Fr. Campbell "“Let your light shine before men” (Mt.5:16)"

“Let your light shine before men” (Mt.5:16)

Fr. Campbell

 

When Jesus Christ sent out His Apostles to preach the Gospel to all nations, they willingly obeyed. They all died as martyrs except St. John, who remained to write the Fourth Gospel and the Book of the Apocalypse. At the foot of the Cross St. John received Mary as his Mother, and took her into his care until her Dormition (“falling asleep”), and her Assumption into Heaven. There, at the foot of the Cross, she also became our Mother. 

 

As he wrote the Apocalypse in exile on the island of Patmos during his last years, St. John saw the Ark of the Covenant in the heavens (Apoc.11:19). Was this the ancient Ark that carried the Ten Commandments carved upon stone tablets? It was not, because with the New Covenant came a New Ark, the Blessed Virgin Mary, who carried within her God’s Divine Son, Jesus Christ. The Apostles understood this while she was still with them, as St. Luke makes very clear in the first chapter of his Gospel (Lk.1:26-56).  

If the Ark seen in Heaven by St. John was Mary (Apoc.11:19), then the following verses must also apply to Mary. They tell the Woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and crowned with twelve stars. This time, however, Mary is more than herself, and she has, in a sense, become the Church, or she represents the Church.

St. Paul called himself “the least of the Apostles” (1Cor.15:9), but none of the original Twelve were more zealous than St. Paul, who preached throughout the Mediterranean area. We hear today in the Epistle about the many hardships he endured to bring the Holy Gospel to everyone. The devil, of course, has worked day and night from the beginning, to prevent the spread of the Gospel. Since the beginning of Christianity the heretics and schismatics have cooperated with the devil, so that the Gospel is not preached, or preached only in a corrupted form.

The devil always devises new ways to destroy our faith. These days he has persuaded Catholics to believe that the spread of the Gospel is not really that necessary. John Paul II, for instance, said that all “believers”, following their different paths, will meet together in Heaven. And virtually everyone is a “believer”, even if believes in some form of paganism.   

The true teachings of the Gospel are scarcely preached in the Novus Ordo. Its big preoccupation is Ecumenism, at least in the mind of the present so-called “pope” Francis Bergoglio. He would have his flock meet together with other heretics and schismatics without trying to convert them. Rule number one seems to be – don’t try to convert, just show “respect” for their false religions. But in doing so, they lose respect for the only true religion, which is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.

Bergoglio himself gives the example by taking part in Jewish religious rites, and those of other religions as well, incurring for himself excommunication from the Catholic Church, that is, if he ever was a part of it. In this way he is leading the whole Novus Ordo further into the darkness of heresy and apostasy.

Satan is powerful in the world as never before. He is incredibly clever at leading the human race away from God. Like Esau, who traded his inheritance to his brother Jacob for a “mess of pottage”, many trade in their Christian lives for the fleeting pleasures of this world in front of the TV or the Internet. How many will sleep in this Sunday morning, and then spend the rest of the day lounging in front of the TV with their supply of beer, watching the Super Bowl?

Then we have the Academy Awards and the Grammys, during which Hollywood and the entertainment industries keep many glued to the TV. But behind the glamor and the glitz the predators are at work, and the young and unwary are at risk. Fame and success are often purchased at the price of one’s soul.

The world will watch the Olympic Games, but how many will see through the pagan ceremonies that accompany them. The Games began amid the paganism of ancient Greece in about the year 776 B.C. When the idea of the games was revived in 1896, they retained much of the pagan character of the ancient games. The name “Olympic”, of course, reminds us of Mount Olympus in Greece, where the pagan gods were alleged to live.

The sports themselves are not pagan, but it’s the way they are packaged and sold. And it is not the athletes who are to blame, but those who turn the games into a pagan ceremony that gives worship to the devil, as at the opening and closing ceremonies of the London Games. But we have the power to change these things. This is what Our Lord told us to do:

“You are the light of the world… Let you light shine before men, in order that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Mt.5:14-16).

The source of our light is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The Mass holds a place of highest importance in God’s plan of salvation, as foretold by the Prophet Malachias about four hundred years before Our Lord’s time:

“From the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the gentiles: and in every place there is sacrifice and there is offered to my name a clean oblation. For my name is great among the gentiles, sayeth the Lord of hosts” (Mal.1:11).

The “clean oblation” prophesied by Malachias is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The world must come to the Lord’s Altar to be healed by the Bread of Life – the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ.

But so many have already lost the faith, and with it their chance of eternal happiness! When many of Our Lord’s disciples began to desert him, Jesus asked the Apostles if they would also go away. Peter answered for all of us who believe:

“Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast words of everlasting life, and we have come to believe and to know that thou art the Christ, the Son of God” (Jn.6:69,70).