What to Do When Sacraments are Not Available
~ Fr Ripperger
Prayer:
Direct Oh Lord all our actions by thy holy Inspirations and carry them on by thy gracious
assistance that every prayer and work of ours may begin from thee and by thee
through Christ Our Lord Amen
Mother of Divine Grace pray for us
talk about some of the Draconian things coming out of the Vatican
What do you do when you don't have regular access to the sacraments
ordinary means of sanctification is through the sacraments
God intended that people would normally grow in Holiness through the ordinary means: the sacraments
baptism
receiving of Holy Communion on a regular basis
going to confession on a regular basis
China in the underground Church -don't have regular access to the priests even if they're part of the underground Church they can't just call the priest up necessarily and go and have confession heard there.
might be a while before he either makes the rounds or they are being watched
Catholic church is suppressed in certain communist countries
If we get to the point don't have regular access to the priest we are no longer bound by the precept certain precepts of the church but we are still required to others
the obligation to keep holy the Sabbath
shouldn't be getting married unless by a priest
the Divine Law is to keep holy the Sabbath
It is by the ecclesiastical precept to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation
precept of confessing your mortal sins once a year to a priest–no longer bound
You must keep yourself in the state of grace
No mortal sin for missing Mass when not available
So what to do? spiritual life
Remain in the state of Grace( you don’t go to heaven because you are innocent)
You go to heaven because you are in the state of Grace
Subjective Requirements for Mortal sins:
You have to know it’s mortally sinful
Grave matter
Sufficient reflection on it that it’s grave matter
Full consent of the will (different degrees)
Being more difficult geopolitically, and crazy, harder and harder to prevent mortal sin
Thought anger and despair
very careful not to allow these things to affect their spiritual life
if you do commit a mortal sin
can't make that perfect Act of Contrition without a special Grace, considered extraordinary(needed through confession)
A perfect act of contrition is saying sorry purely for the fact you offended God not because you're going to end up in Hell or what have you but it's purely because you offended God and the Church
going to confession is the ordinary means of going from post baptism from being in the state of mortal sin to being in the State of Grace
it's the ordinary means that means that making an act of perfect Contrition is extraordinary– it's above and beyond what ordinarily occurs but the second part of it is is that it's rare
Rare: requiring precursors that the person should have in their own spiritual life
Someone who is always be contrite and always work on being contrite
we can remit venial sin by performing certain meritorious acts in the State of Grace so if I'm in the state of grace
say act of contrition for that and it will be forgiven– remitted–without certitude
Good to add a pence or meritorious act
In confession once the priest gives us Absolution we have certitude, sins are forgiven
Develop habit Now: (done in the state of grace)
examination of conscience at regular intervals
asking God to forgive the sin and maybe doing some little Act of penance
at least once at night but should be done more often
Will not have certitude (but if not regular access to priest only option)
ongoing remission of your venial sins
should do daily then later confess those sins when able to go; extra sacramental Graces that are necessary in order to avoid that sin in the future and gain certitude of forgiveness
key to maintaining your strength and vigor spiritually
When we commit venial sins we become spiritually weak
you're going to have to rely more on God's actual Grace
if a person receives a extraordinary Grace for perfect Contrition that's great; if you're making Contrition anyway at regular intervals then it's more likely that God is going to give you that grace if you do fall in the state of mortal sin but there's no guarantee so this is one of the reasons why the Christ instituted confession in order to provide for us an ordinary means of getting back into the State of Grace with certitude
As long it was a good confession–authentically without holding back, then should have certitude
Habit for remitting sins as soon as possible, as soon as committing it–adding pences, asking for forgiveness, expressing sorrow
Helps to maintain the vigor, spiritual life
Not the same degree of grace through confession but helpful
If in the state of emergency: parents can do an emergency baptism of their children
or there's reasonable expectation the child could die
in extraordinary circumstances only of no priest or deacon available for a significant amount of time
How to Baptize:(name)I baptize you in the name of the Father Son Holy Spirit Amen. While pouring water on the child’s head 3 times–can do in the form of a cross.
