Last weekend we took a look at the first part of the introductory rituals of the celebration of the Sacrament of Baptism, and now we will turn to the second part of those introductory rituals.  Following the proclamation of the scriptures and prayer of petition, the minister of baptism now prays a short prayer of exorcism.  When we think of exorcisms we probably have vivid images from movies or books that come to our mind, but in the Church there are two types of exorcisms, the first is what is called a “major exorcism” this is when someone has come under the active powers of the evil one.  While we may think of these as being mere flights of fancy, they are very real indeed and, unfortunately, are becoming more prevalent today.  The evil one can be allowed into a person’s heart by their own invitation, either verbal or by the actions of their lives.  This is why the Church prohibits anything that smacks of the occult or pseudo-mysticism – these can become doorways to allow the presence of evil into one’s heart.  This has led the Church to prohibit Catholics from consulting horoscopes, visiting psychics, taking part in séances, participating in “games” such as the Ouija Board and participating in forms of pseudo-mysticism or meditation which can be characterized as “new age” – these are all very dangerous practices and the Church is wise to prohibit them. 

When it comes to a baptism, the prayer of exorcism that is prayed is not a “major exorcism” but a “minor exorcism.”  At the heart of an exorcism is taking something from the realm of sin and evil and death and drawing it into the realm of goodness, life and the Lord.  Every time we sign ourselves with holy water as we walk into church we are, in fact, taking part in a minor exorcism – recalling our own baptisms as well as asking the Lord to protect us from evil and to drive out evil that stalks every human heart.  The baptismal ritual does the same thing, praying that the one to be baptized will be set “free from original sin” and made into a “temple of your [God’s] glory” and that the Holy Spirit will dwell within the soul of the baptized.  In other words, the prayer asks that the person to be baptized be drawn from the realm of the world, to the realm of God Himself. 

Following this prayer, there is an optional ritual – the anointing with the Oil of Catechumens.  In the early Church (and still seen today in many respects through the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) the preparation for baptism was a long process – a time of purification and formation known as the catechumenate.  Catechumens were under the protection of the Church, but not yet members of her.  Upon entrance into the Catechumenate, people would be anointed with blessed oil, what we now call the Oil of Catechumens.  This ancient ritual is preserved even in infant baptism today, however, it is now optional.
The next part of the introductory rites for baptism is the blessing of the waters of the baptismal font. 

Since we already looked at this prayer of blessing in our first article on baptism we will not re-examine it here, suffice it to say it is a beautiful prayer and recalls the entrance of another soul into the great drama of salvation history through the font of baptism.  Following this prayer of blessing, there is a renunciation of evil and a profession of faith made by the person to be baptized, or, in the case of an infant or child, on behalf of that child by their parents and godparents.  These are our baptismal promises where we reject Satan, his works and his empty promises and where we profess our faith in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit as well as the Church, the saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.  These are the promises and commitments which help us to see the direction of our life – what we reject and strive against as well as what we accept and seek to live out in our lives. 

In our next article we will complete our look at the Sacrament of Baptism by examining the baptism itself as well as the explanatory rituals which follow and help us to understand what great graces have just been received into the life of the one who is baptized. 
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(This article is part of a series of articles on The Sacraments which will appear in the bulletin over the course of this year.)

In last weekend’s bulletin, we took a look at the effects of baptism and the great graces that flow through its celebration.  This week we will start to walk step-by-step through the baptismal ritual, using it as a guide to help us come to a deeper understanding of the sacrament.  The first part of the baptismal ritual addresses patrons – patrons in heaven and patrons on earth.  The very first question that the minister of baptism asks is, “what name have you given your child?”  Names are important.  Names are sacred.  God calls us by our baptismal name.  Traditionally, Catholics chose the names of saints to serve as either the first name and/or middle name of their children; this is a very beautiful practice and one that should not be set aside lightly.  It is the saints, particularly our patron saints, who serve as particular intercessors for us before the heavenly throne of God and it is the saints, particularly our patron saints, who serve as witnesses and examples to us.  Patron saints become people that the child can call upon as they grow older and serve as heavenly friends for souls on earth.  It is a beautiful practice to name a child after these beautiful witnesses of faith!  The saints serve as our heavenly patrons.

