Discerning the Spirits
Fr. Campbell
After
Our Lord Jesus Christ ascended to the Father, the Apostles returned to
the Cenacle, the Upper Room in Jerusalem in which they had celebrated
the Last Supper with Our Lord. There they would pray until the coming of
the Holy Ghost. We read in the Acts of the Apostles:
“All
these with one mind continued steadfastly in prayer with the women and
Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren… And when the days of
Pentecost were drawing to a close, they were all together in one place.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a violent wind
blowing, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting… And they
were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in foreign
tongues, even as the Holy Spirit prompted them to speak”
(Acts1:14;2:1,2,4).
At
the same time many devout Jews were in Jerusalem for the observance of
the Jewish Pentecost, which was celebrated fifty days after the
Passover. But now there was a New Pentecost to be celebrated, fifty days
after the Resurrection of the Lord. The Gospel was preached by the
Church for the first time as Peter told his amazed hearers:
“Repent
and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the
forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit. For to you is the promise and to your children and to all who
are far off, even to all whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts
2:38,39).
Through
the grace of Pentecost the Church is fully equipped to preach the
Gospel of Salvation to all the nations, fortified by the Holy Sacrifice
of the Mass, the Sacraments, and the words of Holy Scripture. The Holy
Spirit, soul of the Church, infuses His abundant gifts and charisms into
the hearts of the faithful. He is the courage of the martyrs, the
prayer of the saints, the faith of the confessors, the purity of
virgins, the righteousness of fathers, the patience of mothers, the
innocence of children, the wisdom of pastors and teachers. All that we
need we have, through the great Gift of God, the Holy Ghost.
But
in the mid-twentieth century, a modernist faction claiming to represent
the Church came up with ANOTHER “New Pentecost,” which they called
Vatican II. At the council, they claimed, the Holy Spirit gave a new
illumination to the Church. What, were we for two thousand years in the
dark?
What
does the Church of Vatican II “see” with the aid of this “new
illumination” provided by the Holy Spirit at the council? Well, that we
can relax! Don’t get too excited about preaching the Gospel, since
everyone is being saved, all following “different paths” which lead to
the “common homeland.” And we can relax about sin. Original Sin has been
wiped out by the Incarnation of the Son of God, so that we are all
conceived without sin. We can also relax about judgment. If there is a
Hell it’s only for the devil and the fallen angels. God is not
judgmental. Or so they try to tell us. But this does not sound like the
Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth, Whom Jesus promised to send us from the
Father:
“But
I speak the truth to you; it is expedient for you that I depart. For if
I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will
send him to you. And when he has come he will convict the world of sin,
and of justice, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in
me; of justice, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more;
and of judgment, because the prince of this world has already been
judged” (Jn.16:7-11).
Great
things were expected as a result of the “reforms” of Vatican II. By
now, the face of the earth should have been renewed by this “new
pentecost.” But what actually happened? As Paul VI once remarked, the
Church is “dismantling itself.” Scandals rock the Church. In diocese
after diocese, parishes are being closed because contributions are
dwindling and attendance has plunged dramatically. Europe, where Christ
the King once reigned, has lapsed into a “silent apostasy.” We are
witnessing the “Islamicization” of Europe. One writer comments:
“There
is a new ‘dark continent’ – the land that used to be known as Christian
Europe. Today, many of its cathedrals are simply large museum pieces.
They are ‘artifacts of an ancient religion, and a dead faith’” (Dale
Hurd, Is Europe the New ‘Dark Continent’?, cbn.com).
St. John tells us to “test the spirits”:
“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).
Pope Pius XII tells us of the true Pentecost:
“If
we examine closely this divine principle of life and power given by
Christ, in so far as it constitutes the very source of every gift and
created grace, we easily perceive that it is nothing else than the Holy
Spirit, the Paraclete, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and who
is called in a special way the ‘Spirit of Christ’ or the ‘Spirit of the
Son.’ …[A]fter Christ's glorification on the Cross, His Spirit is
communicated to the Church in an abundant outpouring, so that she, and
her individual members, may become daily more and more like to our
Savior. It is the Spirit of Christ that has made us adopted sons of God
in order that one day ‘we all beholding the glory of the Lord with open
face may be transformed into the same image from glory to glory.’” (Pope
Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi, June 29, 1943).
