The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1898-12-03
WHY HE lsACATH0Ltc.

WHY HE IS 4 CATHOLIC.
In recent course Of lectures to Prot
estants at Hartford. Conn, Rev. Walter
Elliott. the noted Paulist missionary.
gave the following reasons for being a
Catholic:
"The Catholic church is an interra-
tional association established by Christ.
Its objects are to assemble ell men of all
nations into brotherhood, so that they
may thereby be an honor to their heav-
emily father, be easily saved from sin and
hell, and personally filled with the divine
spirit. The Catholic or universal church
is thus Gods society on earth, Christ's
discipleship and the Holy Spirits house
hold of faith and love. That Christ
must have formed such an institution is
antecedently probable. And, as a mat
ter Of fact. He did organize as well as
teach. appointed officers as we'll as pro-
claimed salvation. And His apostles did
likewise. So that Christianity ia a
church, and always has been-Catholic,
apostolic and Roman church.
But this is the outer side of Clrlst's
religion. I am Catholic for .hat req
son, indeed, but mainly because the
church gives me Cod in my interior life.
That is why neil and women Join tho
church, or being bred in it, gladly stay
1t gives them an overmastering con-
seriousness of God. and makes God SUI
preme in their lives. 1t gives us Cod RS
an inward light. The certain truth as
controlling force is .he Catholic faith.
The inner voice is strengthened by the
returning echo of the outer teaching: or.
rather, Gods teaching to man is the
harmony of external and internal ,eve-
lation. The church guarantees the va
lidity of my inward convictions, ex-
cludes fanaticism, arouses sluggishness,
and is criterion of the validity of my
personal faith. Hence st. Paul calls 1t
The church Of the living God, the pillar
and the ground of the truth The unity
of belief and the certainty of it is why I
am Catholic.
Another reason is, because the Catho-
lie church conaueys. my rebellious pas
sions. 1t is the world-renowned school
of repentance. The church humbles me
in my best moments ito the sovereign
majesty of God. It was to her ministers
of reconciliation that God our Lord first
said: Whatsoever sins you forgive,
they are forgiven them; whatsoever sins
you shall retain, they are retained This
has made the consciousness Of sin per-
feet by necessitating confession; it has
elevated the Office Of friendship to the
divine uses of sacrament, and has given
us method and process for the exter-
nalizing of our innsn sorrow for sin, thus
developing it as nlans is.develcoed, by
removal to the cren sunlight. Confess
sion of sin and dissolution from its guilt
is, practically. and for tho most common
run of humanity, most conclusive ar
g'lment for the Churc1's -.vine institu-
ton.
"The unity of Christ's faith in divine
brotherhood, universal and external and
pre-eminent in the world: the plain outer
process of pardon testing the sincerity of
the interior movements .,c the grac. Ut
contrition; the full satisfaction of the
soul by entire union with God in the
real presence-these are the main rea-
sons why am a Catholic. Add the COM
munion of saints, the doctrine and prac-
tice of prayers for the dead, the liberty
and equality of the church's people, the
gentle sweetness of the Catholic devo-
tional spirit, the spell of this beautiful
religion in art and ceremony and poetry
and music, the boundless charity of
Catholic men and women in and out of
communities, and add many other rea-
sons, all converging to one, and the case
is stated The one great reason is,
Catholicity gives me God in His own
chosen way, and fullness and fruition."