The Gospel its Weapon, and the Holy Ghost its Power
At
His Ascension, Jesus promised His disciples that they would soon
receive “power from on high,” when the Holy Ghost would come, Whom He
would send from the Father. As they waited in prayer with the Blessed
Virgin Mary in the upper room, there came the sound of a mighty, rushing
wind, as the Holy Spirit came down upon them in tongues of fire. Jesus
had already given them the authority to go out and preach the Gospel to
every creature. Now, with the power of the Holy Ghost and His gifts,
they would bring the saving message of the Gospel to a waiting world.
“He
who hears you hears me,” Christ had told His Apostles. All peoples and
nations are obliged to hear the voice of the Church, to submit to the
truth of its teachings, and to accept baptism. No worldly authority has
the right to impede its message or interfere with its administration of
the Sacraments. This includes the other so-called World Religions. The
Church has been sent by the Son of God Himself, with only the Gospel as
its weapon, and the Holy Ghost its only power.
As
for authority, no government, no organization which is purely secular,
that is, which does not recognize the authority of Christ and His
Church, and does not base its laws on the Commandments of God, has any
real validity or authority. Jesus said at His Ascension, “All power in
heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Mt.28:18b-20). The
Douai-Rheims Bible comments, “Commission to baptize and preach to all
nations (is) given to the Apostles, and grounded upon Christ’s sovereign
authority, to Whom was given all power in heaven and in earth.” The
powers of this world have no authority except the authority they get
from the devil. There is no neutral territory in which human society can
exist freed from the authority of Christ and without the domination of
the “prince of this world,” the devil. “He who is not with me is against
me,” Jesus declared.
Unfortunately,
we find ourselves constantly fighting the eroding influence of the
conciliar church. Most people who call themselves Catholic today have
been swept along by the tide of the Modernist Heresy, and are no longer
truly Catholic. In fact, they have been swept right out of the Church
under the leadership of the hierarchy themselves, great numbers of whom
have fallen into apostasy. And they say of those who hold to the true
Faith of the Church:
“What
arrogance! Don’t the people of the other religions have the same right
as we have to claim the truth of their religion? Are not all religions
basically the same, and from the same source? Should we not ‘dialogue’
with the other religions, and learn from them?”
This
is so difficult to fight because so many of the clergy are morally
corrupt and dishonest, and are no longer interested in preserving the
true Catholic faith. They have built a new church around them, a
protective church which tolerates their sins, and has created a new
liturgy and a new theology allowing them to continue in their state of
moral depravity. Catholics who are themselves morally corrupt are happy
with the new secular church. They can now believe (pretend) that it is
impossible to commit a mortal sin, and that no one goes to Hell. What
they have left is the form of religion, but without the power
(2Tim.3:5). (This is not to say that everyone who is still with the
Novus Ordo is morally corrupt).
One
would expect that the new secular church would recognize the authority
of secular governments and institutions, and so it does. In fact, it
goes sniveling to their meetings, hoping to catch the crumbs that fall
from the table. Gone are the days when kings and queens acknowledged the
authority of the Church and bowed humbly in the presence of the Vicar
of Christ, like the German King Henry IV, who stood for three days in
penitent’s robes at the gate of Canossa Castle, begging Pope Gregory VII
to lift the excommunication he had incurred.
Are
we now to play the game according to the world’s rules? At a meeting
some years ago on “The Future of the New Europe,” the Vatican Secretary
for Relations with States, Archbishop Jean Louis Tauron, announced that
the Church “feels at home in Europe,” and hopes that its European
citizenship will be recognized by the European Union. At another
meeting, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican Secretary of State, called for
“a new style of human solidarity,” the goal of which is “the advancement
of a more human world for all…” He used the phrase, “the globalization
of solidarity.” But in his speech he made no reference to Jesus Christ
or His Gospel, which alone can be the source of true solidarity between
human beings.
The
new secular church is becoming part of the New World Order, and at what
a cost! It now depends on the power of political strategies instead of
the power of the Gospel and the gifts of the Holy Ghost. To do so is to
be without His guidance. The result is horrible confusion, “diabolical
disorientation,” as Sr. Lucy of Fatima put it, leaving Catholics adrift
like a boat without a rudder, enduring the violence of the winds and the
waves. But the Globalists are not interested. The new One World
Government which is now emerging has no need for God, for Jesus Christ,
or for the Church He founded. It is the triumph of secular humanism. But
God has other plans. Christ the King will return in glory to destroy
His enemies, and to claim His Bride, the Church, purified through trial
and persecution.
In
the meantime, we can be in perfect peace and have a clear understanding
of what is going on if we are obedient to the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of
Truth. We will have “power from on high,” the power to preach the
Gospel and to live according to its precepts. God has given us the power
to discern the truth in the darkness of these times:
“Beloved,
do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they
are of God; because many false prophets have gone forth into the world.
By this is the Spirit of God known: every spirit that confesses that
Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is of God. And every spirit that
severs Jesus, is not of God, but is of Antichrist… (1Jn.4:1-3).
