Announcing a New Initiative - A Deeper Life of Grace - with the Aid of the Sacramentals

It is time to reclaim the great blessings from the ROMAN RITUAL known as...

 

The Sacramentals!

Our ancient weapons for this new age

Artist unknown

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https://www.theslayingdragonsbook.com/p/a-deeper-life-of-grace.html

For this Initiative, I created a video as a way to provide a general overview of the sacramentals as well as encourage priests and laity to really get involved.

 

There is a need to generate excitement and a new momentum to rekindle the faith of the laity in the power of these blessings from Christ's Holy Church.

Here is the Video, and below is the transcript (more or less):

Catholics today are very familiar with holy water and candles and incense they see at Mass. But, unfortunately, most Catholics are not familiar with blessed salt and blessed candles and other things like those which the Church calls "sacramentals."

My name is Charles Fraune. I’m the author of Slaying Dragons: What Exorcists See & What We Should Know.

 

I'm launching a program that I call

“a deeper life of grace.”

The purpose of this program is to promote the sacramentals: 

- blessed oil, blessed candles, holy water, and other things that I'll talk about in other videos for this program.

This is the first video that I'm making: a general overview of what the sacramentals are and why we need them.

A Loss of the Saving Sacred

Sacramentals, unfortunately, are one of the things that a lot of people have forgotten about. There's been a lot of confusion, as we all know, in the past many decades of the Church. Sacramentals are one of the victims, one of the casualties, along the way.

My book, Slaying Dragons, contains a lot about sacramentals, but prior to writing that book I had a very poor knowledge of what they were, their power, and how they could be used, even though I already had a Masters in Theology.

I had a general knowledge of the power in the blessing placed on holy water, but I knew nothing about blessed oil or blessed candles or blessed incense.

But the knowledge I gained from researching the teachings of exorcists, Doctors of the Church, and the Church’s rituals and prayers, really opened my eyes to a whole other aspect of being Catholic.

Sacramentals and the Sacraments

Sacramentals are like the Sacraments though distinct from the Sacraments.

Sacramentals are similar to, and in imitation of, the Sacraments. The Sacraments are all instituted by Christ; the sacramentals are instituted by the Church, the Bride of Christ.

The Sacraments give us the grace of justification and the gift of eternal life; sacramentals don't. However, sacramentals, which impart to us actual graces, condition us to be open to receiving sanctifying grace. Sacramentals give us actual graces and other protections that prepare us and strengthen us and support us, keeping us close to Christ and His saving grace. 

 

The Purpose of the Sacramentals

The purpose of each of the sacramentals varies and is reflected in the words of the blessing itself. Some of them are blessings on our homes or on our cars, in order to protect us from physical harm and to commission angels to accompany us, making these dwellings holy places.

There is also the blessing of fields, for those who have farms, small acreage, or even backyard farms. This blessing asks God to bless, consecrate, and protect the field or acreage, from devilish infection, lightning, storms and harmful floods, and to destroy any infertility in the land.

Another purpose, and this is a big one, is to drive away the devil and thwart his activity.

This is very important for the Christian life, in particular today, that they have a spiritual warfare element.

These sacramentals work to drive away the devil and block his activity. This can include temptations as well as physical manifestations, including storms and illnesses. Holy water, blessed salt, and blessed candles are among these. Exorcists utilize these sacramentals in their ministry and see a tremendous power in them against the workings of evil.

This purposes ties right in with Our Lord's main mission of conquering the devil and his activity.

But why launch a program to promote the sacramentals?

- we need these sacramentals

- we need the effects especially in this age where, if you look around, the devil is very much at work.

- there is a lot of confusion, a lot of damage, a lot of sin graves, and people are very confused.

People often don’t have access to the sacramentals because of a serious lack of knowledge and a lack of preaching about them, even from good priests. Priests are overwhelmed and are dealing with serious pastoral situations in an age overrun with grave moral evils.

Time to Learn about the Roman Ritual

Many priests today are beginning to study the Roman Ritual. I want to encourage all priests do this, to know what's there, to realize how they can communicate this to the faithful.

- and the faithful need to know this as well and to ask their priests for these sacramentals.

 

When I was doing research for Slaying Dragons, I took all the knowledge I acquired about the sacramentals and started to ask my priests to bless these: oil, candles, water, salt, crucifixes, rosaries, and then I started to use them, with careful devotion because I knew their power.

 

There were very positive tangible spiritual effects in my life, combined with a regular life of Confession and the Eucharist – these have to be there for the sacramentals to really have their effect.

 

What is the logic behind sacramentals?

 

As I mentioned, the Sacraments are established by Christ where He uses these elements – oil, water, wine, bread – to give us sanctifying grace.

And if you look at the way He lived, He sanctified and healed using His own saliva, oil, water, and His words, and He healed people through His gestures: touching people’s tongues and ears and eyes, the touch of His hand, the hem of His garment.

He made the elements of this earth into conduits of grace; not just sanctifying grace through the Sacraments, but the graces of healing and strength and comfort and liberation from the diabolical.

