Hello

A Catholic who loves the truth must question all things. In fact the Catholic Church wants no one in her membership who is forced or coerced into membership. So a person must have it in their heart and mind that it is right and true for them to be a Catholic member. So let's question it.

Ordained ministers dispense, with God's help, the most powerful graces in the church. These are the sacraments. Especially of interest to me are the sacraments of Reconciliation (confession) and the Eucharist (holy mass). These are needed for that one-step-at-a-time growth into Christ. The Church says "those who do not eat of the flesh (eucharist) have no life" and those who commit grave offences absolutely must be reconciled through an ordained minister.

This need for a particular external individual, the ordained minister, seems to be at odds with the need for the proper disposition within the individual accepting the grace of the sacrament. Even if the priest is present, the one confessing still must be humble and "contrite", they cannot be despairing and gloomy, in order to obtain the grace of forgiveness that is offered through the priest. Likewise, the person receiving the Eucharist must be free of serious sin and also be humble and not clinging to much venial sin if they are to get a significant amount of grace from mass through the priest. So regardless of the priest's presence, the lay person must be of the proper mind and heart to get any of this absolutely essential grace of growth in Christ.

These two needs seem to be at opposition. Why be contrite if you have the required ordained minister with the pure grace from heaven? Or conversely, why do I need an ordained minister, that is him and only him, if the sacrament means absolutely nothing when I am not contrite during the sacrament? It seems to defy a logic.

-- Mike H. (michael.hitzelberger@vscc.cc.tn.us), April 26, 2003

Answers

Subject: Need for the Proper Disposition of the Heart

-- Mike H. (michael.hitzelberger@vscc.cc.tn.us), April 26, 2003.

If Jesus had not seen fit to dispense His graces within His Church through the sacraments; if He had said "come to Me directly, not through my ordained ministers", a person seeking sacramental graces would still need to have the same sense of contrition, the same disposition. Proper disposition is an internal condition of the person seeking grace. I don't see how it would be any different just because the channel of grace was different?

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), April 26, 2003.

Paul

. I don't see how it (seeking sacramental graces) would be any different just because the channel of grace was different?

Hopefully I won't misinterpret your thoughts. So the one way that all sanctification is always the same, regardless of the channel, is via the proper inner disposition of the heart. I agree.

Perhaps the ordained ministers simply help us to have humble faith because they are of the awesome Church structure, that indestructible, indefectible, Catholic Church. Like Christ or the famous saints and their power to heal, who could get a soul to trust, so does the Catholic Church do this in her priests.

If the ordained minister is not very holy, but they are knowledgable and ordained sacramentally, than perhaps they would not be very good at calling the flock to a faithful response. The less holy ministers would be poor channels of grace for God.

I think of the time of the Judges in scripture. The Jews always fell away from God in those days until God raised up a holy Judge whom they could follow and rally around in faith. It was the holiness of the Judge that encouraged the Jews to faith, not their ordained status. A corrupt Judge or corrupt Levite priest would not positively encourage the faithful much, if at all.

Anyway, so it seems that the priestly ordained title means nothing, but the state of the heart in both the minister and in the lay person means everything. Catholic saints who were not ordained performed miracles also, and consequently converted souls to Christ also. Is the title of "ordained priest" and its "indelible mark on the soul" required to get the grace passed along to others? It seems that the event just mentioned oppose this idea. Not that a priest can't be a channel of grace but that it is not the only channel nor is it a guarenteed channel. What do you think?

-- Mike H. (michael.hitzelberger@vscc.cc.tn.us), April 26, 2003.

Dear Mike,

I think you are talking about two very different kinds of "channels" here. Yes, a priest can be a "channel of grace" for others by preaching, teaching, counseling, and "calling the flock to a faithful response". Non-priests can also be "channels of grace" to others, in these very same ways; and a priest, religious, or layman who does not live a godly life, who openly lives a life of sin or rejects the teachings of the Church, may indeed be a poor channel of God's grace in these ways, with the result that those who should have received grace through their ministry may not in fact receive it.

