Guide to a Catholic Church

IT is with painful feelings that the Catholic at his private devotions in churches at home and abroad, has oftentimes to observe groups of non Catholics examining the objects of the sacred buildings, and then departing evidently as uninstructed on what they have seen, as when they first entered. There can be but little doubt that most frequently such visitors would be delighted to receive some information on the things that thus come under their observation. To supply a little of that information in a handy form is the purpose of the present manual. The following pages and include the prayers of the Ordinary of the Holy Mass, with the hymns usually sung at Benediction; thus making the work useful as a prayer-book, wherewith to follow the words of the principal services of the Catholic Church in Latin or English. It is not intended or expected that this work will be found capable of a full perusal in church, but it is hoped that its pages may prove useful and agreeable matter for reading either before or after such visit. Let us consider the opening chapter: "ON entering a Catholic Church, the visitor's attention is naturally first bestowed on the principal or High Altar. Flowers and candles stand on either side of the Tabernacle which the Altar bears in its centre; while a single lamp, or more, burns night and day before our Lord Whose Divine Presence-reserved in the Tabernacle under the visible form of bread-is the most prominent and most sacred feature of Catholic doctrine and belief. In the Old Law, the Temple of the Jews was more than a mere meeting-house for Divine worship; it was the abode of the Ark of the Covenant of which we read (Exodus xl. 32) that the cloud covered the tabernacle, and the glory of the Lord filled it." In the New Law, as befitting its greater spiritual dignity, the Catholic Church teaches that its temples are not less favoured than the Jewish one of old. Far otherwise, for Catholic doctrine holds as established by Holy Scripture and sacred tradition derived from the Apostles, that the Catholic "House of God" is not only the resting-place of the Cloud of the glory of the Lord, but the residence of the Lord Himself after a special or Sacramental manner.