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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.