Let us clutch to our FAITH and move on part one
There is so much confusion all around. Certainly it is found in all of hte world, but one would never expect to find it within the Catholic Church. In our formation, we leanred that we could find the Church that Jesus established when He was on earth by the four marks, or qualities, that His Church and only His Church, was to have, namely, unity, holiness, universality and apostolicity. We learned, too, that the only church in existence that has all these marks is the Roman Catholic Church. Each of these marks were explained at length to give each one of us the opportunity to go through them, apply them to existing churches, and, on our own, to find THAT Church which Jesus founded. On our own we found it to be the Church to which we had the blessing to belong, the Roman Catholic Church. Now, it seems that the confusion within the Church takes away from its unity.
The confusion within the Catholic Church was not always there, at least for those of us who carried out its precepts faithfully, and found it to be a haven of peace, joy, security and strength. Others may have been affected by confusion, but it was nothing that we, of the faithful, even gave a thought to. It must be stated that the mark of unity is in no way threatened by confusion. The Church still teaches a oneness of truth; there is still a oneness in leadership. This confusion has a source outside of the internal fabric of the Church. The Church is still One, Holy, Universal and Apostolic, and will be so till the end of time.
Today, it is evident that something has happened along the way to unsettle those of us who religiously held onto every precept given to us by our bishop, pastor, the sisters, etc. Confusion seemed to enter into the minds of the faithful after Vatican II. Why should anthing like that be? The Council was convoked by the saintly Pope John XXII, seen to its happy conclusion and promulgated by Pope Paul VI. It was a Council, as was every Council in the history of the Church, enlightened, inspired, and guided by the Holy Spirit. As such, it proposed nothing but that which was true, and that which was to bring to the faithful a solid spiritual base from which to enter into a world beset by confusion, plagued by every sort of error and moral aberration.
The one, true Church of Jesus was now to launch out into the waters of humanism, materialism, paganism, atheism, all fostered by the worldly, and enter into an excitingly new evangelization. It was to go out into the secular world, to renew all things in Christ, and with the Holy Spirit reigning within it, and with Mary, His Spouse, declared to be the Mother of the Church, to renew not only the Church, but the entire face of the earth.
In the next installment I will delve into why some of the decrees fell into enemy hands, how satan entered the sanctuary and what Jesus says about this in Sacred Scripture.
|