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Why
wasn’t I taught any of this in Church?
 ell, first of all don’t make
the mistake of confusing the Church with the Church. There are those
in the Church who call themselves Christian as a sort of stamp
of approval they can wear while they go about life as they want life to be.
They don’t come to Christ begging that their lives be changed;
they come seeking to have their lives validated.
Then there are those who truly
understand Christianity and, being the mystical body of Christ, are
the Church. This Body of Christ has been living, teaching, and preaching
true Christianity for ages.
The
“Church” and “the Church”
This gulf between the
“Church” and “the Church” got started right from the
earliest days of the Church. It was one thing to convince Jews, who already
knew the Law, to live the Law from the heart, as a devout
lifestyle of a New Covenant through Christ.
But when Saint Paul started converting pagans, an entirely different situation
emerged.
“What is
the Least I Have to Do?”
Paganism,
after all, is all about making sacrifices to the gods to appease them. Granted,
Judaism also had a focus on sacrifice—sacrifice was one of the primary
purposes of the Temple—but Judaism understood God to be a personal God
who cares about His creation through divine love.
Jews had the tradition, through the Old Covenant, of being told,
“Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your strength.” Pagan gods were
essentially indifferent to humanity and loved only each other—when it
was convenient.
So when pagans heard the words
“salvation” and “eternal life”
preached, they converted in droves. But the primary psychological question
for many of them was, “What do I have to do to make this God give me
eternal life?” Right from the beginning, the focus was on getting
something, and loopholes became the norm. Multitudes of souls who claimed
to be in the Church started asking, What is the least I have to do to
get into heaven?
“Magical”
Salvation
“What is the least I have
to do to get into heaven?” You can find traces of this sort of question
between the lines of most of Saint Paul’s letters. If you read the letters
carefully, you will see that Paul had to argue endlessly against the idea
that Christianity was a magical form of
salvation—that is, that you could be saved just by saying the right
words or performing external actions. He kept preaching, over and over, in
one way or another, that Christianity is a total commitment to a new
lifestyle in Christ, by which the old lifestyle
of the world is crucified. That’s why he repeatedly
speaks of baptism as death—that is, death
to pride in one’s self and death to one’s
attachment to the unholy
social world around us.
This endless need to argue against
his opponents in this way explains why Paul’s letters put so much emphasis
on faith over works. Paul, always on the defensive, had to focus on only
one side the issue. But, realistically, how could anyone live the lifestyle
Paul described if, through faith, works were not
made manifest?
Indifference,
Ingratitude, and Contempt
So Saint Paul, and the Church,
taught the hard truth of a Christian lifestyle right from the beginning.
And that truth has always been taught by the Catholic
Church. And that truth has been confirmed by the personal experience of the
Catholic mystics through the ages. And that truth continues to this day,
despite those who treat it all—just as they treat the
Sacred Heart of Jesus—with indifference,
ingratitude, and contempt.
Sadly, as Christ described in
the Parable of the Weeds among the Wheat (Matthew 13:24–30),
we will always have a Church filled with weeds.
So listen carefully to Christ’s
own warnings.
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Someone asked
Him, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” He answered them,
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will
attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. . . .” |
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—Luke 13:23 |
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No
advertising—no sponsor—just the simple truth . . .
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Huh? Freewill website?