The second patrons that the baptismal ritual directs us to are the Godparents.  Godparents serve as earthly patrons for the baptized – they are meant to be, like our heavenly patrons, people who pray for us on a regular basis and give a witness and example to the beauty of faith by the way they live their lives.  Usually two godparents are chosen for a child, one male and one female, in order to be a godparent one must be a baptized, confirmed and practicing Catholic – in other words, someone who is fully initiated into the Church and is active in their faith.  The special bond and relationship between a person and their godparents is something important.  Many people presume that godparents came into being during a time of high mortality rates when godparents would, in effect, agree to take on the care of a child if that child’s parents were to die.  However, the practice of godparents is not rooted in that – it is rooted in the early persecution of the Church.  During the persecutions of the Church during the time of the Roman Empire, Christians were subject to torture and death and it was not unusual for people, out of the hope of monetary gain or in trying to curry favor with higher authorities, to denounce Christians publicly.  How was the Church then to know if someone was truly seeking to be baptized in order to follow Christ or simply to know who was really a Christian so they could be denounced later?  The answer was godparents – a godparent was someone who vouched for the integrity and sincere desire of someone who wanted to be a Christian, the godparent was someone already known to be a faithful follower of Christ who would affirm that the person that was seeking admission to the Church wanted to follow the same path and was not a danger to the community.  While that role of the godparent has disappeared into history, the gift of earthly patrons in the form of godparents, is something special indeed.  

The final part of the beginning of the ritual of baptism is the acceptance of responsibility on the part of parents to raise their child in the practice of the faith.  Three times during the baptismal ritual the parents are asked if they are ready to take on this responsibility.  Being a Christian parent is a sacred vocation.  Christian parenthood means taking on the responsibility of living out one’s own faith, especially through the Sunday Mass, and passing on the Catholic Faith to their children.  It means ensuring a religious education and formation of the child through the home, as well as through either a Catholic school or religious education program.  Being a Christian parent means ensuring that the home is truly a Catholic home where the faith is honored, celebrated and passed on.

Following these three initial parts of the baptismal ritual, a brief passage of scripture is read and petitions are prayed for the person about to be baptized as well those present and all the baptized.  In our next article we will examine the second part of the introductory rituals.    

(This article is part of a series of articles on The Sacraments which will appear in the bulletin over the course of this year.)

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, over the course of this year I would like to spend some time looking at the sacraments in order to help us to come to a deeper understanding of the sacraments and reflect on the great graces which are available to us through them.  Having looked already at what a sacrament is a few weeks ago, we can now turn to examining the first of the sacraments, the Sacrament of Baptism.  We will be looking at the sacrament primarily by looking at the ritual celebration of baptism which can give us insight into what is unfolding when baptism is celebrated.  However, first we must turn to a scriptural understanding and examine the way that water has been used over the course of salvation history.

During the baptismal ritual there is a special prayer of blessing for the water of the baptismal font.  In this prayer of blessing, the Church calls to mind the various ways that water has been used, by God, to accomplish His purposes and by looking at these uses of water we can see signs of what baptism accomplishes.  The prayer for the blessing of the baptismal waters first calls to mind the creation of the world, when, “in the beginning,” the Holy Spirit hovered over the abyss of waters and from that abyss of water came all of creation.  We see how water was used at the time of the Great Flood to wipe sin from the earth and to offer a new beginning through Noah and his family.  We see the people of Israel passing from Egypt on their journey to the Promised Land, by passing through the parted waters of the Red Sea.  All of these uses of water points us to the realities of what the baptismal water will accomplish – of how, just as at the beginning of creation, the baptismal water will bring new life; we see how water will be used to cleanse sin, just as it was at the time of Noah; we see how the people of Israel passed from slavery into freedom through water, just as passing through the baptismal waters brings us from slavery to sin to freedom as children of God.  The prayer goes on to point out that Christ Himself was baptized in the river Jordan by St. John the Baptist, not because He was in need of being forgiven of sin, not because He needed to be sanctified, but that by entering the waters Himself, He would sanctify water and give it supernatural power.  It is blood and water that flows from Christ’s pierced side as He hung upon the Cross, the “well spring of the Church’s sacraments.”    Finally, at the moment of His Ascension, He commands His disciples to baptize the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  This is a command the Church has been faithful to for two millennia! 

