The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

"If I say the truth to you, why do you not believe me?"

Why do we so readily believe lies and so hesitatingly believe the truth? There is something obviously quite wrong with us. Our fallen nature plays a big part in this but not all. Many in the world today have been baptized and thus presumably, have had the stain of Original Sin washed away.

The ways of God are so contrary to the ways of man, and yet we still cling to our own ways. And in this we make our biggest mistake, because all that is contrary to God's ways is a lie. And we become liars every time we stray from God.

The simple and straightforward logic that even a child can understand becomes incomprehensible to the tangled and twisted reasonings of those of more "mature" years (practiced liars).

It is not so often the case that the ways of God are incomprehensible to our nature. More often than not the case is that we have degraded and lowered ourselves far beneath what we ought to be. If we would remain in true humility and honesty so much of the spiritual life would be crystal clear or at least much clearer than now appears. But because we have rejected God and perverted ourselves so often our reason and intellect has been darkened.

Thus we attempt to judge spiritual things from a worldly or perverted human perspective. And in seeing the wide disparity between the two we attempt to justify our own "perspective" and in doing so readily condemn the spiritual one (God's). And seldom if ever is the thought of blasphemy considered in all this _ even though this amounts to calling God a liar.

And thus we see the same demonic spirit alive today as in the multitude of Jews in today's gospel. Nothing has changed over these two thousand years. Truth is eternally opposed to falsehood. And falsehood continues in its relentless attempt to justify itself and thus condemn itself by hurling the accusation of liar against God and truth.

What Christ faced from the multitude, the Church (The Mystical Body of Christ) continues to face today. The Church teaches the truth and the multitude continues to deny the truth, or to twist it to fit its own perverted will and intellect.

There are those who will deny that Christ has left any visible authority in the Church and rather openly and boldly promote the condemned anarchy of the past with "bishops" running all over the place "ordaining" and "consecrating" others with little or no preparation despite their constant claims of mature, long, and prayerful consideration. And yet all the while, professing that none of them have any authority. There are others professing that the laity who willingly obey them, in essence, give them authority.

How hard is it to simple honest faith to believe what the Church teaches? Pope Leo XIII makes it very clear that, bishops as successors of the Apostles have authority.

"But if the authority of Peter and his successors is plenary and supreme, it is not to be regarded as the sole authority. For He who made Peter the foundation of the Church also `chose twelve, whom He called apostles' (Luke 6:13); and just as it is necessary that the authority of Peter should be perpetuated in the Roman Pontiff, so, by the fact that the bishops succeed the apostles, they inherit their ordinary power, and thus the episcopal order necessarily belongs to the essential constitution of the Church. Although they do not receive plenary, or universal, or supreme authority, they are not to be looked upon as vicars of the Roman Pontiffs; because they exercise a power really their own, and are most truly called the ordinary pastors of the peoples over whom they rule." (Unity of the Church Encycl. Satis cognitum, June 29, 1896 Pope Leo XIII)

It is not the bishops of the true Church who say this but it is God who says it speaking through His Church. The bishops are forced to repeat with Our Lord: "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father that glorifieth me, of whom you say that He is your God. And you have not known Him, but I know Him. And if I shall say that I know Him not, I shall be like to you, a liar."

The true Church and the true faith are only hard to find or difficult for those who refuse to be humble, simple, and honest. Any conflict or confusion is created by perverted wills and intellects that are now blinded to the truth. And the simple truth is: He who hears his bishop, hears Christ who sent him. He who does not is a liar and follower of the devils.

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