Sanctifying grace comes through the Sacraments; actual graces, graces of healing, graces of spiritual warfare, graces of strength and protection, and other effects on the soul, can come through the sacramentals as well as the Sacraments.

Remember, as exorcists state, Confession is more powerful than an exorcism, which is a sacramental. The Sacraments have the most power, by far, but the sacramentals are also powerful.

 

So the Church, as the instrument of Christ, is continuing, and has done so over the past 2000 years, to sanctify the elements of this earth to take them back from the reign of evil.

 

The Church as Our Mother

The evils in this world must be battled and the best way for us to do that is a life of dependence on the Sacraments: Confession and the Eucharist, but also using these weapons, these tools, these sacramentals that the Church has given us.

 

These are things that are ancient, official, authoritative gifts from the Church, from Holy Mother Church, where she really is a mother to us, providing for us and forming us so that we become mature in Christ.

 

Think about Baptism 

 

Baptism is the initiation into the life of grace, into the life of the Church, and in the traditional baptism, it is clearly a spiritual battle.

There are at least three exorcisms in the Rite of Baptism, and the rest of the language is very much concerned with reclaiming the child from the dominion of evil, bringing the child into a state of grace, into the state of adoptive sonship.

 

But first, and at least three times, the priest in Baptism drives out any demons that are clinging to the child or are within the child, who is still under the dominion of evil.

 

So then we see there in the first sacrament that the Church gives us that our life is a life of combat and this is exactly what Pope Leo XIII said, “Christians are born for combat.”

This combat involves prayer and we are called to pray always.

With the sacramentals, we have in our hands tools for spiritual warfare and for sanctification, tools to drive away the devil and to call down God's blessings. The sacramentals, like holy water and blessed crucifixes and rosaries and others, are intended to be used often. These give us frequent opportunities for spontaneous prayer and moments of thanksgiving for God’s goodness.

 

One of the big things that the sacramentals do is condition our souls…

- to be receptive, to be contrite, to be open and receptive to God's grace coming through the Sacraments.

 

When I started to embrace the sacramentals during the research for Slaying Dragons, a big effect of those sacramentals came as the result of going to Confession.

I was in the habit of going to Confession every other week or so but one Confession, just after I began using all of these sacramentals, brought about a very true enlightenment in my soul.

The sacramentals are wonderful signs of the beauty of God's love for us…

The sacramentals are a sign of how much God loves us and when people hear about these sacramentals and read what's in these blessings they are filled with a wonder and awe at how beautiful God is and how beautiful the power of grace is flowing through the Church.

 

People need to study these, discuss them, preach about them – then people will seek them out and obtain the graces that God wants to give through them.

 

And this is where priests come in...

Priests can provide these sacramentals all the time to the faithful.

 

One of the things I'm promoting is that priests set aside certain Sundays, especially right before Lent, to get things started, to call the faithful to bring oil, candles, water, crucifixes, and anything else so that you may impart the Church’s blessings on them and they may take them home and sanctify their homes.

 

Sanctifying the Domestic Church

 

We know how important the Christian family is in this world and the Christian family even more than anyone else, is under attack both from the culture and from the work of the devil.

 

These blessings are all contained in the Roman Ritual…

...which is available online and also available in print.

I’ll be adding links and articles for more information, so check my website for updates.

I encourage priests to offer these sacramentals to the faithful and I encourage the faithful to seek them out from their priests, because there is true power in these sacramentals, which are tremendous gifts from the Church.

This can be offered at any time, but the coming season of Easter, any Sunday in Lent and Easter, the season of victory, would be very timely.

 

For more resources, check my website, www.TheSlayingDragonsBook.com where I am hosting this initiative and will update and add new resources.

 

Conclusion.

The Church sends out her priests to be a source of blessings for the faithful. The faithful are invited by the Church to receive these blessings.

So, priests, offer these blessings to your parishioners.

And to the faithful, ask your priests to bless those things you use in your life and those sacred things the Church offers you.

The Church teaches that it is good and important to obtain these blessings, such as the blessing of your home, of your car, and your fields, and to entrust to you holy water, blessed salt, blessed candles, blessed oil, and blessed medals, among many others.

With these blessings and sacramentals, spread widely in a very dark world, Our Lord will be able to lift the burden of this exile, and prepare us for the trials that are here and to come.

God bless you.

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Support this Author's Work!

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Get your copy of Slaying Dragons: What Exorcists See & What We Should Know.  Available on Amazon.com, including Audible, and soon to be available in many more stores and retailers across the globe - and now in Spanish!  Follow on Twitter, Facebook, and subscribe above to get more updates and articles.  God bless you.

Also, keep an eye out for Swords and Shadows: Navigating Youth Amidst the Wiles of Satan, the story of my own youth and conversion, told to youth and young adults through the lens of spiritual warfare.  Beneficial for parents as well.  This book will be back on sale via TAN Books sometime in the early summer!