Baptism is the ‘gateway’ for all the sacraments, in other words, one cannot receive the other sacraments until one has received baptism.  Baptism has numerous effects – the first is the forgiveness of original sin.  As we know, our first parents rebelled against God and chose to ignore His direct commands and, in so doing, allowed the reality of disobedience and sin to enter into God’s creation and into the human being.  This original sin is passed down from generation to generation and is forgiven in baptism.  This does not mean that we will not be tempted to sign again – we still find ourselves dealing with one of the after-effects of original sin, called concupiscence.  Concupiscence is not a sin in and of itself, it is the inclination to sin that we all carry with us and it remains even after original sin has been cleansed.  In baptism we become adopted sons and daughters of God – we now bear a familial relationship with God Himself and are meant to dwell in communion with Him on this earth and culminating in communion with Him in heaven.  In baptism we become members of the Church, belonging to the great People of God and find ourselves brought into communion with the faithful of generations past and those to come.  In baptism we receive the gift of sanctifying grace, which is a supernatural grace which adheres in the soul and makes the soul holy and able to enter into God’s own life and love which can only be lost through mortal sin and restored through the Sacrament of Penance. 

In our next article we will continue to look at the Sacrament of Baptism and start to walk through its celebration.
(This article is part of a series of articles on The Sacraments which will appear in the bulletin over the course of this year.)

The Holy Father has declared a Year of Mercy beginning on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception this year, December 8, 2015. This year will be a year particularly dedicated to a growing understanding of God’s merciful love as well as an opportunity to exercise mercy towards others over the course of our daily lives. As a preparation for this Year of Mercy, the Vatican has authorized that the body of St. Maria Goretti come to the United States for public veneration as a witness to the power of mercy, as well as the beauty of chastity and innocence. As was announced at Mass a few weeks ago, St. Mary’s Visitation Parish will host these major relics of St. Maria Goretti next weekend, October 17-18. We are one of only two parishes in the State of Wisconsin that have been given this honor and the only parish in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. 
St. Maria Goretti was born in 1890 in Italy. Poverty forced her family to move in with another family who had a son named Alessandro.  As she sat knitting a shirt one day, Alessandro attempted to sexually assault her and she resisted, telling Alessandro that such an act was a mortal sin and that God was abhorred at such an act and he would lose his own soul. When she told Alessandro that she would rather die than lose her innocence, Alessandro stabbed her with a knife fourteen times. She was rushed to the doctor who could do nothing to save her life, she lingered for a day after the attack and during that time expressed forgiveness towards Alessandro. She died while holding a crucifix and looking at an image of the Virgin Mary. She was eleven years old.

Alessandro was apprehended and imprisoned Over the course of his incarceration Alessandro was converted and returned to the Church.  In 1950, when Maria Goretti was canonized by Pope Pius XII, Alessandro was present, he eventually joined a religious order before  dying himself in 1970. At the end of the canonization ceremony, Pope Pius XII asked the many young people present in St. Peter’s Square, “Young people, pleasure of the eyes of Jesus, are you determined to resist any attack on your chastity with the help of grace of God?” He received in return a loud and strong, “yes!” St. Maria Goretti is a patroness of teenage girls and of chastity and purity. Her example gives not only a beautiful illustration of mercy, but also of the beauty of purity, chastity and innocence.

St. Maria Goretti’s relics will be placed in the sanctuary of our church and everyone is invited and encouraged to make a pilgrimage here over the course of next weekend to spend some time in prayer and veneration. Public veneration will begin with a special Mass at 9:00am on Saturday morning in honor of St. Maria Goretti. Veneration will continue that morning until Noon and will begin again after the 5:00pm Mass until 11:00pm Saturday night. Veneration will occur again after the 11:00am Mass on Sunday until 5:00pm Sunday evening. 

The hosting of these relics is a great gift to the entire parish community. To have the relics of a saint in our parish church is a source of grace not only for those who will make time to come for the Mass or to simply pray quietly, but also for the entire parish community.  Most often, when one desires to pray at the tomb of a saint they will have to travel hundreds of miles, now the tomb of a saint has come to us, this is a blessing from God and one to be truly grateful for – what fruits would be borne in our own hearts, in the hearts of our young people and in the heart of this parish if all of us were to commit to making a visit to her relics over the course of next weekend. In this bulletin you will find a number of prayers which you can bring with you if you would like and pray before her relics, they can also be found on our parish website. I have no doubt that, after this visit, St. Maria Goretti will hold a particular and powerful place in the heart of St. Mary’s Visitation Parish and all of its parishioners.