No Confirmation until there is access
Marriages will not be available until you have access to a priest
May not get sacraments at the time of your dying: sacrament of extreme unction
Usual Parts:
sacramental Absolution via confession
anoints the person that's part of the extreme unction
3rd part is viaticum which is actually the reception of communion
Apostolic Pardon by the priest: a prayer granting a plenary Indulgence at the time the person dies,
Particular circumstances grants, basically a get out of purgatory free card
Compensate for no priest
Confession–as stated, remit for sins, avoiding sin, examination of conscience, Act of Contrition
For viaticum(communion): make a spiritual communion (make as often as you like throughout the day) but at least once a day if you can’t make it to Mass –if you work
spiritual communions will be helpful to receive Grace is to sustain you during this time
making spiritual communions is also very Preparatory because it helps us to Value the Eucharist so when we do are able to receive Holy Communion we're more likely to be more devout and More reverential in our interior dispositions and relationship to it so that it's more fruitful
actual anointing now there's not a whole lot you can do in to get The Graces for anointing except for just say some prayers and ask for petition God for The Graces to prepare yourself for death or to prepare your or to heal you if there's some particular physical malady
last one is the Apostolic Pardon–particularly difficult
To receive a plenary Indulgence: have to be in the State of Grace you have to be in confession within 8 days either before or after and receive Holy Communion and you have to do some penitential work-
Can’t receive Holy Communion and spiritual communion doesn't suffice you actually have to receive Holy Communion so you may not be able to get a plenary indulgence because of the circumstances
however if the only thing you're guilty of venial sin is venial sin and if you're trying to get that remitted through meritorious acts on an ongoing basis then it's possible that all you really need is a partial Indulgence in order for you to be able to not have to spend much time or any time in purgatory
the partial Indulgence would suffice for you're not having to spend that much time in purgatory –still doing those works and offering them to our lady or offering them up for the planer indulgences and in order to receive those will help to gain the indulgences so that we would get the benefit that we would get not of the apostolic pardon in its completeness but at least to some degree
practicing those kind of devotions in relationship to all of the sacraments
get into the habit of doing now so that when these things do occur there's not a struggle to start a new habit
when things start happening it will be extraordinarily distracting for people spiritually and it will be much harder to develop those virtues
Spiritual level you want to do those spiritual practices which the church has put in place which can provide you The Graces
It will not be the sacramental Graces of the sacraments because those can only come through the sacraments but ancillary Graces actually come that can compensate or be similar to the sacraments so that you can receive grace
has to be developed now so that when it happens absolute Fidelity to Grace
people need to realize is that if we go through a chastisement, the degree of suffering for those who are United to God through sanctifying Grace and engage in their spiritual life seriously
He will provide them sufficient Grace to sustain what comes in order to remain faithful to him –meaning there will be an uptick in grace to certain people who are being very faithful and doing uh and trying to grow closer to to God
We will not be on our own on a spiritual level-God will be giving us the grace to be able to do the right thing but it means we have to be in the habit now of being very faithful to those and the more faithful we are to the grace the more we able to discern those Graces especially when they're very subtle about what the right thing is to do but also that God is present and that he's actually helping me get through this process so that absolute Fidelity to Grace is a habit that has to be developed now because when this all hits it's going to be extraordinarily difficult and it's going to be really hard to do that at that point if we don't already have the habit of it now
we have to have a consistent prayer life
we need to be developing Detachment from all created goods
when the chastisement hits: this stuff is going to be stripped from us
without regular access to a priest even our attachments to the spiritual Goods of the church –not available
Need to be completely detached from all these things to be able to rely perfectly on God alone
Detachment will also help me to not get so distracted regarding my own spiritual life
if a person had reached the level of perfection in the spiritual life when the chastisement hits in all its Fury he would be completely unperturbed in the process
But if not perfect then there's going to be a certain level of interior lack of peace and disturbance to deal with
it's going to be proportionate to how many attachments you have to the world
So developing that Detachment: how much you detach is going to determine how much peace and how much easier it is to go through the chastisement
we can't delude ourselves– you should be prepping to some degree on a natural level for chastisement
part of Detachment has to do with Temperance
people have to be building Temperance now because when the chastisement hits even after we come out the other end of it we are simply not going to have the same level of comfort
varieties of food that we have we're not going to have any of that it's going to take a long time before that stuff gets to back where it was or it is now and so it's going to things are going to it's going to take a while to get to that and and so we have to be prepared to be able to eat food that we may not necessarily like for long periods of time in order to be able to get to that
that means there should be some fasting and absence being done now we might even go days without food it's not going to kill us right and so we have to be prepared for that as well so this is one of the things that we have to kind of keep in mind
Our Lady of Akita she said both the good and the bad will suffer this process
We will not coast through this, even those with perfection–the chastisement is going to be extraordinarily painful it's going to be an extraordinary suffering
At end of chastisement, man will be so desolate that the living will Envy the dead
we can't presume even if we prepare and do all these things even though we should as a credential matter that somehow or another that we aren't going to be desolate at the end of this.
