Fr. Voigt, "Can Anyone Claim to be Innocent?"
"Behold I send my angel before thy face who shall prepare thy way before Thee."
St. John the Baptist is that angel; he is the Eagle who has been given an eternal vision. He prepares us to
understand the Life and Mission of our Lord. There is only one Lord,
one Faith and one Baptism but many have come into the world and made the
claim that they are from God.
Whom do we believe? Mohammed with his horde of followers crying out for the death of the infidels; Buddha
with his passivity; Ghandi with his civil disobedience; Martin Luther
with his rebellion against lawful authority; John Smith with his astral
interpretations; to whom do we listen?
God has given us an
angel, an eagle rooted in reason and armed with the Truth. Reason will
show us Who is pleasing to almighty God.
Recall the moment at the Jordan River when John saw the Spirit descend upon his cousin, Jesus.
John cried out:
"Look, the Lamb of God, Who shall take away the sins of the world."
John, the eagle, bears witness that all the prophets of old testify that only the Lamb of God was pre-announced and pre-figured by all that happened to Israel. Only, Jesus, the Lamb of God, passes the
pre-announcement test. Sit down Mohammed no one knew how cruel you
could be; sit down, Buddha, no one knew how fat you would become; sit
down, Martin Luther, no one knew you would marry a nun; and sit down,
John Smith, no
one could believe the imagination that guided your life. All these
claimants must bow before the True Son of God prophetically proclaimed
and prefigured so that every detail of His Life was made known prior to
His birth. We cannot be mistaken.
"Art Thou
He Who is to come or do we look for another?" is a declaration not a
question. John knew and those who followed him must learn that John
must decrease while the Messiah must increase.
Hence we are pushed to the second question of reason: do you, Jesus,
perform the works of your Father? Only God gives sight; only God opens
the ears and gives man power to speak; only God cleanses the leprous;
only God possesses the words of eternal life. God creates from nothing and He
alone can re-create and heal. Therefore, our Lord tells John's
disciples to return to John and tell him what you saw and heard and
"blessed is the one who is not scandalized by Me."
Are you
scandalized by His healings? No, we marvel at miracles. Then, who or
what causes the "scandal"? God's suffering and His death were and
remain a scandal. It is the "scandal" of the Good News that God so
loved the world that He sent His Only Begotten Son into our flesh to
shed His Blood for the forgiveness of our sins. Today modern man is
scandalized by this eternal Truth:
through His Blood the simplest, humblest Catholic priest can forgive sins.
Protestants
shudder at the reality that Jesus conferred upon the Apostles and their
successors the power to forgive man's sins (cfr. John 20:22-23).
Reason reacts to this Truth with a great sigh of relief. My sins can
be forgiven and I have no doubt because the Lord conquered sin and death
by taking upon Himself our greatest fear (going to death) and
crucifying it upon the Cross and then
rising on Easter Sunday. Grace has conquered and John the Baptist's question set the stage for the greatest revolution of all time--a Divine Invasion of Love for the "fool-hardy".
Today the
world has rejected the claims of reason and chosen an emotional
standard which crucifies children in the wombs of their mothers and
calls it a right. From the moment that contraception became part of the modern mind and the marital act became a selfish act of lust, then all life lost its innocence. No one is sheltered from the violence that was perpetrated upon the womb. We are all liable to shed our blood in expiation for the social sins that reign supreme in
our classy and complacent generation. Our only hope is the prayer of the holy rosary coupled with a consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary which will return society to humble submission to the King and Queen of heaven and earth.
Believe
the angel; soar with the eagle and place all your heart and soul in the
scandal of the Cross. For in the Cross all problems, every social ill
will be reconciled and peace will reign in the hearts of men and women
of good will. Prepare your hearts for the coming of the King.
In the hearts of Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Fr. Richard Voigt