FrZ: Doesn't know when baptism instituted?

Father Z writes this while he's criticizing bad translations of the NO:

"St. Thomas Aquinas dealt with the question of how the Innocents could be considered martyrs if they didn’t yet have use of their free will so as to be able to choose death in favor of Christ and if they were not baptized. He answered that God permitted their slaughter for their own good and that their slaying brought them the justification and salvation that would also come from baptism. This was a “baptism of blood”. In their deaths they were truly martyrs. And they were indeed for Christ, since Herod, fulfilling the prophecy of Jeremiah 31:15, killed them from ill-will for the new-born Christ."

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/12/wdtprs-childermas-holy-innocents/

otremer6 wrote:Father Z writes this while he's criticizing bad translations of the NO:

"St. Thomas Aquinas dealt with the question of how the Innocents could be considered martyrs if they didn’t yet have use of their free will so as to be able to choose death in favor of Christ and if they were not baptized. He answered that God permitted their slaughter for their own good and that their slaying brought them the justification and salvation that would also come from baptism. This was a “baptism of blood”. In their deaths they were truly martyrs. And they were indeed for Christ, since Herod, fulfilling the prophecy of Jeremiah 31:15, killed them from ill-will for the new-born Christ."

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/12/wdtprs-childermas-holy-innocents/

Oh, I think Fr. Z knows “when Baptism was instituted”, as does the Church:

From the Preface which is found in both the ancient Ambrosian Missal (in use since the 10th century) and the Leonine Sacramentary (in use from the fourth to the seventh centuries); bolding mine:

It is truly meet and just, right and available to salvation, that we should exceedingly praise thee, O holy Almighty Father, in the precious death of the Infants who the unhappy Herod with savage cruelty slew because of the Infant Jesus, thy Son our Lord. Herein do we recognize how immeasurable are the gifts of thy mercy, for the splendour of thy free grace outshines the martyrs’ will; and theynobly confess thy name, who are not yet able to speak. They suffer martyrdom before their bodies are ripe for martyrdom: they bear testimony to Christ before they have even known him. O the infinite goodness of the Omnipotent God! He suffers not the merit of the everlasting glory to be lost by them that are slain for his sake, though they know not what they do: and being bathed in their own blood, he effects in them the salvation of regeneration, and gives them the crown of martyrdom. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year, Loreto Publications, Vol. 2, Christmas Book I, Holy Innocents, pg 290)

I don’t know why Feeneyites have such a problem with this. Here are the typical objections (and non-sequiturs):

In the comments section to Fr. Z’s post, JonPatrick says:

Concerning the discussion on baptism by blood – I had understood that the Holy Innocents were included with the other Old Testament saints as being saved when Christ descended to the Limbo of the Fathers after His crucifixion and released them to be able to go to heaven. So like Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist etc. they didn’t need baptism of blood or any other kind.

And on this forum, MarianLibrarian wrote (https://catholicforum.forumotion.com/t118-blog-says-holy-innocents-received-baptism of blood-and-baptism of blood-is-more-perfect-than-water-baptism):

The Holy Innocents died while Christ was yet a child... Baptism had not yet been instituted by Him. We cannot hold the Holy Innocents accountable to a Sacrament that was not instituted and made binding until years after their deaths.

Yes, Baptism (sacramental, water Baptism) is the only defined means of Salvation under the New Covenant. Those who died under the Old Covenant were not accountable to the New Covenant, but to the Old.

That the Holy Innocents did not “need” baptism of blood to be saved may be true, but to say “or any other kind” (of baptism) is false because “baptism” represents regeneration in Christ without which no one ever has been or can be saved. Neither is anyone, least of all the Church, holding the Innocents “accountable” to the not yet instituted Sacrament of Baptism, but she does hold them accountable to the intrinsic necessity of “the salvation of regeneration” that “baptism in blood” just happens to effect, regardless of when Baptism was formally instituted. In other words:

These children were not saved without baptism, but they received instead the baptism of blood, through which they were cleansed of original sin and united to Christ’s Body. Washed in their own blood, in place of water, these infants received a non-sacramental participation in the saving death of Christ the Lord, and so share now in his glory. The baptism they received is the most excellent, greater even than the sacramental baptism of water. (http://newtheologicalmovement.blogspot.com/2010/12/holy-innocents-received-most-excellent.html )

In the same commentary on the Holy Innocents, Dom Gueranger writes:

Certainly those children were Thy martyrs, O God, but neither men nor Angels could see their merit, which was before Thy eyes alone. The favor of Thy grace stood in place of their merit. We who have been baptized by water should be all the more ready to honor those little ones who were baptized in their own blood, and therefore linked to all the mysteries of the Divine Infancy.

Fr. Z “Doesn't know when baptism instituted?”

Please.

Oh PLEASE.

Apparently he doesn't and neither do you.

Can't we wait until Ordinary Time... ?

It's CHRISTMAS! Put on a happy face and play nice.

otremer6 wrote:

Oh PLEASE.

Apparently he doesn't and neither do you.

this is the best reply ever LOL!

MRyan why do you have an obsession with attacking Feeneyites? We are even less of us than Sedes. Why don't you debate them with you indefatigable energy?

This thread makes this forum look like AQ.

OK.

Ortemer6 leads the thread with the suggestion that Fr. Z does not “know” when the Sacrament of Baptism was instituted; a rather silly thing to say, especially when Fr. Z simply repeats traditional Church teaching that is also reflected in her ancient Liturgies that recognize, as Fr. Z says, “that God permitted their slaughter for their own good and that their slaying brought them the justification and salvation that would also come from baptism. This was a ‘baptism of blood’”.

Once again, from “the Preface which is found in both the ancient Ambrosian Missal (in use since the 10th century) and the Leonine Sacramentary (in use from the fourth to the seventh centuries). Bolding mine:

… O the infinite goodness of the Omnipotent God! He suffers not the merit of the everlasting glory to be lost by them that are slain for his sake, though they know not what they do: and being bathed in their own blood, he effects in them the salvation of regeneration, and gives them the crown of martyrdom. (Dom Prosper Gueranger …)

“[B]eing bathed in their own blood, he effects in them the salvation of regeneration” is in fact that “justification and salvation that would also come from baptism”.

So, instead of addressing the true teaching of the Church, Otremer6 prefers to hurl a pithy and insulting rejoinder, while the duckbill, who finds it amusing (the “best ever”), asks me why “I have an obsession with attacking Feeneyites?”, as if a response defending Fr. Z’s post (which provides the Church’s traditional teaching) against the accusation that the priest (and the Church) does not "know" when baptism was instituted is framed as an “attack”, when my response only reveals and effectively rebuts the standard Feeneyite non-sequiturs.

Btw, duckbill, no one can accuse me of neglecting to take the Sede’s on with “indefatigable energy”. Where have you been?

I thought long and hard about returning after Rasha so unceremoniously shut the forum down as a result of the arrogant threats of Jehanne and the self-righteous taunting of Pascendi.

But, now that the Kumbaya vision for this forum has been articulated, it’s probably best that I finally take my leave and leave you in peace.

You see, Rasha, the truth is out there, for those who care to find it. Pretending that the traditional teaching of the Church on baptism of blood (even and especially as it pertains to the Holy Innocents) is some sort of errant doctrine that infected the Church from the very beginning is simply the height of Feeneyite hubris, and very sloppy doctrinal thinking that is far removed from the “mind of the Church”.

I’ll stop being a thorn in the side of Feeneyites (here) and let “fellowship” reign supreme. Besides, I haven't finished building the shed.

Ciao