Posted on 10/28/2004 12:17:02 AM PDT by AskStPhilomena
The Passion of Christ is being re-enacted before our eyes. I refer not to Mel Gibson’s recent cinematic offering, but of the present state of the Mystical Body of Christ: the One, True, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
In Boston, at the last Mass at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church, a statue of Our Lady fell over––by itself––after which Mass the doors of the century-old parish church closed forever. It was as if this symbol of Mary had fainted at the symbolic passion of the Mystical Body of Christ.
As I have argued before, the plan to radically downsize the Church has been long in the making. Its origins lie in the age-old war between Christ and Satan, which will cease only at the end of time when Christ banishes the Evil One to the lake of eternal fire. But in the meantime, we suffer from the scars of battle.
In his physical passion some 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, was subjected to mental, emotional and physical derision, reviled and tortured. They forced him to bear that cross and be hung upon it and, in a public spectacle, to die in shame, stripped of his clothes, his only possessions.
The authorities barred those who loved him from seeing him. Many who only a week before had greeted him as a glorious teacher and shepherd, ran from him in fear, revulsion, shame, and disgust.
Those who crucified him––the Roman soldiers––“divided his garments among them; for his vesture, they cast lots”.
Today, almost two thousand years later, the suffering of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ is analogous to the suffering of her Head.
Those who hate the Church with demonic fury––both those who wear Roman collars and anti-church elements both in the State and Masonic lodge rooms––have plotted her demise. They enlisted the service of so many Judases, who would work as clerics from within to effect their plan.
Those Judases actively recruited homosexuals and mental defectives as priests, who scandalized those who love the Church by scandalous offenses against canon and civil law, often with the knowledge, and sometimes with the in some cases the connivance, of bishops.
These crimes have both frightened and angered the faithful, many of whom have left the Church, leaving temples nearly barren on Sunday mornings. Like the disciples, they have run away.
Like-minded confederates in the press and government broadcast these crimes so that the actions of a few might besmirch the Church’s good name. Literally and figuratively, Mater Ecclesia has had excrement flung at her, as has her Divine Spouse.
In their fervor to abolish the Catholic Church they hate, the partisans of evil use 40 years of pew-emptying (which they caused) as a pretext for radically downsizing operations with a view to shutting them down altogether. The priest shortage (which was caused by dissident clerics) is but another excuse.
They present downsizing as a cost-saving measure and claim that proceeds from the sale of church properties will not be used to pay legal settlements. But if not that way, then how?
One of the causal factors in the decline of the Roman Church has been foolish trust. Trust that Father would not abuse boys and young men. Trust that Father would not steal from the collection plate. Catholics have been too trusting for too long. On my shelf are books from the Middle Ages written about clerics who, undertaking an investigation for a European bishop, found many cases of every kind of sordid behavior by priests. Their misbehavior involved, without limitation, women, men, booze, and money.
Nothing has changed. You see, Satan is not very creative. He only knows how to sing a few songs. He just changes the arrangement slightly to suit the times. But nothing is new.
Catholics know more about how to give money and trust than about asking the tough questions or demanding accountability. They know less about math, or even about getting calculators to do it for them!
As Jesus Christ was stripped of his physical possessions before being executed, so is the Church being stripped of hers. This will continue until she is as naked as he was.
At Calvary, Roman soldiers stripped and humiliated Christ, divided his garments among them, and gambled for what they would not divide. In many cities of the world today, great and small, the same thing is happening to his mystical body, but this time at the hands of Roman priests and bishops.
The next acts are death, entombment, and resurrection. But as they transpire, we may never utter the words: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” for in this re-enactment of the Passion they know exactly what they do.
God is both the Director and Producer. The angels are the stage managers. We are the actors. The play is far from over.
Those who would crucify Christ afresh in the person of members of his mystical body have a surprise in store for them. It has to do with what happened in Fatima, Portugal, 87 years ago this October 13th. It also has to do with a 97-year-old Portuguese nun named Lucia who dresses in black and an 84-year-old Polish bishop named Karol who dresses in white.
They were promised that they would see the beginning of the end of what was prophesied those many years ago. Each saw the Miracle of the Sun, she in 1917, he in 1981. They are key players in the play’s current (penultimate?) act.
The glory of the Woman Clothed with the Sun will not blind or hurt them, or us who would be faithful.
But it will singe and burn a few who wear their collars backwards.
The sands in the hourglass are running out.
The only difference is that Jesus did not bring it on his own head by being a queer and pedophile. So stop the violin playing.
Churches open, churches close. That's been the way it's been for about 1,700 years. Churches open, churches close.
The queers and the pedophiles are not Catholic. The weak leadership of the Catholic Church has allowed it to be infiltrated by atheists and worse.
bump
The queers and the pedophiles are not Catholic. The weak leadership of the Catholic Church has allowed it to be infiltrated by atheists and worse.
Yes, very true. But read carefully what the author says about Judas - Christ knew him before he was born, as he created him. He allowed him into the infant Church. Yes, the church has been infiltrated - and I weep over that. But I also realize that nothing happens which is not permitted y the will of God. He punishes us also.....
Unfortunately with Vatican 11 Our Catholic Churches have become places of Non-practising Catholics, like John Kerry pe, who with all the watered down and liberal NEW teaching have lost the Faith. They have lost the fear of Hell the love of God and the morals and virtues of yester-year...or today there would be no Catholic Church closings, scandals ,ect. It is a shame, trouble in the ONE TRUE CHURCH founded 2,000 yrs. ago by Jesus Christ Himself.and the people let it all happen just like the Crucifixion, when the changes came..with the loss of Faith the NEW Ordo has destroyed the Church, building close and countless souls are left with out the knowledge of God's rules, Go to Latin Mass and see the Reverance and awe....
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