Newest Book (actually I am just the editor)

Saints Patrick and Brigid, Patrons of Ireland.

 

Enjoy these two quaint and charming 19th century biographies of the two most important patrons of Ireland, St. Patrick and St. Brigid. Follow St. Patrick as he journeyed throughout Ireland, converting the nation from the paganism of the Druids. Learn how St. Brigid was one of the very first women to gather consecrated virgins into convents. See their connection with the geography of the land and its early saints, and with each other.

Available in paperback or ebook format.

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What is Baptism, Really?

From St. Azariah’s commentary for the Mass of the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost. 

 

The saint expounds on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans 6:3-11. Following is the Epistle from the online Douay-Rheims Bible https://www.drbo.org/chapter/52006.htm

 

“Know you not that all we, who are baptized in Christ Jesus, are baptized in his death? For we are buried together with him by baptism into death; that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. 

 

“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer. For he that is dead is justified from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ: Knowing that Christ rising again from the dead, dieth now no more, death shall no more have dominion over him. For in that he died to sin, he died once; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God: So do you also reckon, that you are dead to sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

 

Notes:

“Our old man": Our corrupt state, subject to sin and concupiscence, coming to us from Adam, is called our old man, as our state, reformed in and by Christ, is called the new man.

"Body of sin": The vices and sins, which then ruled in us, are named the body of sin.

St. Azariah, the guardian angel of Maria Valtorta, dictated to her fifty-eight detailed mystical meditations and commentary on all of the Sunday Masses, plus a few others, found in the Traditional Roman Missal of the Catholic Church. No Traditional Catholic should be without this collection. 

 

For the Mass of the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, he told her: “[…] I propose to you the meditation in Paul’s epistle, so little understood even by those calling themselves fervent Catholics. What is Baptism, exactly? Most would answer, ‘A ceremony which is usually performed at the beginning of life to show we are Catholics’; another, smaller group would say, ‘It is the Sacrament which cancels out original sin and restores Grace to us.’ They would, indeed, have answered well, showing themselves sufficient to live in a Catholic way […] if good will is joined to knowledge.

“But very few would go further in thought to the point of thoroughly examining what Baptism truly is, what it is formed of, its real nature, hidden under the substances used for the rite. If many thought of the ‘nature’ of Catholic Baptism and if many did their best to make their children or godchildren understand this nature from the most tender age, there would truly arise in both these children and their parents or godparents a profound love for Christ, such a love that it would restrain them from sinning, such a strong love that it would lead to holy works […] and with love pay the debt we owe to Christ, and also pay our debt to the Most High with pain. 

 

“[…] This restraining from sin, this loving gratitude to Him who restores your nature as children of God – the sharing, through Grace, in Life, glory and divinity – comes spontaneously in whoever is able to contemplate Baptism for what it really is. 

 

“It is immersion in the suffering of Christ, in His tears, in His blood, in His humiliations, in His death. This is under the species of water.

 

“The Victor over Death died to destroy the truest death: that of sin. And He opened His veins to give you the means to make your souls white, and He let His chest be rent to gather you into the hollow of His Heart. And have you rise from there to a life of Grace.

 

“[...] But it is required that man second Him so that the blood of the Lamb will not cry out against you, as against sacrilegious mockers and dissipators of His Sacrifice. 

 

“If the Catholic considered these things, he would no longer call Baptism a ‘ceremony’; he would see it not only as a Sacrament which restores Grace and cancels out sin, but as the holocaust of Christ, who opened his veins to give you the lavacre which takes away evil and makes you sharers in Good […], to infuse into you the Virtues indispensable to save yourselves and, therefore, to make you capable as well of understanding Wisdom, believing, hoping in Mercy. 

 

“Whoever is born and rises again in the Blood of Christ and remains faithful to that Blood no longer dies, but lives in Jesus Christ the Savior, having, like Him, overcome the world and Satan in taming concupiscences. 

 

“[Addressing Maria Valtorta:] Rest soul of mine. I gave you few words so that you would not tremble at being abandoned. […] Offer your suffering as a sharing in the Holy Sacrifice of this Sunday.”

Websites where you can find the English translation of The Book of Azariah.

 

https://www.valtorta.org.au/Books_Booklets_and_Audio.html

https://mariavaltortastore.com/en/books/the-book-of-azariah/

View my Catholic website  www.frankrega.com