With great love Jesus Christ gave His life for us, becoming obedient even unto death, death on a cross, fulfilling His words to His Apostles: "Greater love than this no one has, that one lay down his life for his friends" (Jn.15:12).
We must understand what this love is. We cannot afford to make the mistake of being satisfied with a purely earthly love instead of the love which comes from God. The love which is of this earth will not merit Heaven for us. But in fact, we are being persuaded to accept earthly love as sufficient. We are asked to accept heresy in the name of love.
When we are baptized we receive Sanctifying Grace, along with the three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity. These virtues are infused virtues. They cannot be attained by human effort, but are gifts of God infused, or poured out in the soul by the Holy Ghost. Charity, says St. Paul, is the greatest of these (1Cor.13:13).
Now the word charity, (not to be confused with almsgiving), comes from the Latin word caritas, meaning the love that comes from God. The Greek term is agape. It is impossible for human nature to attain this love without the assistance of the Holy Ghost. St. Paul tells us in Romans that "the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Rom.5:5). He continues: "For why did Christ, at the set time, die for the wicked when as yet we were weak? For scarcely in behalf of a just man does one die; yet perhaps one might bring himself to die for a good man. But God commends his charity towards us, because when as yet we were sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom.5:6-9).
Charity is defined as a supernatural infused virtue by which we love God as the highest good for His Own sake, and ourselves and our neighbor for God's sake. There is the purely natural love of neighbor, the love of husband and wife, the love between parents and children, the love between friends. But love remains on the natural level until it is suffused with Charity, the love that comes from God. Then we can love one another as Christ commanded: "A new commandment I give you, love one another: that as I have loved you, you also love one another" (Jn.13:34).
But Catholics are being pressured to accept heresy in the name of love. This past Monday, March 29, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) paid a visit to the Vatican. In his welcoming message John Paul II expressed the hope that the bonds between the Jewish people and the Catholic Church will grow ever stronger, telling them: "God has created man in his image and has endowed human beings with the capacity to love. It is through love that we fulfill our destiny to act in the likeness of God… From this stems our duty to serve one another according to the commandment found in the Book of Leviticus: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord'" (Zenit.org, March 29, 2004).
This statement, although it sounds like a harmless and friendly gesture towards the Jews, conceals a dangerous error, in that the difference between the natural and the supernatural orders is denied, or even that the supernatural is denied altogether. While it may be true that all human beings are endowed with the capacity to love on the natural level, this love does not empower us to love God and our neighbor on the supernatural level. Only by the infused virtue of charity can we fulfill the commandment to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves.
We wish no harm to the Jews, and we can believe that they are endowed with the capacity to love on the natural level, as all human beings are, but because they rejected Jesus Christ as the Messiah, it is impossible for them to have the infused supernatural virtues of faith, hope and charity, gifts which are given at baptism to those who have faith in Jesus Christ. How can they love on the supernatural level if they do not even believe in the Holy Spirit, by Whom "the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts"? They are unbelievers who follow a false religion which denies both the Son of God and the Father Who sent Him.
Jesus said to the Jews who opposed Him: "You know neither Me nor My Father. If you knew Me, you would then know My Father also… You are from below, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sin" (Jn.8: 18,23,24).
These truths are ignored by the Vatican since Vatican II. The Jews are not told that they are in danger of losing their souls; they are not urged to have faith in Jesus Christ; the Gospel is not preached to them. And Catholics are expected to believe that the "one-size-fits-all" variety of earthly love spoken of above is all that is required for salvation. This is why our faith too is destroyed if we simply go along with these teachings and do not oppose them.
Who will admit that the Jews are doing the piping, and that the Catholic clergy from the very top, down to the lowliest parish priest, are dancing to their tune? Meanwhile, from their new position of power within the Church, the Jews are working to destroy the Catholic faith. With the enthusiastic endorsement of the bishops, rabbis provide teaching materials about the Holocaust and the Jewish religion to the compliant parish clergy. They even preach the Sunday "homily" to Catholics in their own churches, as happened recently in a nearby parish.
While we vigorously resist their efforts to undermine the Church, we continue to pray for the conversion of the Jews, as the Church has always done. The prophet Zacharias speaks of their eventual turning to Christ: "And I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of prayers: and they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced. And they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for an only son: and they shall grieve over him, as the manner is to grieve for the death of the firstborn" (Zach.12:10).
May we all at last understand the words of St. Paul: "There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor freeman; there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are the offspring of Abraham, heirs according to the promise" (Gal.3:28,29).
