The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-11-14
THE TREASURY OF THE CHURCH.

The treasury of the Church consists
of the superintendent merits and salts
factions of Christ, of His Blessed
Mother and of His saints.
ST. Peter says: "Ye were redeemed,
not with corruptible things, gold and
silver, but with the precious blood OF
Christ, as of a lamb unspotted and
undefled." | Peter lis. A single
drop of the precious blood of Our
Lord would have sufficed for the re
dempton of the whole world. For
Christ is God, and the ineffable union
of His human nature with the Divine
in One Person gave infinite value to
every drop of His most precious
Blood, and to every thought of His
Sacred Heart. Christ paid our debt"
says ST. John Chrysostom. HE paid to
God far more than we owed; as the
wide ocean exceeds the tiny drop of
water so the satisfaction of Christ
exceeds our debt to the Divine JUS
tice." "Of no small worth" says st.
Cyril, was He Who died for us: no
dumb animal, no mere man, no angel
was He, but God Incarnate. The
iniquity of sinners was Outweighed by,
the Justice of Him Who died for us.
The evil of our sins is more than coun-
terbalanced by the excellence of His
Justice" And Christ offered up all
His merits and satisfactions to His
Father for us. God Who delivered up
His Son for our salvation, remembers
the work of Christ and the price He
paid, and it is always precious and
acceptable in His sight.
st. Paul says of himself: 81 fill up
those things that are lacking of the
sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for
His body, which is the Church" Col.
/, "a When ST. Paul was as yet an
.unconverted prosecutor of the Church,
breathing out threatenings and slaugh-
ter against the disciples of the Lord,
he heard a voice saying to him:
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me-"
And Saul, said: who art Thou,
Lord?" And Gu" Lord answered: 81
am Jesus, Whom thou persecutest."
Acts 8, 1-5 On the last day Our Lord
will say to all men, good and bad:
What We did to the least of My breth-
rem that We did to Me-" For we are
all united to form the mystical body
of Christ and are members one of
another. st. Leo says: THE Passion
of Christ goes on till the end of the
world; as Christ is honored and loved
in His saints, as He is clad and fed
in His poor, so He suffers in all who
4,
Christ, carrying our cross, so that we
may be like our Master, and one day
reign with Him in Heaven. All
the value, all the meritorious
and satisfactory efficacy of our
works and prayers and suffer
ings, is derived from union with
Christ, our Head, by grace and love.
The Blessed Virgin had no sins of
her own, for which to satisfy the JUS
tice of God. Many of Gods saints by
their works of penance, by their life
long service of fervent love, paid to
God the debt they may have con-
tracted by any sins of their own; but
they did more than that, although
their grace of humility would not
allow them to say so: their love OF
God led them to offer their lives and
all their thoughts, words and deeds in
union with those of Christ, to make
up, with st. Paul, what was wanting,
according to the DEGREES of Divine
Justice and Wisdom and Love. They
offered them, with st. Paul, for the
whole mystical body of Christ, which
is the Church. Thus those merits and
satisfactions of the saints, gained
through the merits of Christ. together
with the superintendent merits and
satisfactions of Christ Himself and of
His Blessed Mother, form the common
treasure of the whole Church.