part of that desolation is necessary because Humanity has to be stripped of anything whatsoever that he thinks he can rely on independently of God
nothing man has can keep us from the suffering that we're going to endure through this process
it's going to be brutal even for the perfect
we have to realize we are going to have to be in the habit of being very faithful to Grace
means being detached and it also means having a habitual prayer life
if I'm detached when these things hit I'll still be able to maintain my prayer life
If not detached or in the habit of things we will be more hyperfocused on what's Happening that they're going to start forgetting God
There’s going to be that distraction and that means we have to really have a very strongly developed set of habits regarding prayer
prayer is technically an act of the virtue of religion and that means we have to have habitual religion
virtue of religion which means that at regular intervals we're praying all at regular intervals right so we have to be developing our our prayer life to the point where it's just we're constantly turning to prayer and we're constantly having that Union with God telling we love him Etc
if there's not some kind of compensation or Enlightenment of conscience on the side of God –charity is going to completely implode because people will be in survival mode–door to door and stealing and killing each other that's what's going to happen unless God intervenes in some fashion
we have to have a deep prayer life so that it doesn't get derailed by all that stuff that's going on but also we're able to keep our focus on him because what we suffer and the degree we suffer(chastisement or not- in general) but regardless we suffer that is entirely chosen by God the degree and what we suffer
this is going to be true
who suffers what is entirely at God’s discretion and that means that certain even really holy people will suffer tremendously for the sake of their purification and growth in Holiness
other people won't suffer that much or suffer less
ultimately just means that it's up to him(God) to determine whether we even live through the chastisement
We will all be affected by this thing somehow in some way and this is what we have to
expect Suffering with the chastisement
There will be no place where you can escape this
make sure sure your prayer life is where it needs to be to sustain you through that and so that it doesn't get affected in that going through it
this means that you should have certain kinds of devotions going into these times in which you may not have regular access to a priest
Rosary on a regular basis–one of the things that's going to sustain you
Spiritual communions
other prayers meditation all that so that when it hits you can still maintain it
Virtue: Required–high level of the virtue of mortification and the virtue of continency in the will (self control)
it's basically the it's part of Courage– it gives me the ability to Suffer Well
if I have not mastered suffering well–the chastisement or going through a time where I don't have regular access to a priest is going to be extraordinarily difficult
how much we suffer is going to be that in the sense of how well we suffer
I can have tremendous suffering but still have peace and joy through that if I've mastered this virtue
any lack of this virtue and the degree of the lack of this virtue is going to tell me proportionately how much I'm going to suffer when this stuff all hits
presuming not getting regular access to priests is the precursor– it's the spiritual precursor to the physical chastisement–might see that coming fairly soon
It's always in the subjunctive– but the fact is is that it's coming it looks like it's coming but we don't have certitude about it
in the end something could happen– God could intervene in some fashion or he could allow the chastisement happen we just don't know when that's going to occur but there's always going to be a spiritual precursor to that and that means that God is going to take away from people their regular access to the sacraments or the ordinary means of sanctification that at least that's what it looks like that that's what's coming
if you're going to suffer that you have to be able to suffer all of that well because for a faithful person not having regular access to the sacrament is very painful right
it can be used to your purification
you can even offer it up, asking our Lord and our lady to give you the grace to be able to have access to a priest at least on occasion when all this is happening so you can at least from time to time have confession and maybe get to Mass
If you don't have that ability to Suffer Well,that Spirit of mortification, — master it now
if you don't have spirit of mortifications then your charity is going to decline
joy is going to decline and
