CARDINAL FERNANDEZ SAYS “NO!” TO THE IDEOLOGICAL CELEBRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS AND OF THE CHURCH!

 

From Silere non possum:

With the document, Gestis Verbisque on the sacraments, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith intervenes to clarify that “the virtue operating in the Sacraments shapes the face of the Church, enabling it to transmit the gift of salvation that Christ dead and risen, in his Spirit, wants to participate in every man. In the Church, to its ministers in particular, this great treasure is entrusted, because as 'caring servants' of the people of God they nourish it with the abundance of the Word and sanctify it with the grace of the sacraments.

 It is up to (the Clergy) first to ensure that 'the beauty of celebrating a Christian' is kept alive and is not 'disturted by a superficial and reductive understanding of its value or, even worse, by its instrumentalization in the service of some ideological vision, whatever it may be'. Only in this way can the Church, from day to day, 'grow in the knowledge of the mystery of Christ, immersing the [ ... ] life in the mystery of his Easter, waiting for his return'.

As the prefect clarifies in the presentation 'We ministers are required to have the strength to overcome the temptation to feel like owners of the Church. We must, on the contrary, become very receptive to a gift that precedes us: not only the gift of life or grace, but also the treasures of the Sacraments that have been entrusted to us by the Mother Church. They are not ours! And the faithful have the right, in turn, to receive them as the Church disposes: it is in this way that their celebration corresponds to the intention of Jesus and makes the event of the Passover current and effective."