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"Celebrating our togetherness."
I wonder what Bishop Emeritus Peter Cullinane, who's a fan for the 'catechesis and ongoing formation' at the Novus Ordo Masses in this diocese, would think of the statement above as a definition of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.
This Solemnity, which follows one week after Pentecost and celebrates the fundamental dogma on which everything Christian is based, also happens to be our parish patronal feast, so on Sunday our two Eucharistic communities combined for just one Mass, followed by a morning tea. A rare event.
In the homily we heard we had "come together to celebrate each other." Not to celebrate the mystery of God who is One in essence and Three in Persons; not to celebrate the fact that, as St Augustine puts it, "the holy Church is the temple of God, the temple of the entire Trinity"; not to celebrate the most ineffable mystery of the Catholic faith. No. We were at Mass on our patronal feast day "to celebrate each other".
Has there ever been a better illustration of the guiding principle of 'the spirit of Vat II', of reducing divine worship to the horizontal plane rather than the vertical - the lifting up of mind and heart to God? (Okay, I know some of you are dying to give me even better examples, which are certainly not lacking in our NO liturgies; feel free to supply them in comments.)
It was I myself (I say modestly) who first suggested, when our three Eucharistic communities combined I don't know how many years ago, that our parish be named for the Holy Trinity. And here we are now, only two communities, with one of our three churches recycled as a party venue: which in itself shows the terrible inadequacy of our 'catechesis and ongoing formation', and no one's thought up a more suitable name. Not that anyone's suggested we need a new name, or anything much else.
The congregation also heard on Sunday, not for the first time, that there is nothing we can do to deserve eternal life.
Of course no miserable specimen of humanity can 'deserve' the unimaginable bliss of contemplating God in his glory for all eternity. But when you tell your people that there's nothing they can do to deserve eternal life, or imply that - Sunday after Sunday, week in week out - they imbibe the modernist heresy which I've heard explicitly expressed in past homilies, that we can't do anything to merit eternal life.
That's heresy. We absolutely must man the oars of the little boat of our soul, rowing with all our might, not just by staying in a state of grace but also by exercising the virtues so that seeing our efforts, the Holy Spirit - as St Thomas Aquinas says - will hoist the sails of His seven gifts and filling them with His favorable wind, guide our soul safely towards harbour.
To enter heaven we must live lives that are pleasing to God. That means keeping His commandment to love one another "as I have loved you".
Catholics who are told they cannot merit heaven, and consequently don't attempt the impossible, might as well convert to Islam, whose adherents to the Q'ran believe that as long as they pray and fast according to the law, they can live the lives they please, even and especially, killing non-believers.
Although when you think about it, lack of practice since Vat II would mean the required prayer and fasting would be beyond us Catholics. It's precisely Islam's five-times-a-day, forehead-to-the-ground prayer , with fasting, that makes Islam, compared with Catholicism, so powerful in our world today. No wonder Pope Francis wanted to cosy up to the Muslims.
But our Catholic faith proclaims that it would be manifestly unjust for a killer of any stripe to be rewarded with the beatific vision. In fact, Catholic dogma teaches that we will not enter heaven until we are perfect.
"Who says we have to be perfect?" The question was put to us - rhetorically - in a homily some time ago. I was sorely tempted to put up my hand for permission to speak, to answer, "Jesus Christ!" ("Be perfect therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5: 48)).
We should never stop striving to imitate God in His perfection. But as things are now in the Church of Nice, if we do that we're likely to be called 'perfectionists'. We're supposed to be nice, not perfect.
But if I went to heaven today and stayed there, with me around heaven would no longer be heaven, the reason being that I'm very far from perfect. I'm a sinner, as we all are. I am not yet "pure in heart", so I can't "see God". Not till the day of my particular judgment - which I fervently hope and pray is still a long way off.
It must be because I'm not yet pure in heart that the word which comes to mind to describe listening to this horror homily, from my beloved parish priest on my beloved parish's patronal feast, is - to quote Blanche duBois' line in A Streetcar Named Desire - "unendurable". (A friend who feels the same way and has bad health has been directed to fulfill her Sunday obligation some other way. But my health seems to be up to it.)
If I were St Therese, maybe I'd be able to endure it as a suffering ordained by God for my good. But God doesn't want us to accept heresy, and sitting there silently - even if my 'body language' gives me away (Father has studied body language and can tell when his homily isn't going down too well) - makes me complicit in heresy. As Edmund Burke famously said, "nothing further is necessary to the triumph of evil than the silence of good men".
Maybe other parishioners are inwardly squirming, but we don't discuss heresy at parish morning teas and as I was introducing a friend from Uzbekistan, a non-Catholic, I wasn't keen on introducing the subject. One talking point I remember, though - four actually, as counted by the parishioner who'd cleaned the church on Saturday - was cockroaches.
I think most people in the pews, having been slowly weaned off their Mother-Church milk of the doctrine, for example, of Hell, think there's no such thing as heresy now and even if there were it's no big deal. But what makes me think of this as a horror homily is that it exposes my dear friends (several I've known since age 5) to the high risk, according to all the saints, of hell.
Useless to appeal to Bishop Charles Drennan. Useless to appeal to +Peter Cullinane. I've tried and it doesn't work. Useless to appeal in a 12-page open letter to the NZ Conference of Catholic Bishops; Bruce Tichbon of Palmerston North tried and that didn't work either.
Useless too, I should think, to write to our national Catholic newspaper, NZ Catholic, which makes soothing noises about the Church of Nice. Tui Motu? Don't make me laugh.
Still, if I decide silent pew-sitting is unendurable, I risk enduring reaction to writing this post. So I may not really doing myself out of suffering.
If we want to become pure in heart, "like a little child", and so enter heaven, we need the Holy Spirit to teach us how to endure. One of endurance's greatest exponents, St Therese, said, "we are here to suffer".
We go, "WOT? Come off it, not jolly likely;" but 'the little saint' knew, more than most, what she was talking about.
The way of the Cross is narrow and hard, but Jesus said it's the only way to heaven. That's what singles Catholics out. Protestants don't believe that, and Luther cut out of the Bible a lot of evidence disproving his heretical unbelief. Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists don't believe in the Cross as the way to eternal life either. Only Catholics believe it. Or we should. Actually, we must. Actually, if you don't believe it, you're not Catholic.
Of course we don't 'deserve' heaven. We can 'merit' it, but only with the help of the Sacraments and sacramentals, especially the Eucharist, Confession and the Rosary.
If we don't make time daily to ask for help from the Holy Spirit in personal prayer, in the Eucharist, Confession and the Rosary, no one - bishop, priest or layperson - will discover the sublime truths of the Most Holy Trinity; without the Sacraments we'll miss out on the glories of the One, True, Catholic and Apostolic Church in this life and for eternity.
The fruits of 'the spirit of Vatican II' and 'the ongoing formation and catechesis' that +Cullinane says 'the Latin Mass folk' are missing out on are very evident in more than one church in this diocese.
At St Brigid's Pahiatua, the Sunday congregation once numbered 400. Now it's 40.
And in my church at weekday Masses there are literally fewer people present than cockroaches.
Donna Te Amo says:
Think you missed the point of the sermon.
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