“No other Name under Heaven” (Acts 4:12)
Fr. Campbell
Yesterday we celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany, when Jesus Christ was revealed to the Gentile
nations as the Light of the world. Today we celebrate the Feast of the
Holy Family – Jesus Christ, His Holy Mother, Mary, and St. Joseph. Jesus
is the Divine Son of the Father, but He is also one of us. But to be
truly one with Him we must be born again of water and the Holy Ghost.
Those who are born again are no longer of this world, even though they
remain in this world. St. Paul says that we are citizens of heaven, from
which we eagerly await a Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ (Phil.3:20). The
natural man, to whom spiritual things are nonsense, is a victim of his
genes, his personal and family history, and his environment. For ho,
there is no escape. But by grace we transcend nature and become new
creatures, begotten of God. With Jesus, Mary and Joseph, we are members
of a Holy Family, the Church.
Those
who are citizens of this world only, who do not know Jesus Christ, will
be deceived, geniuses not excepted. The Albert Einstein’s and the
Stephen Hawking’s of this world do not have a true appreciation for the
spiritual. Many of them, like Hawking, do not believe in God at all.
They believe in the power of the human mind to know the truth. But
although they may discover many of the mysteries of the universe, the
truth that matters is hidden from their eyes, and their understanding is
clouded because their minds are closed to the spiritual. Their pride
causes them to overstep the limits of their understanding. And they
stumble on the very first verse of the Holy Bible:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… (Gen.1:1).
The
world began, says Hawking, with the “Big Bang”. It didn’t need God, and
it didn’t need a cause. Hawking’s opinions about God are of no value,
him being neither a philosopher nor a theologian. Others look for a
cause for the Big Bang, like “gravitational waves”. But, then, where did
the waves come from? But don’t speak of “God” to them. For them God is a
problem. They will only ask, “Where did God come from?”
If
we look a little further into the first chapter of Genesis we read that
God said, “‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Gen.1:3). Later,
speaking to Moses, God told him, “I am who am” (Ex.3:14). And Jesus,
the Son of God, scandalized the Pharisees when He said to them:
“Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM” (Jn.8:58).
In the prologue of his Gospel, St. John gives us further light:
“In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through
him, and without him was made nothing that has been made. In him was
life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the
darkness; and the darkness grasped it not” (Jn.1:1-5).
We
could say: “Take that, Stephen Hawking!” But I fear it would fall on
deaf ears. Those who do not know Jesus Christ live in the darkness of
ignorance. Our Lord gave these final instructions to His Apostles:
“Go
into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who
believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he who does not believe
shall be condemned” (Mk.16:15,16).
The
Apostles took the words of Our Lord as a command, and set out to preach
the Gospel to all nations and peoples. They all died as martyrs except
St. John, who died in exile on the island of Patmos after writing the
Fourth Gospel.
Francis
Bergoglio, current usurper of the papal throne, is right is right up
there with Einstein and Hawking. Consider this report from October of
2014:
“Pope
Francis made a significant rhetorical break with Catholic tradition
Monday by declaring that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang are
real.”
This
wouldn’t be the first time Bergoglio “made a significant rhetorical
break with Catholic tradition”. And yes, they are real theories, but
theories they remain. If they are proven facts they are no longer
theories. A real pope would avoid making public statements about
scientific theories and confine himself to teaching the truths of the
Faith which have been handed down to us from Our Lord Himself and His
Holy Catholic Church throughout the centuries. He must guard the
doctrines of the Faith without changing them. When Francis expresses his
opinion on the Big Bang theory, his words bear no more weight than
yours or mine. Ironically, on New Year’s Day he said we should give up
“empty chatter” in 2018.
Before He died upon the Cross and returned to the Father, Our Lord advised His apostles:
“Yet
a little while the light is among you. Walk while you have the light,
that darkness may not overtake you. He who walks in the darkness does
not know where he goes. While you have the light, believe in the light,
that you may become sons of light” (Jn.12:35,36).
These words of St. Paul are for us:
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