Digital Continent Digital Continent Easter 2017 | Page 45

correctly carried out by anyone in the form laid down by the church.” 116 Baptism is the gateway
to all other sacraments, it is the regeneration of man through water and the word, “that man by
being baptized begins the new life of righteousness; and enlightenment, which refers especially
to faith, by which man receives spiritual life” (Ia IIae q.66 a.1). The Albigensians disdained this
teaching of baptism through water and words, they professed salvation as being unnecessary,
nonexistent, “Christ could not have suffered and died on the cross, or risen from the dead, these
were only illusions!” 117 They believed man’s soul was doomed to an “eternal round of
reincarnation” unless they renounced baptism by water and received consolamentum. 118
All should hasten without delay to be born again unto god, and afterwards to be
signed by the Bishop, that is, to receive the sevenfold grace of the Holy Ghost;
for, as has been handed down to us from St. Peter, and as the other Apostles
taught in obedience to the command of our Lord, he who culpably and
voluntarily, and not from necessity, neglects to receive this Sacrament, cannot
possibly be a perfect Christian. 119
The sacrament of Confirmation where the Holy Spirit is received fully and baptismal
grace is completed as God’s children are anointed through the laying on of hands by the bishop
with the holy oil of Chrism. The confirmed enter into the mission of Christ, becoming a priestly,
prophetic, kingly people of God sent out into the world, now strengthened through the Holy
Spirit to spread the Good News of the Gospel.
For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on
the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he
broke it, and said, ‘this is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of
me.’ In the same way also the chalice, after supper, saying, ‘This chalice is the
new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of
116
Fourth Lateran Council, http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Councils/ecum12-2.htm, accessed, February 5, 2016,
n. 1.
117
Albert Shannon, OSA, The Medieval Inquisition, (MN: Liturgical Press, 1984),5.
118
Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay, Tr. W.A. Sibly and M.D. Sibly, The History of the Albigensian Crusade, (UK: The
Boydell Press, 1998), xxxiii.
119
St.Pius V, The Catechism of the Council of Trent, Trans., John A. McHugh, OP, Charles J. Callan, OP, (IL: Tan Books
and Publishers, Inc., 1982), 200.