Just as Jesus was not foretelling 'the demise'
of Jerusalem’ (NZ Catholic March 26) but its destruction, a
‘functioning Church’ is based on fear of God, not presumption. ‘Happy the man
who fears the Lord, who takes delight in all his commands’ (Ps 111), which Jesus
came to fulfill.
Catholics are terrified of death only when they haven’t experienced God’s love as his blessing on repentance, forgiveness, prayer and doing his will. Our ‘quest for identity’ is designed to end in identifying completely with God in this life; hindered by original sin, that quest's ‘hallmarks’ like selfishness, quarrelling and disobedience are naturally sinful, even in children. At Fatima Our Lady revealed hell to three little shepherds - should our priests be less realistic than she?’
It’s not Church doctrine or Christ’s word which have changed – ‘patterns of society’ have become perverted. Church teaching must not follow suit.
‘Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps’ (1 Pet 2, 21).
John Perriam and others in his demographic, and the NZ
Church, were not well served by seminary training which denied the reality of
sin, death and suffering, and we are not well served by NZ Catholic propagating that denial.
The way of Christ is the way of the Cross.
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