"STAY WITH US, LORD" (Luke 24:29)

Topic:  “On Entering A Church” We go to Church to celebrate Holy Mass together with the priest. The Holy Mass is the renewal of Christ's sacrifice on the Cross, or, to put it otherwise, the recalling of Christ's sacrifice ( Anamnesis). We enter the nave in order to adore Jesus in the Holy Sacrament as a preparation for Holy Mass. Are we aware on entering the Church whom we are approaching? Most times we lose sight of Christ's presence in the Church. We walk in briskly at times when we approach the Church to enter. We go further to disturb with our entrance. Are we filled in our innermost heart with the knowledge that Jesus is awaiting us with all His love and glory? Do we enter with reverence that filled Peter in his boat, the boat of the Church? He said, “Lord, depart from me for I am a sinful man” He who sincerely attempts to imitate Peter's reverence on entering the church will be able to sing, in unison with the angels surrounding the altar the ...

A sacrament of the New Law, instituted by Christ, for the remission of sins committed after Baptism. Implied in the right of "binding and loosing" promised by Christ to the rulers of His Church (Matthew 16:18), the power to forgive sins was unequivocally granted to the Apostles, and consequently to their successors, since the Church is permanent and unchangeable; it was thus granted by the words of Christ to the Apostolic college on the day of His Resurrection: "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." (John 20). The fact that Our Lord empowered His earthly representatives with authority not only to forgive but also to retain sins proves, in the first place, that He willed the exercise of this power to be a judicial process, in which the minister is to judge who are worthy, and who are unworthy, of forgiveness. Secondly, it shows that the forgiveness of sins by the use of this power is effected throug...