There is exactly ONE Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. The One True Religion. Get in the boat. Stay in the boat. Stay, fight; we know we win.
“The precept is twofold, but Charity is one.” – St. Augustine
Today is the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost.
Epistle Eph. 4:1-6
Brethren: I therefore, a prisoner in the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation in which you are called: With all humility and mildness, with patience, supporting one another in charity. Careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. One body and one Spirit: as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all, who is blessed forever and ever. Amen.
GOSPEL Matt. 22:34-46
At that time, the Pharisees, hearing that he had silenced the Sadducees, came together. And one of them, a doctor of the law, asked him, tempting him: “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”
Jesus said to him: ” ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind.‘ This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’ On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.”…
You cannot have proper charity towards your neighbor without first having total abandonment to God. Whole heart, whole soul, whole mind. There’s no other way, folks. His grace awaits, and any good we do flows from that. The natural human capacity for love, worked through grace, is a reflection of our being made in the image and likeness of God. It’s the closest thing to the supernatural that we get to experience while yet in this life. Like all things good, perfecting it requires effort, focus, and order.
“Tough Love” is a thing. Salvation of souls is the foremost object of love towards neighbor. While we must always first look to remove the beam in our own eye, getting people into the boat sometimes requires harsh language.
“Love is man’s first and constant vocation. Love is the summary of the whole Bible. Love is the secret of the saints, the necessary way to God. It is the means to reveal God’s heart to other men. But the beauty of God’s love must show itself fresh and new in every Christian; for beauty, to delight and attract, must be fresh as the morning. Every deed of vital love, performed by us in our personality which nature and grace has fashioned, is like the morning of time itself.
“God is love” (I John 4:8) in its mysterious fullness and infinite freshness. Utterly King and Lord, He unites the baptized of every nation in the one Mystical Body of Christ, by the one Holy Spirit, under the one Mother Mary.“
https://tridentine-mass.blogspot.com/2020/09/seventeenth-sunday-after-pentecost.html
What a beautiful passage! This morning it was turned into a long, long harangue that we must love and not make moral judgments of the others of different religions, political beliefs, pro-choice, pro-life or any color or race, orientation or ideology. The seamless garment was trotted out and waved in full glory. No discernment necessary.
What came to mind was the phrase, food for wolves. Christ calls us to love and that we try to do. But ignoring the evil smack in our midst is going to make many food for wolves.
Perhaps I do not relish martyrdom as I should, but not seeing evil for what it is, and fighting it is a mistake.
Agree. Defending Christ’s message is costly as he said it would be. It can–and most probably will–cause serious long term alienation within your own family.
“They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
—-Luke 12:53
I had this kind of separation yesterday and today with a couple of my kids who are non-Church going Biden supporting, BLM supporting, women priest supporting Democrat Progressives, i.e., the religion of the devil. The most we can do is pray for them.
Same here Michael. I spoke with my son who lives in LA the other day and told him plainly that voting for democrats puts the blood of the unborn squarely on his hands. He had no reponse….praying and fasting for conversions. My heart is so heavy, as my entire family and I are estranged.
Kono–Thank you. One is never sure of doing the right thing when it comes to a confrontation with our children both in content and delivery about religious, moral and political matters. . But it is false prudence to ‘keep the peace’ when the truth needs speaking. Our current Novus Ordo Church preaches lots of mercy, love and tolerance. These are all good but more than anything we as orthodox Catholics must be be faithful to the truth. Pope Felix III said it best:
“Not to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to suppress it; and indeed to neglect to confound evil men, when we can do it, is no less a sin than to encourage them.” — Pope St. Felix III
We realize we are tools in God’s hands. We pray and do the best we can. God is our partner in our relationship with our children. He will make up for what we do not or cannot. But we must do our part and ask God for the courage and wisdom to do it.
Guys, trust me on this. Ceaselessly witnessing to Truth has a withering effect on souls. Witness, not a baseball bat. All you need is that first whiff of self-examination.