it also means that that gratitude is going to implode people will become very bitter and resentful that they've had to go through the degree of suffering or the kind of suffering that they've had to go through
lack of gratitude
build gratitude now for what we have now so that when these things hit, you can have a gratitude towards God for the spiritual benefits that they might derive from all that’s going on
Fortitude is going to be one of the the main things now fortitude St Thomas says is broken into two parts the
first is the ability to sustain blows –certain kind of strength in order to take the blows
ability to go the distance longevity– to be able to sustain it for a long period of time – lot of people lack
If there is a cut off of the clergy beforehand that could happen a year to two years before the geopolitical situation implodes and then we we actually go through some type of physical chastisement so that's going to be a suffering that people have to be able to sustain and this means they have to be in a place where their spiritual life can maintain itself even if they can't get regular access to the sacraments and that means they have going to have to have a certain level of spiritual life before that all hits– the second part of it it gets back to then that ability to go the distance if the physical chastisement is what we've heard through prophecies that'll last a year to a year and a half that means a person is going to have to be able to suffer intense suffering for a year to a year and a half and if you're not at that point in your spiritual life you better start working on it because otherwise you don't know how you're going to respond even though as I mentioned God will give us the grace to get through that the fact of the matter is is that we don't if I'm not doing that regularly I don't know how I'm going to react when the longevity or the longness of Soul that's necessary to sustain the suffering the long the virtue of longs uffering if I don't have that or I only have a little bit of it I'm only going to go so far and then I'm going to start having real difficulties interiorly
it's precisely actual Grace and virtue that that's going to help a person keep their sanity during that time because we're going to see levels of suffering and Horrors that are just so off the charts from what we what the descriptions have been that it's going to be ex very difficult for us to maintain even our emotional and psychological equilibrium without a very deep Devotion to our Lord our lady and also to having these virtues
there has to be long suffering so obviously the way you do that is when you're sitting at the light you pull up to the stoplight it's that one you know that you know it has a 5 minute cycle right you everyone knows that everyone could think of one oh yeah it's this light it's five and I just missed it so I'm going to be here for five minutes well what that tells you is that at that moment God has giving you the opportunity to develop and he wants you to develop the virtue of patience which is you know be able to suffer evils but you also have to have longness of Soul which is that ability to go go long time without in that suffering and still remain perfectly equanimous in that regard
virtues
longness of soul that ability to suffer intensely keeping a perspective that this is all ultimately for my spiritual benefit whatever I go through in this regard if I lose my life in that process well, at least I won't be envying the dead later down the road
Justice in relationship to people
justice is the virtue of religion
virtue of religion is the act of prayer
charity
faith is the virtue which God puts in our intellect by which we're able to see the truth and the truth of those things that pertain to the deposit of Faith
it's going to be really painful and difficult and so a lot of people's faith is going to be tried like why would God allow this and why would this happen
know that God is just so that's part of our faith we can also know that through the natural Light of reason
Hope (se below)
haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg of the moral corruption in this world
God is slowly revealing to us to some degree about the, we did deserve this
that it's going to be proportionate and only going to have the chastisement as long as is necessary for our purification and for our purification and the setting of humanity correctly and also to punish this to some degree
primarily for our correction so that when we come out the other end will have a particular perspective on how we need to proceed at least in relationship to God
When Mass is not Available: Sundays at a specific time where that the family sits down and they read through and pray through the Mass in their hand missals and follow the the propers of the day so that they're able to kind of maintain a type of liturgical cycle
can pray the office or something to that degree that would be good
