Quotes from Joseph Pohle

The simplest explanation is that the process of corrup tion brings back those elementary substances which cor respond to the peculiar nature of the changed accidents. Thus the miracle of the Eucharistic conversion does not abolish the law of the indestructibility of matter.

Confirmation, the Holy Eucharist, Extreme Unction, Matrimony, and Holy Orders presuppose the state of sancti fying grace, which they merely increase (iusti-ficatio secunda). Hence the only requisite of a worthy reception of these Sacraments is the state of grace.

The sanctifying grace required for these Sac raments can be obtained either by making an act of perfect contrition or by worthily receiving the Sacrament of Penance.

Baptism is a Sacra ment instituted by Christ, in which, by the out ward washing of the body with water, with in vocation of the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, man is spiritually reborn and sanctified unto life everlasting.

The minister need not be in the state of grace, nor need he have the faith (negative disposi tion), but he must have the right intention (pos itive disposition).

We do not "adore bread" (adoratio panis, d/oroAarpeta), because, according to Catholic teaching, the substance of bread is no longer present in the Holy Eucharist and we give no separate adoration to its acci dents. The object of our adoration is the totum sacra-mentale. 1

THE MINISTER OF A SACRAMENT MUST BE IN THE WAYFARING STATE. —This condition ex cludes the angels and the departed. Christ con ferred His powers upon living men, 3 and the Apostles in their turn chose living men for their successors. 4 "It is those who inhabit the earth, and walk upon it," says St. Chrysostom, "who are called to administer heavenly things, and who have received a power which God has granted neither to the angels nor to the archangels.

Aquinas teaches: " As God did not bind His power to the Sacraments, so as to be unable to bestow the sacramental effect without conferring the Sacrament; neither did He bind His power to the ministers of the Church, so as to be unable to give angels power to administer the Sacraments.

According to Catholic teaching the remote matter of Baptism is natural water; its proximate matter is the act of external washing; while the sacramental form is con tained in the words: " I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

In one sense the Eucharistic Christ is indeed exalted and glori fied, but in another sense He is abased and humbled. In spite of His transfiguration in Heaven, Christ still retains in His Sacred Heart the same sacrificial love for us that He bore on the Cross. Is not the Hypostatic Union, the greatest of all miracles and the source of all our Sa viour's glory, at the same time a true kenosis and self-abasement?

The dogma of Transub-stantiation implies that the entire substance of the bread and the entire substance of the wine are converted, respectively, into the substances of the Body and Blood of Christ, and that the con version takes place in such a way that "only the appearances of bread and wine remain.

As the sacramental sign is the inanimate medium of grace, 16 so the minister is its animate instrument in the hands of Christ.

The Church has always regarded the admin istration of a Sacrament in the state of mortal sin as a sacrilege, and insists on the personal sanc-

tity of her priesthood; 20 but she has never condi tioned the validity of a Sacrament on the moral worthiness of the minister. Her early teaching on the subject is clearly apparent from the writ ings of St. Optatus of Mileve and St. Augustine against the Donatists.

The sacrifice predicted by Malachias cannot be the Sacrifice of the Cross. The prophet employs the word minchah, which means an unbloody food-offering. The Sacrifice of the Cross, though a true sacrifice, was not an unbloody food-offering. The Sacrifice of the Cross was confined to Golgotha and the Jewish people, and hence was not a universal sacrifice in the sense of Malachias,

heretics can validly administer all the other Sacraments, with the sole exception of Penance, 30 which cannot, barring cases of urgent necessity, be validly conferred by heretical and schismatic priests;—not on account of their lack of ortho doxy, but because they have no ecclesiastical juris diction.

satisfaction blots out the temporal punishments due to sin. Consequently the just man must be able to merit de condigno forgiveness of the temporal punishments remaining after absolu tion. Like all good works, those whereby satisfaction is made for sins are reducible to three classes: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. This is the express teaching of Trent. 32 Scripture tells us that these three kinds of good works blot out sin and are accepted by God in satisfaction of both guilt and punishment.

There is, first, the actual intention, operating with the full advertence of the intellect. When a minister wishes here and now to confer, e. g., the Sacrament of Baptism, he has an actual intention. Secondly, there is the virtual intention. Its force is borrowed from a previous volition, which is accounted as continuing in some result produced by it. Thus, if a

declares: "If anyone saith that in min isters, when they effect and confer the Sacra ments, there is not required the intention at least of doing what the Church does, let him be ana thema/

all that is necessary for the valid administration of the Sacraments is the direct intention, i. e. the purpose of performing the rite as is usual among Catholics. To demand in addition a reflex in tention, either for the administration of the Sac rament as such, or for the production of the sac ramental character and the infusion of grace, would be to make the validity of the Sacrament depend upon the orthodoxy of the minister,—an assumption which we have shown to be false.

The form of Baptism consists in the words accompanying the ablution. There are two essential parts: (i) the verbal designa tion of the baptismal act, and (2) the express in vocation of the three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity.

We are compelled to concur in another view of Cardinal De Lugo, namely, that the value of the Mass is dependent on the greater or lesser holiness of the reigning pope, the

Matrimony is not only a Sacrament, but it is also a con tract requiring the mutual consent of both parties. There can be no true consent without an intention to get married.

bishops, and the clergy throughout the world. The holier the Church is in her members (especially the pope and the episcopate), the more agreeable must be her sacrifice in the eyes of God.