The Sunday Sermon Archive

Portiuncula Indulgences

Dear Friend,

In today's Gospel reading (St. Luke 19: 41-7), we see the compassion of Jesus for us. He wept over Jerusalem. God takes no pleasure in seeing our destruction or damnation. Jesus came to this world to save us from our sins, not to condemn us for them. However, God will not force us to renounce our sins or enter Heaven. The choice is always our own. We see in ourselves that tears come when despite all our efforts and love, we cannot guide souls in the way of truth and love. Despite our best efforts, rebellion and rejection of the good leave us exhausted, with nothing left but tears.

Having wept over those who were willfully rejecting God's grace and mercy and having exhausted every means to bring about their conversion, Jesus has only one thing left to do — cast them out of the house of God to at least abate the insult that they are making against Him. Again, it is not with any pleasure that Jesus does this. Even at this time, He is eager for them to repent and accept the forgiveness of God.

The Temple was the place where God was worshiped with sacrifices. There were many and varied animal and material sacrifices that God demanded of the Israelites. Those selling in the temple were not there to make sacrifices to God but to make a profit off the sacrifices that others made. In essence, they were placing themselves in place of God. They were accepting the sacrifices of others to make a profit for themselves. The Temple became a place for them to take advantage of others and receive their offerings to God for selfish worldly benefit. The House of God was turned into a den of thieves. Far from worshiping God, the sellers were worshiping money and ultimately themselves. They were abusing the faithful who came to humbly worship God and offer Him their sacrifices by taking their percentage before God could receive them — in essence, using their fellow men and stealing from God.

We find that history does repeat itself. In the Modernist Church, the Sacrifice of the Mass has been replaced with a Memorial Meal. The Modernists celebrate a commemoration of the Last Supper of Jesus rather than a renewal and continuation of His Sacrifice on Calvary. God is worshiped by sacrifice. This is shown to us throughout history and even from the beginning of time. The Council of Trent consistently speaks of the Mass as Sacrifice, yet the Modernists want to speak only of a shared meal. They have abandoned God's worship and substituted the deification of man.

In once Catholic Churches, men are served, honored, and praised with a meal (Humanism), rather than God being worshiped in Sacrifice and adoration. They have stolen the worship that belongs only to God. Truly the Modernists have made the House of God into a den of thieves just as the sellers did in the Temple many years ago.

The devils are not satisfied that God has been driven out of the Modernists' Churches that were once Catholic Churches where God was worshiped. Traditionalists have been deceived into creating their own "independent" Churches where they preserve the outward appearances of Catholicity but allow or promote various errors and false doctrines to flourish. Both Modernists and Traditionalists have assaulted the validity of the Sacraments, especially the Sacrament of Holy Orders. The essential form and intention and often the necessary matter for the sacraments are treated as non-essential with a careless attitude or indifference.

The Modernists openly claim a New Rite and a New Order, so it is not surprising that they have established a different "priesthood" with a different "rite of ordination." The Traditionalists ignore the essential elements of the ordination rite yet want to maintain the outward appearance of the true Sacrifice of the Mass.

The Modernists have become pretty open Protestants, which appears acceptable to the majority. However, many Traditionalists have become modern Pharisees. They worship God with their lips, but their hearts are far from Him. With many invalid "priests," they put on compelling shows of celebrating the Sacrifice of the Mass. However, if they are not validly ordained priests, they cannot genuinely offer the Sacrifice of the Mass.

Many Modernists have become sympathetic to the Traditionalists, and many Traditionalists have become sympathetic to the Modernists. It seems to be a match made by devils for the further destruction of The Church. Traditionalists long for the civil structure that the Modernists have preserved, and many Modernists long for the ceremonies of the Catholic Church. Both sides have rejected Jesus. The tears that Jesus shed for Jerusalem can just as well be shed over the once Catholic Church.

May God give us the grace to always remain faithful to true and approved Revelation and true and approved Tradition. The pressures from the right and the left are often almost unsupportable, but we must remember that virtue is in the middle. It is often lonely because the majority, like those in Jerusalem, have rejected and continue rejecting Jesus.

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