The Lord's Counsel

This morning during prayer:

Unless the priests repent-truly repent-their efforts are in vain. 

"Your prayers, offered from the heart, should be for the granting of that grace of a true, godly sorrow for My Priests.  Unless the scales are removed from their eyes, there will be no hope for my people.  Do not concern yourselves with programs, novelties, building man made edifices on sand.  These things are useless and will not bring about the desired results.  Your focus, now in these dangerous times-should be prayers for the conversion of My Priesthood.  You could much better live without food or shelter than to live without the Priesthood.  Pray that they would rend their hearts, not their garments- I am waiting."

The scales being removed from their eyes speaks of St. Paul's conversion.  The Lord loves His Priests very much, but that they would love Him in return is His greatest desire.  I heard at the end of this:

"I would give them My Heart if they would but ask!" 

Livelihood

Ecclesiasticus 34:21-22

A meagre diet is the very life of the poor,
to deprive them of it is to commit murder.

To take away a fellow-man's livelihood is to kill him
to deprive an employee of his wages is to shed blood.


I think it is coming to this point.  What an evil mess everything is in.  The thought that came to me today regarding this was:

If a leader of a state, or those in government advocate and delight in the right to kill innocent babies, and they were elected by the people to enforce that right, what do people expect?  What response should we expect from governors whose popularity was due to their unfettered belief that babies should be able to be killed for the convenience of the mother?  We all know that very few babies are murdered because the mothers life is at stake.  We should just be honest about it.

So, now it has advanced.  This spirit of Death that everyone wanted a right to.  Nearly every business has been closed.  The State and the Government have taken livelihoods in effect by the lock downs that have been enforced in many states.  As it says above, to do that is to kill a man. I would imagine that the same people who felt smug and assured in voting for legal, radical abortion rights never dreamed this same government would bring death to them.

I am surprised the Church is remaining so silent on all of this.  Apparently, after the wicked shaming from the sex scandals, they have been rendered to their proper place in the corner.  This is usually the desired effect from shaming.  It is a quick, useful tool in getting dominance and control over another in a relatively short period of time.  It's also great at silencing and destroying souls.

There have been a few prominent shamers that have caught my attention...those in positions of power but falsely portraying humility, service, unity.  Obama and Pope Francis are two of the most prominent and powerful figures that employ this tool.  It saddens me to see from Pope Francis, but does not surprise me at all from Obama. They are very similar in their methods of bringing about their ideals. 

Anyways, my real concern is what we are all looking forward to in the Church and to a lesser extent in the world.  So strange that Social Justice has been so prominent in the Church for the last decade or more, in fact it's essentially "our faith."  But this whole debacle, people being completely destroyed, livelihoods taken away, closed Churches, no Sacrifice of the Mass, doesn't earn a peep or a creative, constructive idea from anyone.  Who can figure it out?  No doubt in my mind there is "something goin' on around here."   

Blaming or Collective Responsibility?

It's true that blaming others often lacks mercy.  It can be a vicious snare and cycle.  However, in order for the Church to glorify God once again, and proclaim the True Christ, the Church needs to repent.  In pondering this, the Lord reminded me of the Readings for Monday, April 13. 

Peter, saying "Men of Israel, hear these words:  Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know--this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men."  

Would this be considered blaming?  Was Peter blaming this crowd of men for the death of an innocent man?  But, where is the mercy?  Didn't Jesus forgive them all from the cross anyways?  Didn't Jesus say, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do?"  So, why is Peter now blaming them for Jesus' death?  Didn't the mercy Jesus won on the Cross cover this?  Why bother to accuse them now? What's done is done.  It seems possible also that many of the men in the crowd weren't actually responsible for killing Jesus personally.  Why is Peter placing the burden of blame on them, or we could call it, as Pope Benedict does, "collective responsibility."  Which ever you desire to call it, it is the same.  Blame.  The Merriam Webster dictionary states the definition of blame as:

assign responsibility for a fault or wrong. 

Or, there is Matthew 23:27

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!

You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside

but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.  In the same way,

on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

If this were spoken in the Church today, there would be gasps and scandal for sure.  This would automatically be deemed "judging."  The person who dared utter it would be shamed and silenced. 

