“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: