A Catholic Survival Guide for Times of Emergency

By Nick Donnelly

This short book was written during the COVID-19 pandemic when churches were closed in response to rising infections and deaths around the world. One thing we have learnt from this crisis is that life-changing emergencies can hit at any time. During times of personal, family or national emergency it may not be possible to have recourse to the sacraments or the assistance of clergy at the very moment you desperately need them. Understandably, this can cause great distress and anxiety. Thankfully, God in His providence has provided traditional devotions, approved by the Church, that give you access to His forgiveness and grace, the assistance of His saints, and guidance from the doctrinal wisdom of His Church. A Catholic Survival Guide for Times of Emergency will help you know what to do:

• when deprived of Confession or Holy Communion;
• when suffering life-threatening situations without a priest;
• when preparing for God's Judgement on your own;
• when a family member is dying or has died on their own;
• when grieving without the assistance of a priest.

This book will also provide you with Sacred Scripture for times of emergency, traditional prayers for times of national emergency, and guidance about when and how to perform an emergency baptism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TAN Books
• Release date: Aug 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781505118711

Book preview

Baptism

Preface

This short book was written during the lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, amidst the daily news reports of the rising death toll around the world. It originated in three articles I wrote for the traditional Catholic website Rorate Caeli, the first one published in early March 2020 on the Act of Perfect Contrition and Spiritual Communion. As the pandemic emerged, I was concerned for the pastoral and spiritual care of my fellow Catholics in the eventuality that our churches were closed and we were deprived of the sacraments and the assistance of our priests, which is in fact what tragically happened to countless Catholics around the world.

I’m very grateful to everyone who helped me get the message out to the faithful about how traditional devotions give access during an emergency to the saving grace and wisdom of Almighty God. With the invaluable assistance of faithful around the world who contacted me via twitter, I was able to provide a step-by-step guide to perfect contrition and spiritual communion translated into six languages. My grateful thanks to Church Militant for making these guides available to download to help as many as possible. And thanks to Virgin Most Powerful Radio’s Jesus 911 show for dedicating an entire broadcast to my promotion of perfect contrition and spiritual communion. Also, thanks to LifeSite News, Gloria TV, Adelante la fe, and The Meaning of Catholic.

Though this book took shape in response to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, it has been written to help Catholics draw on the graces and wisdom of the Faith to cope with national, community, or personal emergencies. No matter what life brings, may we always live in the shelter of the Most High.

You who live in the shelter of the Most High,

who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,

will say to the Lord, "My refuge and my fortress;

my God, in whom I trust."

For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler

and from the deadly pestilence. (Ps 91:1–3)

Deacon Nick Donnelly BA (Hons) Div, MA

29 April 2020, Feast of St. Catherine of Siena

What to Do When Deprived of

Confession or Holy Communion

Recourse to the sacraments is essential to the supernatural lives of Catholics. This is even more true during times of crisis. When facing an emergency, we need the inner peace, strength, and resolve that comes from the forgiveness of our sins; we need the faithful certainty, intimate presence, and guidance of Our Lord that comes from Holy Communion. But more than this, when facing life-threatening emergencies, we need to know that we are in a state of sanctifying grace, and are righteous through the grace of God, in case we die and face our individual judgment.

Living in a stable, democratic country that upholds religious freedom, we have the expectation that we will receive the pastoral assistance of our clergy and the sacraments during times of emergency. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us how fragile our sacramental life really is when an overwhelming national emergency hits our society. Witnessing the closure of churches and the laity’s deprivation of the sacraments, Archbishop Viganò is right to call it a real unprecedented tragedy.¹ The drastic impact on the sacramental lives of the faithful cannot be exaggerated.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of churches around the world is unprecedented, there may be other situations where parishes and members of the faithful have to face local and individual emergencies that seriously disrupt normal sacramental life. Or we may face an emergency where circumstances make it impossible for us to reach a priest. It is a frightening prospect to face the possibility of being denied the sacraments during an emergency, especially if it is life-threatening. It is highly unlikely that secular authorities or first responders will appreciate the stress suffered by Catholics unable to receive the pastoral care of our priests, especially the anxiety caused by the possibility of not being able to receive Extreme Unction at the hour of death.

However, we can do much to reduce our own anxiety and stress if we find ourselves in such a situation by following two traditional devotional practices: the Act of Perfect Contrition and Spiritual Communion. As Bishop Schneider observed in his recent Rorate Caeli essay on the coronavirus, In times of persecution, many Catholics were unable to receive Holy Communion in a sacramental way for long periods of time, but they made a Spiritual Communion with much spiritual benefit.²

Cardinal Johann Baptist Franzelin (1816–1886), the renowned dogmatic theologian and papal theologian during the First Vatican Council, once admitted, If I were able to traverse the countryside preaching the divine word, my favorite sermon topic would be perfect contrition.³

Now is the time to recover the wisdom and practice of these traditional devotions. Under certain conditions, they will enable us to receive the forgiveness of our sins, and the marvelous benefit of Eucharistic graces if we are denied the sacraments and the pastoral care of our clergy—for example, due to self-isolation at home or quarantine in hospital.

Trust That God Wills to Save All Men

God, in his providence, has given the faithful these traditional means to receive absolution for our sins, under certain conditions, and the nourishment of Eucharistic graces because of his universal salvific will. As Sacred Scripture tells us, God does not wish the death of sinners but our conversion and life (see Ez 18:23), and he came into the world to save sinners and he wills to save all men (see 1 Tm 1:15; 2:4).

Our Lord has given special supernatural signification and effectiveness to the seven sacraments as unique signs and instruments of his saving grace that are necessary for salvation. However, St. Thomas Aquinas was clear that God has not restricted himself to these sacraments (ST III. 64. a2). In the Act of Perfect Contrition, which is intrinsically related to the sacrament of confession, and in Spiritual Communion, which is ardently focused on the sacrament of the Eucharist, we receive his saving grace. The economy of salvation is much more varied and multifaceted than many Catholics nowadays assume, especially when we add in other sacramentals as well.

One of the signs of God’s will to save all men that is inextricably bound up with the Act of Perfect Contrition and Spiritual Communion is individual conscience. God gives each person the faculty of conscience to guide us in our moral life so that we obey his law to do good and avoid sin. St. John Henry Newman writes that conscience is a law, an authoritative voice bidding us to do certain things and avoid others.

It commands, — that it praises, it blames, it promises, it threatens, it implies a future, and it witnesses the unseen. It is more than a man’s own self. The man himself has not power over it, or only with extreme difficulty; he did not make it, he cannot destroy it. He may silence it in particular cases or directions, he may distort its enunciations, but he cannot, or it is quite the exception if he can, he cannot emancipate himself from it. He can disobey it, he may refuse to use it; but it remains. This is Conscience; and, from the nature of the case, its very existence carries on our minds to a Being exterior to ourselves; for else whence did it come? and to a Being superior to ourselves; else whence its strange, troublesome peremptoriness?⁴

For the Christian, baptized into the priestly, prophetic, and kingly life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, conscience attains its true purpose because it is a messenger from Him, who, both in nature and in grace, speaks to us behind a veil, and teaches and rules us by His representatives. Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ, a prophet in its informations, a monarch in its peremptoriness, a priest in its blessings and anathemas.⁵

Through conscience, the saving will of God seeks to bring all souls to heaven and avoid the eternal punishments of hell. God has given man his law of conscience to counterbalance his other great gift to us that most reflects his divine nature—the faculty of free will, which makes us capable of love. However, due to original sin, even when removed by Baptism, we remain easily attracted to evil, and as we well know, the fever of sin can deafen us to the voice of conscience. Cardinal Newman graphically explains how conscience can be obscured by the storms of sin:

The reflection of sky and mountains in the lake is a proof that sky and mountains are around it, but the twilight, or the mist, or the sudden storm hurries away the beautiful image, which leaves behind it no memorial of what it was. Something like this are the Moral Law and the informations of Faith, as they present themselves to individual minds. Who can deny the existence of Conscience? who does not feel the force of its injunctions? but how dim is the illumination in which it is invested, and how feeble its influence, compared with that evidence of sight and touch which is the foundation of Physical Science! How easily can we be talked out of our clearest views of duty! how does this or that moral precept crumble into nothing when we rudely handle it! how does the fear of sin pass off from us, as quickly as the glow of modesty dies away from the countenance! and then we say, It is all superstition.⁶

For these reasons, the discipline of a daily examination of conscience, informed by Sacred Scripture and the Church’s teaching, is essential for the moral and spiritual life. It is even more important in emergency situations in which we find ourselves deprived of the sacrament of confession and the counsel of our priests. When we rely on acts of perfect contrition and spiritual communion it is vital that we practice daily examinations of conscience so as not to presume on the mercy of God but to receive his special graces through these devotions worthily.

The Baltimore Catechism recommends, We may daily prepare for our judgment by a good examination of conscience, in which we will discover our sins and learn to fear the punishment they deserve (1377). The catechism also explains, We can make a good examination of conscience by calling to memory the commandments of God, the precepts of the Church, the seven capital sins, and the particular duties of our state in life, to find out the sins we have committed (751). Before making your daily examination of conscience, ask the Holy Spirit to assist you in identifying your sins and to give you the grace of true contrition, and also ask for the grace to wholeheartedly trust in the mercy of God in order to avoid the pitfalls of scrupulosity. (A guide to an examination of conscience is provided at the end of this chapter.)

The Act of Perfect Contrition

As explained by the Baltimore Catechism, contrition is sincere sorrow for having offended God, and hatred for the sins we have committed, with a firm purpose of sinning no more, and perfect contrition is that which fills us with sorrow and hatred for sin, because it offends God, who is infinitely good in Himself and worthy of all love.

The Theology of the Act of Perfect Contrition

A number of the Church Fathers taught the efficacy of contrition for the remission of sin, including St John Chrysostom, who wrote, As a fire which has taken possession of a forest, cleans it out thoroughly, so the fire of love, wheresoever it falls, takes away and blots out everything that could injure the divine seed, and purges the earth for the reception of that seed. Where love is, there all evils are taken away.⁷

Of course, the love that fires perfect contrition is the theological virtue of caritas, and so it is already an expression of the working of divine grace in one’s life. The motivation of caritas explains why perfect contrition is also sometimes called the contrition of charity.

One of the passages of Sacred Scripture that informs this understanding of perfect contrition is John 14:23, Jesus answered him, ‘Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.’ The theological virtue of caritas leads those seeking Christian perfection to the contrition of charity and the consequent remission of sin that enables God to make his home in the soul.

St. Thomas Aquinas explicitly argued that perfect contrition could receive the pardon of sin outside of confession, I answer that, Contrition can be considered in two ways, either as part of a sacrament, or as an act of virtue, and in either case it is the cause of the forgiveness of sin, but not in the same way (ST Supplement. Q. v, a. 1.).

The Council of Trent went further by explaining the conditions that must be met for perfect contrition to remit sins, including mortal sins, outside of the sacrament of confession: The Synod teaches moreover, that, although it sometimes happen that this contrition is perfect through charity, and reconciles man with God before this sacrament be actually received, the said reconciliation, nevertheless, is not to be ascribed to that contrition, independently of the desire of the sacrament which is included therein.⁸

Pope St. John Paul II’s Catechism of the Catholic Church made this requirement of desiring sacramental confession as an element of perfect contrition explicit for the remission of mortal sin: [Perfect contrition] also obtains forgiveness of mortal sins if it includes the firm resolution to have recourse to sacramental confession as soon as possible (CCC 1452).

Having said this, it is crucial that we understand the ability to make an act of perfect contrition is a grace of God for which we must earnestly pray. It also needs to be recognized that it is difficult for hardened sinners to make an act of perfect contrition. St. Alphonsus writes:

Let us then, brethren, tremble at the thought of relapsing into sin, and let us beware of availing ourselves of the mercy of God to continue to offend him. He, says