doing that on a regular basis will help to develop that virtue religion and also give a sense of you know not being so cut off from the Mass and the sacraments and then at the time of your communion, pray the spiritual communion and then you finish Mass
faith we have to have that faith
hope is one of the things that's going to matter the most
Hope–it's going to be difficult for us to see that God is somehow fulfilling his promises
actually the chastisement is one of his promises which is basically telling us look if you don't get your act together this is what's going to happen and then we don't and then it happens which should actually be to strengthen our Faith and Hope because it's a sign that God is going to fulfill his promises– it's also an indicator that what he tells us is true it also tells us that he's just and we can also make it use it as an opportunity to actually grow in hope to him that is that well if he's told us this and then he's willing to put us through chastisement it means he ultimately loves us because he's trying to get us straightened out he may even let us suffer as Our Lady said at Akita that if man isn't careful the chastisement will come from his own hands he may allow that to happen in order so that in that process we learn that when we get delivered up to ourselves because we've cut ourselves off to God then what the type of suffering that we're going to incur upon ourselves because of our sinfulness is completely not worth it
it would be much better if God was the only one doing the chastising but he may allow us to suffer our own sinfulness in order for us to see this is what happens when you're not faithful to Grace and you're not willing to embrace your cross and do the right thing then this is what's going to come of you in the end you know the the fact that basically human beings will be wiping out other human beings–We're going to see this
it should be an opportunity for Greater Hope knowing that if he said this then it's going to be the Fulfillment of other aspects of his plan and if our lady at La Salette if thatcomes true when she said there will be 25 years of good harvest so ce we come out of the chastisement things will be pretty good for 25 years and so that means that that's kind of a promise to God it's not that different from when we see parents who spanked their kid because he's done something bad and but then at the same but then shortly after that experience, look I love you and that's why I did this to show a sign of affection to the child even though his his britches are still smarting he they do that in order so that the child gets a proper ordering and to know that we still love him and I think that 25 years of good harvest is going to be God's way of showing us that affection but we're not obviously not going to respond to it well because of Fallen human nature but we can as faithful Catholics respond to that well knowing that that's the hope but then in the end all of these things were supposed to happen and then eventually Christ returned because that's when our real hope is in that once he returns all of this will be
set a straight
questions(Q&A): spiritual communions–on available on line about a paragraph long
although I usually recommend it to be formal so that it's more structured and more kind of Quasi liturgical but you can just do it you can just kneel down and and ask Jesus you know for I ask you to come into my soul and in the form of a spiritual communion at this time because I can't have access to you physically and so you can do something as simple as that
the longer form I think is a little better but you can find it online
Virtue of Prudence –covered in another conference
virtue of temperance –seeing in the United States as sway towards certain forms of government that are less capitalistic and Things become lessless available I think we may see things already–an opportunity to that virtue based on you know a leftward deviation of our society govern these things become less and less available–less food less because they're intentionally trying to basically slowly but surely put things in place in the chain supply system where we're just not going to have access to this stuff regularly and some of them as you can just get this online they're saying you've heard me say this a few times this weekend they want us to eat bugs, not that I suggest we're going to get that far but it may go back for a while to where the only thing we're going to have is stuff that's in season– we may not have meat on a regular basis we may not have these things for a while but there should be enough Temperance there already developed where that's not going to kill us
sacrament of baptism: what's the responsibility of the parent when the emergency is over the child's now baptized hopefully correctly, do they need to go to their Parish to have the child baptized officially?
