Monday, June 28, 2021

- June 27, 2021

2 Chronicles, Chapter 20, Verse 13-15

¹³ All Judah was standing before the Lord, with their little ones, their wives, and their children. ¹⁴ And the spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel, son of Zechariah, son of Benaiah, son of Jeiel, son of Mattaniah, a Levite of the clan of Asaph, in the midst of the assembly, ¹⁵ and he said: “Pay attention, all of Judah, inhabitants of Jerusalem, and King Jehoshaphat! The Lord says to you: Do not FEAR or be dismayed at the sight of this vast multitude, for the battle is not yours but God’s.

Pay attention-Is the Lord calling you to battle? Are you afraid at the power of the secular world? Remember the battle is not yours but God’s. He calls us to action. Will you stand with our Lord? Do you have righteous anger?

Anger is the sword that God puts into man’s hand to fight the great moral battles of life. The more he loves God, the more he will love good and hate all that assaults or tries to undermine good. And, as he was created to love God, and all else in God, so he was only to hate all that was opposed to that love. Into the hands of hatred was given the glittering and sharp-edged sword of anger to fight its battles — that is, to assault and drive off every approach of evil. Without anger, hatred could but smolder in the heart. It needs an instrument of defense and attack, and this was given it by God a power for good that does not hurt the man who uses it aright, but makes him strong and keeps him safe. But man, alas, can turn away from God and live for himself, or for the things of earth, and in so doing, he changes the center around which the orbit of his life was meant to move, from God to self. He becomes self-centered. But in turning from God, he loses none of the powers of his nature. He finds himself, therefore, possessed of manifold gifts and endowments, all of which were meant to aid him in that moral and spiritual life that leads to God as its end. These gifts he now uses for himself. Finding in his hand the sword of anger, he seizes it and fights with it his own battles, not the great moral battles for which alone it was intended. He draws it and strikes at everything that hinders him in the pursuit of his own ends, everything that touches his self-love. He uses it for purposes the very reverse of those for which God gave it to him. He can use it to oppose good and to establish evil. Yes, a wild mob with flashing swords of anger, drawn in reckless madness around the cross, striking and wounding the all-holy Son of God, crying, “This is the Heir; come, let us kill Him that the inheritance may be ours”: this was indeed the most supreme and most dramatic moment in which men used against God the weapon He had put into their hands to fight His battles. The weapon of anger — let us never forget — is good, God-given, although it may be drawn in a most unworthy cause. It is not the anger that is bad; it is the ill use to which it is put.[1]

The New World Order has a vision of the world quite different from our Lord. Here is the teaching of the church on some of these issues

Church Teaching

· On abortion: "Among all the crimes which can be committed against life, procured abortion has characteristics making it particularly serious and deplorable. The Second Vatican Council defines abortion, together with infanticide, as an 'unspeakable crime' " [Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II, # 58, referring to Gaudium et Spes, # 51].

· On active, homosexual behavior: "Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder . . . when they [people] engage in homosexual activity they confirm within themselves a disordered sexual inclination . . . Christians who are homosexual are called, as all of us are, to a chaste life" [Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith].

· On the Ordination of Women: The Catholic Church "holds that it is not admissible to ordain women to the priesthood, for very fundamental reasons. These reasons include: the example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his Apostles only from among men; the constant practice of the Church, which has imitated Christ in choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with God's plan for his Church" [John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, quoting Paul VI]. "In fact, in each sacrament, Christ invoked by the priest who celebrates in persona Christi acts through the Holy Spirit with his efficacious power on behalf of the Church" [Directory on the Ministry and Life of Priests, Congregation for the Clergy, 3.31.94, sect. 10].

· On "freedom of speech" for Catholic educators and theologians: "[l]t is apparent, however, that some today . . . desirous of novelty, and fearing to be considered ignorant of recent scientific findings, try to withdraw themselves from the Sacred Teaching Authority and are accordingly in danger of gradually departing from revealed truth and drawing others along with them into error" [Concerning Some False Opinions which Threaten to Undermine the Foundations of Catholic Doctrine, Pope Pius XII, # 10].

· On "democratic" selection of bishops and priests: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, # 874-913, details the hierarchical structure of the Church and the virtue of this structure. The moral and teaching authority of the Church flows from Jesus Christ, its head, through the Pope and then to the bishops who operate in concert with the Pope [Lumen Gentium #25] and through them, to the faithful. "Popular selection" of priests or bishops reverses the flow of hierarchical authority.

· On priestly celibacy: "All the ordained ministers of the Latin Church . . . normally chosen from among men of faith who live a celibate life and who intend to remain celibate 'for the sake of the kingdom of heaven' " [Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1579; Matt. 19:12; see also 1994 Directory on the Ministry and Life of Priests].

· On birth control: "'[E]very action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or a means, to render procreation impossible' is intrinsically evil" [Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2370, reaffirming Humanae Vitae, # 14].

· On social justice and Catholic Action: "The Church well knows that no temporal achievement is to be identified with the Kingdom of God, but that all such achievements simply reflect and in a sense anticipate the glory of the Kingdom, the Kingdom that we await at the end of history, when the Lord will come again" [Solicitudo Rei Socialis, Pope John Paul II, # 48].