Friday, January 9, 2009

2Tim 1, 6 Stir into flame the gift of God that you have

(2Tim 1, 6) Stir into flame the gift of God that you have
[6] For this reason, I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands.
(CCC 1533) Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist are sacraments of Christian initiation. They ground the common vocation of all Christ's disciples, a vocation to holiness and to the mission of evangelizing the world. They confer the graces needed for the life according to the Spirit during this life as pilgrims on the march towards the homeland. (CCC 1534) Two other sacraments, Holy Orders and Matrimony, are directed towards the salvation of others; if they contribute as well to personal salvation, it is through service to others that they do so. They confer a particular mission in the Church and serve to build up the People of God. (CCC 1535) Through these sacraments those already consecrated by Baptism and Confirmation (Cf. LG 10) for the common priesthood of all the faithful can receive particular consecrations. Those who receive the sacrament of Holy Orders are consecrated in Christ's name "to feed the Church by the word and grace of God" (LG 11 § 2). On their part, "Christian spouses are fortified and, as it were, consecrated for the duties and dignity of their state by a special sacrament" (GS 48 § 2). (CCC 1536) Holy Orders is the sacrament through which the mission entrusted by Christ to his apostles continues to be exercised in the Church until the end of time: thus it is the sacrament of apostolic ministry. It includes three degrees: episcopate, presbyterate, and diaconate. (CCC 1556) To fulfil their exalted mission, "the apostles were endowed by Christ with a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit coming upon them, and by the imposition of hands they passed on to their auxiliaries the gift of the Spirit, which is transmitted down to our day through episcopal consecration" (LG 21; cf. Acts 1:8; 2:4; Jn 20:22-23; 1 Tim 4:14; 2 Tim 1:6-7). (CCC 1573) The essential rite of the sacrament of Holy Orders for all three degrees consists in the bishop's imposition of hands on the head of the ordinand and in the bishop's specific consecratory prayer asking God for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and his gifts proper to the ministry to which the candidate is being ordained (Cf. Pius XII, apostolic constitution, Sacramentum Ordinis: DS 3858).

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