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from it. We must love, therefore, the
Church as She is. Only then do we
truly love Her!
The Church is Always
Confronting Man with
The Reality of Right Attitude:
The ABSOLUTE.
There are three essential expressions
of the Absolute in the Church: Her
Dogma, Her moral and social system,
and Her Liturgy! In the Church, there
is an axis of truth which gives the
world consistency and order; absolute
values which do not change. Man
rejoices that he is a creature and partakes
of the Divine Nature. His inner
life becomes real, his goal becomes clear,
his action resolute and his whole life
ordered and coherent. The
Church teaches us those
methods of communion
with God which are
adapted to His nature and
t o ours:
PRAYER, SACRIFICE,
SACRAMENTS
Through sacred actions
and readings, the Church
awakens in us those great
fundamental emotions of
Adoration, Gratitude,
Penitence and
Petition. The Church
can emancipate us!
The Church is NEVER Modern!
The present always reproaches the
Church with belonging to the past.
But this is a misconception! The truth
is that the Church does not belong to
time. She is inwardly detached from
everything temporal. She is the power
which resists the spell of every historical
movement. In every Age, the Church
resists what is HERE and NOW for the
sake of the FOR EVER! The Church is,
indeed, the road to freedom.
The Church is too great to be national
for Her life embraces the whole of
humanity. The Holy Ghost is at work
in the Church raising Her consistently
above the limits of what is merely
human. He is Enlightenment and Love.
The Church is sovereign above man
and above the world, and She can do
full justice to both. The Liturgy of the
Church is that form of religion in
which the entire man enters into a
supernatural communion with God.
The Church holds up before man Truth,
a set of values, an ideal of perfection,
discipline and constitution. She commands
his obedience to this rule of
life under pain of sin. Only in this way
can Her command receive sufficient
weight to counterbalance
human selfishness with its
exaggerated and tenacious
self-will.
If man accepts the vital
sacrifice of self-surrender
and entrusts himself to the
Church, and extends his
ideas to the universal
scope of Catholic Dogma,
he will possess a majesty
and a freedom which lift
him above the earth. Man
is truly free in proportion
as he is Catholic. But, he is
Catholic to the extent that
he lives in the fullness