However, the sacraments are a channel of grace in quite a different sense. The sacrament itself, when administered by an ordained priest, is a channel of grace which flows directly from God to the recipient, through the ministry of the priest, but completely independent of his inner dsposition or personal spiritual state. So, is my confession valid if the priest who ministers absolution to me is himself in a state of unrepentant mortal sin? YES! I receive the fullness of grace which the sacrament provides, and which MY inner disposition allows, irrelevant of the priest's spiritual state. Do I receive the true Body and Blood of Christ, even if the priest who says the words of consecration is abusing children or stealing from the parish treasury? YES, absolutely! Since the sacraments are the principle channels of grace provided by Christ to His Church, and since the priest as minister is essential to the valid confection of the sacrament, his role in allowing the grace of the sacrament to be available to me is by virtue of his priestly ordination alone, not by virtue of his personal holiness.

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), April 26, 2003.

I guess, I'm not quite sure what you're asking. If you are asking can you recieve the graces of the church without the sacraments. Yes you can in a way. But the Catholic church is a sacramental church. In the sacramental church, the graces of the church are confered as a visible sign. An action you can see, taste, feel, hear or smell. It is an outward sign, conferred within the community of the church. The whole church participates in and is nourished by the graces conferred.

Having a humble heart and a Godly disposition while thinking about your relationship with God is, for Catholics, not the same thing as receiving God through the sacraments.

For many years, I really felt that I did not need to go to church to be a Christian and indeed I did have a relationship with God. Looking back now, I'd say my relationship was an intensly quiet one, an immature one. It was a relationship which was never really challenged. God celebrated in community is like turning up the volume. My faith, celebrated openly, in community has been challenged and my viewpoints have developed and matured. I'm not the same person I was, when I celebrated faith on my own.

Can you ask God in prayer to forgive your sins and are they forgiven. The answer, of course is Yes! We know, that Yes, God has forgiven our signs, but how many times does the guilt of sinfulness still stay with us.

True forgiveness and a lasting sense of forgiveness comes more complete when you can confess your sins to another person, when you can pray for forgiveness with another person and then hear the words, "Your sins are forgiven."

-- Leon (vol@weblink2000.net), April 27, 2003.

It's not only the grace, Mike. Christ himself is operating in the person of a man. That's mainly why the man is ordained. During Consecration, for instance, in Holy Mass. At the words of Consecration, ''This is my Body, and my Blood''-- we are taught by the Church: ''Now, the priest, no matter if he's a saint, as Padre Pio was, or a sinner; he recedes and Jesus comes forth both Priest and Victim upon the altar. Just as it is on Calvary. That is why we call these sacraments. Paul called them sacred mysteries.

The misconception among non- Catholics is the role of Christ's priests as dominators, always pompous, like a Sanhedrin in the Church-- in practice is just the contrary. He who washed the feet of his apostles taught them (the Church) that they must be servants to all. Not for their own selves (though we have many sinful priests who tend to forget) but for love of Christ and His Church.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), April 27, 2003.

Thanks for your replies,

I suppose it just bothers me that a priest can be unholy. It doesn't seem right. I mean I don't like it! Plus it tends to make me think that I don't have to be contrite. That I can just go through the motions and that's it. Of course I can't just go through the ritual motions and expect anything to come of it. However, the way it is, I tend to think like that. And if the priest is not very holy or I don't know him very well than I tend to be even more elusive, that is more prone to hide from humbleness needed when I approach those two sacraments.

So if the way it is set up in the Catholic Church tends to make me "cheat" on the sacrament (although you can't really cheat God, you just temporarily hide it from yourself and the community who can't see like God) than it makes me think that the fault lies in the way the church dispenses grace. Now I suppose if it were different. That is if the ordained priest was not required in order to be forgiven sacramentally or receive Jesus in the flesh, but rather only require that myself be present with God or myself with another person of my choice, than I suppose the same mental "cheating" could take place. I could still lack proper humility or just get lazy about sin in general. Would I go find a very holy unordained person? Or would I tend to seek out an easier softer way? I mean I could be just as insincere in that new situation as in the situation with the ordained priest.

OK I think I worked out my dilema on this. Rejecting the sacraments which worked fine before is just me wanting to run from God ... I'm just a whiner .... thanks.

-- Mike H. (michael.hitzelberger@vscc.cc.tn.us), April 28, 2003.