Posted on 11/24/2004 9:25:38 AM PST by wallcrawlr
Of course. But traditionalists have to constantly "one-up" the Novus Ordo.
So Jesus is bigger, better, more tanned, rested, and ready at a Tridentine Mass than at a Novus Ordo Mass.
Or, so they think.
I am talking about the graces which the two Masses bring down from heaven. This is more than evident in the state of the Church today. Using a medical analogy it is similar to using Cipro vs Amoxicillin.
I also have personal experience in the matter which I will not publicly elaborate on.
It is not a matter of degrees of Christ's presence. He is either there or not.
In a way, you finally get it.
Good.
"Or, so they think."
This liberal debate trick is the simple misrepresentation. Just say something that isn't true; who knows, it may stick.
You planning on acknowledging #136?
An apparition?
Nope.
Why? You want to start the cause for canonization?
"You planning on acknowledging #136?"
Not in any appropriate way, certainly.
However, when this subject comes up again, he will repost his 120.
No. Your "evidence" is nothing but surmise.
." It is Christ who acts, not the priest.If the priest has expressed the intention to "Do what the Church does" and never retracted it, his internal disposition is incidental. "
Christ can only act through a vessel (the priest) who is willing to be used for Christ's purpose. While it is true that the hertic or apostate could - in theory - offer a valid mass by consciously projecting the intention of the church - he would have to do so intentionally. For when he falls into unfaith, it cannot be otherwise presumed that he is performing the sacraments with the mind of Christ and his church for the corrrect intention. An intention made 25 years ago cannot necessarliy be presumed to still be true. There must be some manner of conscious affirmation.
It is for that reason that the curhc in the past went to great lengths to remove heretical and apostate priests from ministry - to ensure orthodoxy AND valid sacraments!
Well, we have agreement there. It is not my desire nor faith that makes Him there. He is there because He is faithful to His promise.
He was there as a babe in a simple manger; a container used to feed livestock. He is the Food from Heaven - feeding His sheep. High Mass, Low Mass, Tridentine Mass, Novus Ordo Mass... He longs to feed His sheep. He POURS graces out in each Mass.
Sadly, I often only bring a thimble to carry the graces home with me. My fault, not His.
A_R
Let's say there's a priest who no longer believes the doctrines of the Church, specifically regarding transubstantiation. He has no intention of consecrating the Eucharist because he doesn't believe it is possible, or real. Isn't that a "retraction" even if he doesn't formally announce it?
Now let's suppose, not that this could ever happen /sarcasm, this priest becomes an active agent for satan, wouldn't he be more effective as such if everyone in his parish etc. was unaware that he secretly retracted his intention?
Secondly, there is the virtual intention. Its force is borrowed entirely from a prior volition which is accounted as continuing in some result produced by it. In other words, the virtual intention is not a present act of the will. but rather a power (virtus) come about as an effect of a former act, and now at work for the attainment of the end. The thing therefore that is wanting in a virtual, as contrasted with an actual, intention is not of course the element of will, but rather the attention of the intellect, and that particularly of the reflex kind. So, for example, a person having made up his mind to undertake a journey may during its progress be entirely preoccupied with other thoughts. He will nevertheless be said to have all the while the virtual intention of reaching his destination. Thirdly, a habitual intention is one that once actually existed, but of the present continuance of which there is no positive trace; the most that can be said of it is that it has never been retracted.
Virtual is sufficient, habitual insufficient. Intention is always presumed when the rite prescribed by the Church is followed, however:
The Church does not judge about the mind and intention, in so far as it is something by its nature internal; but in so far as it is manifested externally she is bound to judge concerning it. A person who has correctly and seriously used the requisite matter and form to effect and confer a sacrament is presumed for that very reason to have intended to do (intendisse) what the Church does. On this principle rests the doctrine that a Sacrament is truly conferred by the ministry of one who is a heretic or unbaptized, provided the Catholic rite be employed. (Leo XIII, Apostolicae Curae)
If the priest never retracts his intention to "Do as the Church does," it is presumed to be operative. The Sacraments are "ex opere operato." They are valid by the action itself, as long as matter and form are present.
The Church has held, from the beginning, that the disposition of the priest does not affect sacramental validity. Even a laicized priest can confect the Eucharist in cases of danger of death, plague, or mass illness, as long as he "intends to do what the Church does."
In any case, the original objection was to the Novus Ordo, and how NO Masses "might" be invalid.
That is a sinister attempt to undermine the Mass celebrated universally for 35 years. It seems that traddies cannot simply accept the Tridentine Mass and the Novus Ordo Mass.
They must tear down the Novus Ordo and invalidate it.
Why must you destroy the Mass celebrated by John Paul II, the Pope you claim to follow?
If the priest never formally retracts his intention, then his celebration of sacraments is valid.
A person who has correctly and seriously used the requisite matter and form to effect and confer a sacrament is presumed for that very reason to have intended to do (intendisse) what the Church does. On this principle rests the doctrine that a Sacrament is truly conferred by the ministry of one who is a heretic or unbaptized, provided the Catholic rite be employed. (Leo XIII, Apostolicae Curae)
This obsession with intention is something peculiar to Free Republic. I have never encountered it anywhere else, in 12 years of ministry.
An atheist can baptize a child, in danger of death, but some of you scrupulosies doubt whether a validly ordained priest consecrates the Eucharist!
As long as the minister uses the approved rite, intention is to be presumed. This is true even if the minister is publicly heretical even with regard to the reality of the sacrament in question:
Consequently, others with better reason hold that the minister of a sacrament acts in the person of the whole Church, whose minister he is; while in the words uttered by him, the intention of the Church is expressed; and that this suffices for the validity of the sacrament, except the contrary be expressed on the part either of the minister or of the recipient of the sacrament. (St. Thomas, Summa theologiae, III q. 64 a. 8)
But if his faith be defective in regard to the very sacrament that he confers, although he believe that no inward effect is caused by the thing done outwardly, yet he does know that the Catholic Church intends to confer a sacrament by that which is outwardly done. Wherefore, his unbelief notwithstanding, he can intend to do what the Church does, albeit he esteem it to be nothing. And such an intention suffices for a sacrament: because as stated above (8, ad 2) the minister of a sacrament acts in the person of the Church by whose faith any defect in the minister's faith is made good. (St. Thomas, Summa theologiae, III q. 64 a. 9)
One can always count on you to fly in with the theological evidentiaries.
Thank you for posting that!
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