bridegroom of our souls. Or for the person
already baptized, the sprinkling means penance and
sacramental ablution, by which the sinner is cleansed
from sin, and the candle means the instruction the
confessor gives the penitent to make him understand
the gravity of his sins, and know the proper means
to avoid them in the future. As the crosses on the
wall are anointed with chrism, so confirmation follows
baptism. Of the sinner is marked with the cross,
when he is warned to renounce the wickedness of
his former life and to carry his cross by giving up
sinful pleasures and to be ready to suffer anything
rather than fall again; the hardships of that cross
bring their own unction and sweetness.
The Christian’s Struggle.
Water, salt, wine and ashes are mixed to signify
that man’s whole life must be spent in uprooting vices
and striving after a new life, or for the repentant
sinner they mean the satisfaction imposed by the
priest in confession, whilst to remind him of the
models proposed for his imitation, relics of Saints are
placed in the altar. The three grains of incense joined
to the relics are to recall to us the faith of the Saints
in the adorable mystery of the Blessed Trinity, for
without faith it is impossible to please God. The
cover means Charity, of which the Apostle says:
“The Charity of God is diffused in your hearts by
the Holy Ghost.” The altar table is anointed because
to Charity must be joined Mercy, which is symbolized
by the anointing, and as there are six works of mercy,
it is anointed in six different places. After the
anointing, incense is burned to show that the fame
of our good works must reach and edify our neighbor,
and that we must be the “good odor of Christ in
every place.”
Finally, as the altar is covered with cloths, so our
hearts must be pure and adorned with virtue and
good works and in this manner it becomes the altar
whereon acceptable sacrifices may be offered to God.
To sum up, we may say, with St. Thomas of
Aquinas, that the ceremonies of the consecration of
churches denote the various steps and actions by
which the personal sanctification of each Christian,
who is the true and first temple of God, is to be
brought about.
On the grounds that it was socialistic, is pro-North-
ern, pro-negro, “contains many important omis
sions (rather hard things to contain, those) and
pro-Catholic, Beard & Bagley’s “History of the Ameri
can People” has been removed from the schools by
the Atlanta Board of Education.