This is a huge problem in the Catholic Church.  It is actually a worldly response that has been adopted.  Jesus was speaking the truth to the Pharisees, hoping to pierce their hardened and prideful hearts.  He spoke the truth in this way because He loved them, and desired them to seek His mercy.  So, whatever word you choose; blaming, shaming, accusing...if done correctly with the correct motivation and prayerfully desiring the proper outcome can bring about repentance and conversion. 
There is just such a misunderstanding today about "blame."  Our refusal to "assign responsibility for a fault or wrong" has led to this judgement!  Mercy has been presumed upon, which is a sin in itself, and has misguided an untold amount of souls!  I do believe that the laity has a burden in this, however, the priests bear the greatest burden.  They are the spiritual fathers, the leaders, the shepherds of the sheep.  It is their burden to speak the truth in or out of season.  I don't completely agree that the entire burden lays upon the laity as one prominent Catholic speaker proclaimed after his brush with death.  That would be like blaming the sheep for scattering because the wolves came while the shepherd was asleep.  Or like blaming the children of a family for the sins of the parents.  I also don't agree with many acting as though not one negative word can be said about priests.  That too has led to their identity crisis.  That the priests are above constructive criticism, or accountability has contributed greatly to this arrogance we see and the error being propagated, even by Bishops!  It is God's Mercy that calls out the nature of the sin, and demands repentance.  Without it, the Church will simply remain stagnant and irrelevant.

Before anyone thinks that this sounds cold hearted, unforgiving, or critical please know that my family has interceded for priests for the last ten years.  It is not the typical intercession as most think of it.  We don't simply pray and fast for priests.  We suffer their sins.  These apparently are the priests who are dear to Jesus, but are Judas's nonetheless. Their evil, wickedness, and betrayal is placed upon us so that they may have the room to repent and turn back to Jesus and seek His Mercy.  It is very intense, serious, and difficult.  It took a good many years to understand that this was a ministry of Mercy when it was so very dark and awful.  There is mercy for priests, but they must acknowledge their sinfulness and betrayal of Christ and His sheep and turn back. There are very good, holy priests in our Catholic Church and if not for them, we would surely be lost.  God bless them.  What I am speaking of pertains to the priests who have betrayed our Lord, and they do know it. 

So, to those who are graced with a beautiful parish, ministry and priest, praise and thank God!  But, pray for the wider Church.  There are many, many parishes who are dying on the vine for lack of holiness, lack of spiritual direction, lack of a true Shepherd, lack of Truth.  It is a suffering that can and has led to tremendous discouragement, confusion, and despair.  I don't even want to consider the number of souls that have left our Lord in the Sacraments, have been lost for lack of knowledge, have been lost for eternity as a result of the crisis of faith in the priesthood. 

I read this quote from a Protestant minister named Derek Prince.  I think it could be applied to the current situation:

"I think some churches act like refrigerators, slowing but not stopping the corruption of the fruit they contain-their congregations"

The prayer that is most needed for our priests in this moment is for the grace of true repentance.  They cannot lead others to repentance and salvation if they themselves have not acknowledged their own sinfulness and repent.  Then, the laity will be called to repentance through their holiness and desire to once again please God the Father.  I'm certain our prayers for them, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, will be heeded.  Pray also they have the grace of true humility in order to accept and cooperate with these graces. 

