"Worth Revisiting" - It Is The Truth, Not Nuanced Language, That Will Set Us Free
We thank Allison Gingras and Elizabeth Riordan for inviting Catholic bloggers to re-post their favorite articles
on "Worth Revisiting” Wednesdays.
Do yourself a favor- go there now (and every
Wednesday) and gouge yourself on a feast of spiritual treasures.
Be sure to visit Allison at Reconciled To You and
Elizabeth at Theology Is A Verb during the rest of the week.
You will find much spiritual nourishment and encouragement there.
Here is my contribution:
It Is The Truth, Not Nuanced Language, That Will Set Us Free
(Image source: Wikimedia Commons) |
What
a treasure St. Catherine of Siena is! One does not become a Doctor of
the Church by being fearful to express, teach and live God's Truth in
its entirety.
How
ill-advised we are to discount, ignore or try to nuance the wisdom God
has shared over the centuries through such faithful servants as she.
Less likely would we be to commit this error if our primary concern was
the salvation of souls. No wonder those who wish to only tickle our ears
and destroy our consciences ignore these great spiritual writers,
abandoning God's Truth for a less demanding and counterfeit one.
The
following words Jesus shared with St. Catherine in the 13th century
are clear and unambiguous directions to his shepherds - not only those
living then but for those among us today. May we and they be given the grace, humility and wisdom to hear and follow His Inerrant Voice:
"No rank, whether of civil or divine law, can be held in grace without holy justice. For
those who are not corrected and those who do not correct are like
members beginning to rot, and if the doctor were only to apply ointment
without cauterizing the wound, the whole, body would become fetid and
corrupt.
If
they see the members who are their subjects rotting because of the
filth of deadly sin and apply only the ointment of soft words without
reproof, they will never get well. Rather, they will infect the other
members with whom they form one body under their one shepherd. But if
those in authority are truly good doctors to those souls, as were those
glorious shepherds, they will not use ointment without the fire of
reproof. And if the members are still obstinate in their evildoing, they
will cut them off from the congregation so that they will not infect
the whole body with the filth of deadly sin.
But
[those who are in authority] today do. not do this. In fact, they
pretend not to see. And do you know why? Because the root of selfish
love is alive in them, and this is the source of their perverse slavish
fear. They do not correct people for fear of losing their rank and
position and their material possessions. They act as if they were blind,
so they do not know how to maintain their positions. For if they saw
how it is by holy justice that their positions are to be maintained,
they would maintain them. But because they are bereft of light they do
not know this. They believe they can succeed through injustice, by not
reproving the sins of their subjects. But they are deceived by their own
sensual passion, by their hankering for civil or ecclesiastical rank.
Another
reason they will not correct others is that they themselves are living
in the same or greater sins. They sense that the same guilt envelops
them, so they cast aside fervor and confidence and, chained by slavish
fear, pretend they do not see. Even what they do see they do not
correct, but let themselves be won over by flattery and bribes, using
these very things as excuses for not punishing the offenders. In them is
fulfilled what my Truth said in the holy Gospel: ‘They are blind and
leaders of the blind. And if one blind person leads another, they both
fall into the ditch.’
Those
who have been or would be my gentle ministers did not and would not act
this way. I told you that these have taken on the qualities of the sun.
Indeed, they are suns, for there is in them no darkness of sin or
ignorance, because they follow the teaching of my Truth. Nor are they
lukewarm, because they are set ablaze in the furnace of my charity. They
have no use for the world's honors and ranks and pleasures. Therefore,
they are not afraid to correct. Those who do not hanker after power or
ecclesiastical rank have no fear of losing it. They reprove [sin]
courageously, for those whose conscience does not accuse them of sin
have nothing to fear."
(Jesus to St. Catherine of Siena from The Dialogue)
Let us never cease praying for our priests and Bishops
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