Today’s Readings Podcast Description

The word is seed. On hard ground it dies; in a heart the Spirit has prepared it bears fruit. He that plants and he that waters is nothing. God alone gives the increase. The sacraments are instruments of that same kindness, not causes of it. When God withdrew the tree of life from Adam, he did not take away a medicine that could have restored immortality. He took away the symbol of a promise already broken, lest Adam trust the sign. Bread feeds, the sun gives light, fire gives warmth—yet none of them is to be trusted as the giver. So with the sacraments. The first use of a sacrament is to help faith in God; the second is to attest our confession before men. Those who invert the order make the mystery frigid. Those who go the other way and ascribe a secret virtue by which the sacraments ju ...