Sunday Rambling

 

In some dioceses the bishop's visitation is a terrible thing, a nightmare. There you are when some unspeakable old heretic tips up with a view to destroying everything you believe in. Thank God it's not that way in the Diocese of Fort Worth. Our bishops stand firm for the Faith, they're successors of the Apostles as opposed to wicked mountebanks in the pay of Rainbow Baphomet.

So today was good, our bishop came, sung the Mass and preached, what a blessing. The Specialist even came down from Fort Hood to swing some incense, well done. Curiously, everyone in the sanctuary party was either former or active duty or involved in pro rodeo. Clearly a moral, if you care to draw it.

Then we fell back to the church hall for a delicious lunch, the mission eats well, and a good time was had by all. What a lot of fun, and I tell you, it's a real blessing to be in this diocese. 

Is it perfect? No. Should we be part of the wider Catholic Church, East and West? Yes. But so too should Rome and Constantinople be as one and, of course, the broken shards of the catholic mirror are one, essentially, in terms of faith, to say nothing of deeper sacramental union. 

Ut unum sint, may they all be one, prayed Christ. Do you think the Father somehow chose to ignore His Son's prayer? Hardly. The Mystici Corporis, the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, is one by nature or essence. The unity is there; that we've wrecked it, in worldly terms, with competing jurisdictions and associated wickedness is, frankly, the Devil's work. 

My take, for what little it's worth, is that it'll take real persecution to bring about the outward and visible unity which strengthens the inward and spiritual. After all, it's in the Good Book, "Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved."

Apocalypse aside, what a great day.

Keep the Faith, you heathen,

LSP

Sunday Sermon - Moneychangers

 

If you follow the newfangled lectionary, you'll have heard St. John's account of Christ driving the money changers and associated cattle out of the Temple. Picture the scene. 

There's the forecourt of the Temple turned into a cattle market, replete with FX grifters exchanging secular currency for Temple coin, and making a nice profit to boot.  Why? Because the Jews had to buy animals to sacrifice and the Temple didn't accept secular money. Enter Christ.

Zeal for his Father's house consumed him as he drove the beasts out with a whip, overturning the cattle market casino which had turned the Temple, the holiest place on earth, the focus of atonement as it then was, into a "den of thieves." 

The Temple was defiled and Christ couldn't stand for it, hungering and thirsting for righteousness he drove it out, and the message, on the face of it, is clear. No corruption, grift, skulduggery and malfeasance in the Holy Church of God. But there's more.

Sensing something deeper, bystanders ask for a sign, they want to know what our Lord's actions signify, and he tells them, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up." Of course they're confused, but we're not. 

Jesus' cleansing of the Temple is a prophetic act which points to his death and resurrection, to his atoning sacrifice and its attendant victory. He will be the new Temple and its Sacrifice, as one. So Christ drives the animals and the moneylenders out of the Temple. Their time is done.

We're the beneficiaries of this, the blood of the Paschal Lamb is on the lintel of our souls, such that the Angel of Death passes over us. As living stones in the spiritual temple of Christ's Body, the Church, his sacrifice is operative within us, which brings us back to the wicked money changers.

For sure, the Church writ large must cleanse herself of corruption, but what about us, as persons, the Church writ small? Surely the same applies. We're Temples of the Spirit, says the Apostle, and so we are. Message to market?

Repent. Drive those knavish thieves, the world, the flesh and the Devil out of the temple of our souls so that we, clean, may find union with the Cross and the life which flows from it. Therein lies sanctification and beatitude, and herein endeth the Lesson.

Your Old Friend,

LSP

Private Mass

While not able to worship publicly at this time, I did offer the Mass this morning on all our behalf. This service is known as a Missa sine populo (Mass without the people) or a Private Mass. 

However, the grace in this worship is very far from private and ripples or reverberates throughout the whole Church, not least our part of it.

This is because all of us are joined to Christ and one another in a mystical, spiritual communion. As the Apostle Paul teaches us, "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body." (1 Cor. 12:13) And so the blessing of even one faithful Communion at the Eucharist extends to us all.

Please know that you were all offered up at the Altar of Our Lord this morning and rest assured of my daily prayers. May God bless, preserve and keep you. 

Be strong in Him and take courage, for Christ has "overcome the world,"(Jhn. 16:33) and neither death nor Hell itself have any power over us.

With much love and every blessing,

LSP