The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-04-25
GOETHE ON THE SEVEN SACRA-
MENTS.
An InfideI's Appreciation of the Sym
hoIism in the Sacraments Of the
Catholic Church.

In moral and religious, as we'll as
in physical and civil matters, man
does not like to do anything on the
spur of the moment; he needs a Sc
quence from which results habit;
what he is to love and to perform, he
cannot represent to himself as single
or isolated; and, if he is to repeat
anything willingly, it must not have
become strange to him. If the Prot
estant worship lacks fulness in gen.
eral, so let it be investigated in de-
tail, and it will be found that the
Protestant has too few Sacramento
nay, indeed, he has only one in which
he is himself an actor,-the Lords
Supper; for baptism he sees only
when it is performed on others, and is
not greatly edited by it. The Sacra-
ments are the highest part of religion,
the symbols to our senses of an ex-
traordinary divine favor and grace. In
the Lords Supper earthly lips are to
receive divine Being embodied, and
partake of heavenly, under the form
of an earthly nourishment. This i'm
port is the same in all kinds of Chris
tan churches: whether the Sacrament
is taken with more or less submission
to the mystery, with more or less &C.
commodation as to that which is in
telligible, it remains a great, holy
thing, which in reality takes the place
of the possible or the impossible, the
place of that which man can neither
attain nor do without. But such a
Sacrament should not stand alone: NO
Christian can partake of it with the
true joy for which it is given, if the
symbolical or sacramento sense is
not fostered within him. He must be
ligion of the heart and that of the ex.
ternal church as perfectly one, as the
great universal sacrament, which
again divides itself into so many 9th.
ers, and communicates to these parts
it's holiness, indestructibility, and eter
nifty.
Here youthful pair join hands, not
for passing salutation or for the
dance: the priest pronounces his
blessing upon them, and the bond is
indissoluble. 1t is not long before this
welded pair brings likeness to the
threshold of the altar: it is purified
with. holy water, and so incorporated
into the Church, that it cannot for
felt this benefit but through the most
monstrous apostasy.
The child in the course of life goes
on progressing in earthly things O.
his own accord, in heavenly thing!
he must be instructed. Does it prov
on examination that this has beer
fully done, he is now received int
the bosom of the Church as an actua
citizen, as a true and voluntary pro
fessor, not without outward tokens O
only, he is decidedly Christian, nov
for the first time he knows his ad
vantages and also his duties But, il
the meantime, a great deal that il
strange has happened to him as
man: through instruction and afflic
ton he has come to know how critica
appears the state of his inner self. AM
} there will constantly be a question O
doctrines and of transgressions; blu
} punishment shall no longer take place
For here, in the infinite confusion i
| which he must entangle himself, ami
, the conflict of natural and religion
claims, an admirable expedient is gi1
: en- him, in confiding his deeds an
: misdeeds, his infirmities and doubts
to worthy man, appointed expressl
: for that purpose, who knows how t
calm, to warn, to strengthen him, t