Choose a topic from Part 2A:
1. When the Old Law was given to men, it made obligatorysome ceremonies that were already practiced by good men ofprophetic gifts. Other ceremonies were newly set up by the Law.
2. The cleansing ceremonies of the Old Law were to removeirregularities of a material nature which unfitted a man forceremonial worship. But they could not take away sin from the soul.They expressed faith in the Redeemer to come, and signified thepurifying of the soul to be achieved through the merits of Christ.But they could not confer grace.
3. The ceremonial law ceased with the coming of Christ.For, as we have seen, the ceremonies prescribed by the Old Law werealso prophecies. And when a prophecy has been fulfilled, it ceasesto exist; it has reached its term; it no longer has meaning. Evensuch Old Law ceremonies as prefigured heaven gave way to the moreperfect prophecies and prefigurings of the New Law.
4. It would be seriously sinful to observe the ceremoniesof the Old Law as though they still had significance and bindingforce. This would be a practical denial that the propheciesexpressed in the ceremonies had been fulfilled. It would be apractical denial of Christ, and of the necessity and sufficiency ofthe Christian order.
"Whom do you seek, friend, if you seek not God? Seek him, find him, cleave to him; bind your will to his with bands of steel and you will live always at peace in this life and in the next."
St Alphonsus de Liguori
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"Try to turn your heart from the love of things visible and bring yourself to things invisible. For they who follow their own evil passions stain their consciences and lose the grace of God.
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Thomas á Kempis
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"God gives us some things, as the beginning of faith, even when we do not pray. Other things, such as perseverance, he has only provided for those who pray."
St Augustine
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