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"And I beheld, and heard the voice of one eagle flying through the midst of heaven,
saying with a loud voice: Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth....
[Apocalypse (Revelation) 8:13]

Sunday, October 1, 2017

Fr. Campbell "“You shall know the Truth” (Jn.8:32)"

“You shall know the Truth” (Jn.8:32)

 


True Catholics believe without question everything that has been revealed by God and taught by the Holy Catholic Church. We don’t have to make a decision about each and every doctrine before we will believe it. We just believe all of it because it has been revealed to us by God “Who can neither deceive nor be deceived.”


How simple is our Faith! We don’t have to figure out everything for ourselves beginning at square one. We could never arrive at certainty because of the weakness of our human intellects and the wounds to our human nature caused by Original Sin. But God would not, could not lie to us because His very nature is Truth. Perhaps this is part of what Jesus meant when He said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (Jn.8:32).

Faith makes us free. Worries and anxieties fly away, and it becomes easier to smile and take life as it comes. Faith enlightens everything, for “we know that for those who love God all things work together unto good…” (Rom.8:28a).

But this is not what some call “blind faith”. We don’t give up the use of our reason. Common sense tells us that we must believe God when He speaks, as He did through the prophets and through His Divine Son, Jesus Christ and the Church He founded and commanded to teach all nations. This is not blind faith, but a most reasonable and intelligent decision.

In fact, only the true believer is able to think clearly and see things as they really are, whereas those who do not have faith, even if they are the most intelligent and highly educated human beings on the planet, can never arrive at a certain and secure knowledge of the truth. Pontius Pilate, no doubt a well-educated man of his time, asked of Our Lord skeptically, “What is truth?” The Pharisees, too, as we hear in today’s Gospel (Mt.22:34-46), without faith, were left speechless when they could not answer the challenging questions Our Lord put to them: “And no one could answer Him a word; neither did anyone dare from that day forth to ask Him any more questions” (Mt.22:46).

We must believe what God tells us because He is infinite Truth and All-knowing. Can we do better than that? Can the tiny created human mind think more clearly than the Creator Himself? This is pride at its worst. It is entirely reasonable to believe what God has revealed. Those lacking in reason think they can choose for themselves what is worthy of belief. “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Ps.13:1).

For almost two thousand years the Catholic Church has believed what God has revealed. But the Novus Ordo “church” has gone its own way, leaving behind the Sacred Scriptures and the authentic Tradition of the Church. You become your own pope when you start interpreting Scripture according to your own lights. Many so-called Catholics are actually Protestants. They interpret Scripture and the Traditional teachings to suit their current lifestyles and comfortable positions. They don’t want to change. They end up being disciples of the devil. When did the Catholic Church stop believing in the words of Jesus Christ:

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. If you had known me, you would have also known my Father” (Jn.14:6,7a).

When did the Catholic Church ever forget the words of St. John in his first epistle:

“Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is the Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. No one who disowns the Son has the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also” (1Jn.2:22,23).

How, then, can anyone who calls himself Catholic claim that we can witness to the One God together with those who deny the Son? How can they be called “believers”? Can they be “believers” without faith?

The fullness of what God has revealed is found only in the Catholic Church. Those who stray from the solid doctrine of the Church end up like the Evangelical Christians who were expecting the Rapture to happen last weekend on September 23rd. Great was their disappointment when they were not “taken up to be with the Lord”, leaving behind the unbelievers to endure the Great Tribulation. In spite of the Protestant “Scofield Bible”, and preachers like John Hagee, there is no Rapture until the last day, when the Lord returns to judge the living and the dead.

Hagee also says, “Jerusalem is being built to be the glory of the ages,” and “Jerusalem is the center of the universe, until Jesus comes”. But what will he say if a nuclear conflict erupts in the Middle East, and Jerusalem doesn’t even exist anymore?

Pity the poor human beings who have not yet received the gift of faith. They wander “in darkness and in the shadow of death” (Lk.1:79b).

But we are not given this great gift for ourselves alone, but that we might share it with the people of the world. It’s left up to us to pray for them and share the Gospel with them in every possible way, with the greatest respect for all peoples, even though we can’t acknowledge the authenticity of their false religions.  

With gratitude to God for our Catholic faith, let us pray with today’s Holy Mass:

“Grant to Your people, we beseech You, O Lord, to avoid every contamination of the devil, and, with pure minds, to follow You, the only God. Through Christ our Lord! Amen!”