You can only baptize somebody once
if it's done properly if they have the intention of doing what the church intends and they poured the water at the time in which they said “I baptize you in the name of father son the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost” then in that particular case the kid is validly baptized
once the emergency passes they have to go to the pastor and inform them
baptismal registry for later when the other sacraments come up
he's going to ask them questions about okay how did you do it
If he has any questions he can do a conditional baptism but then he has to do what's called the supplying of Rights (Other things done at baptism)--Everything that leads up to the before the baptism and after the baptism that are done and he supplies all of those except for the baptism if it's a valid baptism if it's not then he or if he's not certain he does a conditional baptism but they have to go to the the parish and have it done part of the reason for the baptismal registry
one thing I should mention if you baptize somebody when there's not emergency or possibility of death then it's considered mortally sinful
people have to be careful about baptizing, can’t just baptize the neighbor boy
if the death is imminent yes they can so and even contrary to the will of the parents because the child's um the child salvation supersedes the rights of the parents and the natural law
actually happened I knew a priest one time was called to the hospital the people weren't Catholic and they said we don't want the kid baptized but we want you to do some ceremony because the child's dying so he says to them he says you know he says I want to wash the kid as a as a symbol of its innocence and the parents agreed so they baptized (using Latin) the kid the kid dies within 24 hours and now this child is in heaven
in that particular case you can do it even contrary to the will of the parents
you can't baptize when there's no danger of death though –you cannot do it contrary to the will of the parents
deacons are marrying people in different parts of the country – provided their Bishop has given them the faculties to do
if we enter into a state true state of emergency where there is no access to any priest or Deacon virtually ever in that particular case historically the church said they can witness if there's clear indication that these people are suited to get married and should get married then he can witness them in in those circumstances
Question: If Somebody's child was baptized not an emergency without the parents permission– do they tell the parents they've done that
first of all you have to tell the local Pastor so he actually puts it in the books
but as far as the parents go it depends on the circumstances you know if you're going to find yourself in jail –well maybe not
on the other hand um if the circumstances are such that they might say well okay–then you'd have to tell them and make sure that the kid is able to receive his formation necessary to be Catholic
which is pretty dicey –where you could end up in being in mortal sin because you’ve you put somebody in a situation you baptized them they don't have any opportunity to receive that formation and they can go on and live a dissolute life or life a non-catholic life or even reject the faith in which case then they've corrupted the virtue of Faith which is a sacrilege and then that on you also as part of your judgment ***that's why you don't do it unless there's grave cause
if you if you baptize the child and in your understanding that the child is going to die and then through some miraculous intervention the baby survives yeah then then you have to tell the pastor and then also maybe talk to the parents about raising the kid Catholic
it's a little dicey but that's what it is that's why they say you should be morally certain that person's going to the child's going to die before you do it
Question or comment: about confession: right now it seems that there are pockets of areas where priests are not willing to hear confessions these are traditional priests limit the time severely they don't show up when they're supposed to be in the confessional they will not come back after Mass when the line is long right they will not allow you to ask them to hear your confession sadly even if a person is in a position where they may die so given that is is this the beginning of of the spiritual chastisement is that what we're experiencing or is this just a different type of problem that people need to go to superiors and and ask for assistance or what is your take on that
if the superiors are open open to correcting the problem I think you should go to them; I do think it's the precursor to that spiritual chastisement what it's a sign of what
one of the things that becomes very clear if you watch what happened in the 1960s; the spiritual precursor was the retraction of God's grace in the 40s and 50s and you see see him it's like he's retracting his Graces as time goes on in different ones and I think one of the things that we're seeing him doing is retracting priests the grace to priests to fulfill their duties that's slowly happening and so unless a priest is really working on his spiritual life and really trying to do what he's supposed to do you're seeing that across the board I mean you you see you see this you started noticing this a little bit even in the ' 80s and '90s when people would go to confession and the priest would tell people well those aren't those aren't sins or those aren't mortal sins just to cut down his workload because he didn't want to have to hear confessions
you started seeing that already that there was already a dereliction of Duty which is part of the reason for that holy hour of reparation for the neglected vocations and neglective duties of those in their state in life
point is is that um we're starting to see that retraction and I think we're starting to see the precursors of the retraction of Grace
other signs of a retraction From Grace is now we have both in the church and in the political situation very very grave Evils are becoming known of who did what to who when where how and why and there's nothing done about it and that's an indicator that God's retracting the grace to those whose job it is to enforce this stuff so we're starting to see that happen even in the church
think that what you just described is actually a precursor to that uh to the the more intense spiritual chastisement where there's virtually no sacraments available um and then that there's that precursor um but these are some of the stuff that's leading up to that I think
I'll give your blessing
No comments:
Post a Comment