St. Maria Goretti…pray for us!

​This week marks the 30th Anniversary of our Perpetual Adoration Chapel, what a wonderful milestone to honor and celebrate! For the past thirty years, over the course of day and night, in good weather and       horrible weather, in the midst of the ups and downs of daily lives as well as in the midst of historical world changing events, someone has been in our Adoration Chapel, praying before the Blessed Sacrament for their personal needs, the needs of our parish and the needs of the world and the Church. To all who have so generously committed their time to being there as one of the regular adorers, we all thank you – without you the chapel would not be available. To all who stop in from time to time to pray, I know what great peace and consolation and how many answered prayers have followed time spent in the chapel. To all who have not yet had the opportunity to stop in, please do so! As St. John Paul II said, “time given to Christ is never time wasted!” Time spent with the Lord and before the Lord bears fruit not only for this life, but for eternal life. 

Our Chapel began in early 1985, when parishioners of St. Mary’s read an article about Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.  They were impressed by the great fruits that flowed out of and into the lives of those who participated in regular adoration, as well as the spiritual benefits that came into the lives of the parishes which had it. They followed up this interest by contacting a program that helped parishes to introduce this practice in their parishes. After gaining more information, they sat down with Msgr. Emmenegger, Pastor of St. Mary’s at the time, to discuss the possibility of this happening at St. Mary’s. Monsignor was, at first, reluctant of the idea, simply because of the practical concerns of filling the night-time hours, but he agreed to think and pray about it and read more about adoration taking place in other parishes throughout the country. A few months later, he was ready to commit the parish to this great endeavor.    After meeting with the original group of interested parishioners they decided on a small room off the west vestibule for the placement of the first adoration chapel. The chapel was prepared and on October 7, 1985 Mass was celebrated, followed by Benediction, and then a procession with the Blessed Sacrament to the Chapel. With the parish building project a few years ago, the Perpetual Adoration Chapel was relocated to the former baptistery area on the north side of church. 

We are going to be celebrating this great milestone in the life of our parish with Forty Hours Devotion. Forty Hours Devotion is a devotion dating back to the early 16th Century. It is forty hours of exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, commemorating the forty hours the Lord spent in the tomb from His death on the Cross until His Resurrection. The devotion is marked by three special Masses – the first is the Mass of Exposition, which will be celebrated on Monday, October 5th at 6:00PM, there are special prayers and a procession of the Blessed Sacrament throughout church. The second day is marked by the celebration of a Mass for Peace, which will be celebrated on Tuesday, October 6th at 8:00AM (Note: there will be no 6:30AM Mass that morning or on Wednesday morning). The third day sees the celebration of the Mass of Reposition which will be celebrated on Wednesday evening, October 7th at 6:00PM. During these days (from Monday evening following the Mass until Wednesday evening before the Mass), adoration of the Blessed Sacrament will take place in the church, rather than the Chapel. During the night hours, the church will be accessible through the Chapel. If you do not know the code for the locked doors, please simply call the Rectory. 

​I would encourage every member of St. Mary’s to make at least one visit to the Blessed Sacrament over the course of these days and to attend one, or all, of the Masses if possible! Following the Mass of Reposition there will be a procession of the Blessed Sacrament back to the Chapel and a reception to follow in the Atrium. This is a wonderful milestone and something for us all to celebrate. If you want more information on adoration or ways to pray in front of the Blessed Sacrament be sure to check out our parish website, www.stmaryeg.org. Also, if you’d be interested in volunteering some of your time to become a regular adorer in the chapel, you can sign up online or by calling the parish office. A special “thank you” again to all who have done so much to make our Perpetual Adoration Chapel such a place of grace over the course of these thirty years. And, most especially, a deep measure of thanksgiving belongs to Our Lord who poured out His own Blood for our salvation on the Cross and who comes to us in the Eucharist. All praise and honor and glory to Him forever!