The Anger of God

Since 2009, I have felt in my spirit that God was angry.  Because of the climate in the Church, I felt it must just be me.  Everyone was gushing kindness, but it struck me as false.  They were pushing mercy, but not repentance, this was bothersome also.  I had the thought that God could just be angry at me, I certainly earned it.  Yet, when I would go to Mass and witness the kindness and mercy my spirit would start to experience a terrible pressure.  As an example, on the Feast of Corpus Christi which is the feast for the Body and Blood of Christ, which is the source and summit of our Catholic faith, the priest used the homily to tell how that day, he went to the Methodist ministers Ordination ceremony because he was the leader in the Ecumenical Council.  He told us it was charitable, kind to show his support for our Methodist brothers.  On the Feast of Corpus Christi!? when 70% of the Catholics sitting in front of him don't believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist?  Well, the anger that rose up in my spirit was more than I could stand.  I felt I was going to pass out.  Not only that, it felt as though this was the straw that broke the camels back so to speak.  It was beyond trembling.  In addition to this, in the bulletin that day there was an announcement that there would be a tour we could take part in at the Hindu temple if we were interested in learning more.  We would be surprised to learn how much we had in common with our Hindu "brothers and sisters".  I felt pushed to wait for Father after Mass and ask him about this.  I told him I felt God's anger at this and his face turned purple and he told me that he had the Bishop's approval.  Then I was dismissed.  This is just one example.  There have been many other instances where for some reason, I could not look at the priest offering Mass.  I thought that was strange.  It was as if someone was literally turning my head away while he was talking.  One day, I finally thought maybe this is God, so I asked Him during the Eucharist what it was I was experiencing.  I heard "he has desecrated my altar."  I didn't ask the Lord how, or why.  I only knew then that God was turning His face from him, through me.  Whenever these things would happen, I would pray for mercy for the particular priest.  I also always pray that they have the grace to repent and accept God's mercy.  Judas didn't.
God's Anger. I ponder why this is so hard for the Church to accept.  In twenty years of going to numerous Catholic churches in a handful of states, I've never heard one priest mention God's Divine Anger.  In fact, God is not mentioned at all.  He is our Father, and He is never talked of, adored, revered in His own house.  There are the prayers addressed to God during Mass, but it does not seem that the priest believes he is addressing God on our behalf. He is seemingly addressing us.
I felt to read Luke Chapter 23 the other night.  The Passion.  I've read it numerous times, but there must be something I will see, I thought.  I was reading, and thinking yes, this is all familiar, when I got to the verse, 40: "But the other spoke up and rebuked him. "Have you no fear of God at all?" There it was.  It stopped me, and confirmed for me what I have felt in my heart for years.  The Catholic Church has lost it's fear of God.  If you read the Old Testament (it really is the Word of God even though it seems to be forgotten and never spoken of!) you will see and know there are many attributes of God the Father.  Anger is certainly one of them.  I believe that by rejecting God's attribute of anger, God Himself as Father has been rejected.  Many people act ashamed of the Old Testament, and are absolutely scandalized by the Psalms.  It has been to our total detriment. Because of the jolly "God" and the strictly kind and compassionate Jesus that has been taught, people will now be completely shocked and traumatized by God's chastisement.  I know I was. When you are told over and over again that Jesus is Mercy, Jesus only cares that you come back to Him, Jesus will heal your wounds, Jesus has forgiven your sins, and are not told the many somewhat painful ways this is accomplished it can be quite shocking; emotionally, spiritually and physically.  It can literally create a whole new set of wounds! There was a point that I felt I could not go on.  I was growing angry at God because it didn't align with what was being taught. There didn't seem to be any wisdom available from priests, either.  They were just as clueless as I was as to what I was experiencing.
I would liken it to when I was pregnant with my first child.  I have three sisters and none of them told me the truth about what to expect.  They all thought it would scare me.  Well, after 23 hours of labor without even a Tylenol, I was angry.  Angry that it would have been less traumatic had they just told me the truth, I could have had time to prepare mentally and accept it.  I read books, went to Lamaze, but personal experience from someone close to you who supposedly loves you and wants what is best for you would have been nice.
I think this is what the Church has done.  The priests don't want to scare anybody and the Old Testament can be very scary.  God is shown in all His Glory.  His Justice, His Mercy, His Love, His Punishments, His Discipline.  God is not just one thing.  He is many in One, worthy of all reverence and praise!  It all comes from His Love.  This is what I believe I am understanding in my prayer.  This is what has provoked God's Anger toward His children.
Many are denying this is a punishment from God.  They may be right.  God has permitted it, however.  He did not protect us from it.  An odd thing came in our family rosary the other night.  My daughter said that she received God permitted this to spare us His anger.  That is something to ponder.  If our lack of fear of God, reverence for God and the rejection of His Commandments has provoked His anger, may it be His Mercy that we are no longer able to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass sacrilegiously or even blasphemously, any longer?  He still loves us because He is faithful.  But, if He can no longer tolerate the unconfessed sin, the sloth, the wordliness in His Body, it may be His mercy to permit this until we come to our spiritual senses and repent. 
And one final thing.  There are people God has called as intercessors to stand in the gap.  These people suffer the justice of God so that the true object of God's anger and wrath has room to repent. So, do not think that God is not Just.  He is.  Someone else may be suffering on your behalf while you are being called to repentance.  Keep them in your prayers, it is a very difficult ministry.