THE MAJORITY OF SOULS ARE LOST

The most egregious turd floating by me on the torrid tide of a recent Sunday homily at the Church of Nice was a suggestion of women priests.



But it seemed the dumbing-down of the Mass texts was the main thrust of this discourse, which followed a piece in Welcom by Bishop Charles Drennan of Palmerston North bewailing the "clunky sentence construction and awkward vocabulary which has tested us all".



'All'? +Charles must mean all the bishops: it's to them that Pope Francis has re-assigned responsibility for approving liturgical translations. And reading +Charles' piece in Welcom, I can understand his difficulty with compound sentences, which apparently is shared by the other bishops.



+Charles might also be speaking for ‘all’ our priests, but he should know he's not speaking for all the laity. He should know that not all women are so childish or ignorant or proud as to object to the Catechism's common sense and time-honoured use of the  masculine article to include women - a practice which he calls 'ideology'. Methinks +Charles has perhaps been captured by feminist ideology. Catholic women, one would hope, have more important things to think about than 'inclusive language'.

Such as, for example, working out our salvation “in fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). That's the core business of the Catholic Church, and the language of the Sacrifice of the Mass must serve that principle by raising minds and hearts from the mire of quotidian life to gaze upon eternal realities. Oops, sorry, is ‘quotidian’ an example of ‘awkward vocabulary’? ‘Daily’ life, then.



When NZ’s bishops have dragged the liturgical texts down to the level of the lowest common denominator, will they then turn their attention to the Mass Readings? After all, St Paul wasn’t lavish with his full stops – which in this particular homily we were told are inserted into the Mass at will, and the language changed at will to make it ‘easier’ for the priest to read even now, before the bishops have their way with it. And many are the terms St Paul used which need explaining, as has always been the case, let alone the mysteries they describe. That’s a pastor’s task: to explain them.



But when a pastor can tell his flock that God’s commandments are actually ‘requests’, one sees that to expect competent explanations of readings and liturgical texts is hopelessly unrealistic. To command something, we were told, is not ‘loving’, and so a God who loves us wouldn’t command us.



St Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church, was in accord with a great number of other saints when he stated that “the majority of souls are lost”. If that were the case in St Thomas’ time, how many are lost now, after hearing homilies denying the Ten Commandments, or suggesting women priests?



We will never have women priests, because our Blessed Lord chose men (viri), because that was God’s will.  God commands because His commandments are imperative. Because He loves us, He commands us to do what is necessary to gain eternal happiness.

If we don’t do it, we’re lost. For ever.