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Think about the uproar when careless school teachers allow the children to do as the please on school trips, only to find them lying dead near a river-bank. What will all of Heaven think when careless priests and Bishops, who have let people do as they please, see them falling down into the depths of Hell?
The Lord pictured the contents of a sacristy, and asked: How would a priest feel, were treasured possessions to be ripped from the sacristy: photos of his silver jubilee Mass, his mother's crucifix, his favourite statue of Our Lady, his ordination photos, and special gifts? Why should his parishioners be expected to look on, calmly, as their favourite 'mementos', of statues and pictures, are condemned as so much rubbish?
The Lord asked me to look at the time when Rome and Constantinople were united in loving and serving God in Three Persons, under the guidance of the successors of St. Peter and the Apostles - until an exchange of insults damaged this. That earlier happier state can be re-gained. But re-union is not possible with other Christians who do not accept the Pope's prominent role and who imagine that woman can be priests.
A priest deserves honour in the Church. It is the Will of Christ that we treat with special devotion and respect those 'other Christs' in our midst, who remain worthy of honour even if sick, disabled or old. Christ has chosen them for their elevated state, which is recognised even by the Angels.
A disobedient man will one day learn the truth. Thousands of souls who persist in mortal sin fall into Hell, at death; yet even people guilty of lesser sins must suffer after death, if they are not fully purified and ready for Heaven. For example: Bishops, priests and theologians who have failed to teach the Faith in its fullness or who have led others astray by their support of heretical ideas.
It is the Will of Christ that each Mass be offered with reverence and gratitude, in accordance with the rubrics. Wherever Clergy act in 'creative' ways disobedient to the rubrics and causing distraction in other ways, those present should focus on the heart of the Mass: the Real Presence, and Christ's Sacrifice - as if with Mary at the foot of the Cross.
A good, humble priest, shows no distaste for the gestures of reverence by which devout people honour him, as 'Another Christ' - whose sacred minister he is.
Bishops and priests who fail to teach the Faith in its fullness, rarely or never speaking against contraception or abortion, send a wrong message not just to Catholics but also to other Christians who notice what they say, and conclude that these are matters of little importance. Such things, objectively, (such as contraception, abortion, so-called 're-marriage' and other practices) are serious sins.
Some priests mistakenly see themselves as counsellors rather than priests. In their misguided view of pastoral care they forget that they have been called to be 'other Christs' who teach the truth about sin and holiness, who invite people to repent and to receive forgiveness, freedom and peace.
Christ showed me that in the depths of Hell there are priests who have never repented of their wrong-doing: not just those who abused and corrupted young men and boys, but also those modernists who led people astray by their watered-down teaching and who even confirmed them in their sins, and so led them towards Hell.
When we hear from the pulpit distorted versions of the Faith, when a member of the Clergy explains away the supernatural and casts doubt on such events as the Transfiguration of Christ, or His bodily Resurrection and Ascension, or His Mother Mary's Assumption into Heaven, we must nevertheless hold fast to the faith we know to be true.
Christ asks His priests to avoid modernist influences. A member of the Clergy who offers a distorted version of the Faith in his preaching or his writings, or who explains away the supernatural, or who contradicts the Church's moral teachings, causes confusion to the Faithful. He harms them as much as a parent harms his children if he feeds them contaminated bread.
There are many people in religious life who nowadays despise the virtue of obedience; and there are many Parish Priests who think it infantile to obey rules and regulations, and who disregard even the instructions of the Pope. They displease Christ our Lord Who saved us by His love and by His obedience to the Will of His Father.
A priest or seminarian, in his interactions each day, is as if swimming in a stream of truth in which there are cloudy deposits, which are worldly attitudes, modernist opinions and foolish ideas. Some of these will stick to him, unless by regular prayer he allows God to purify his heart, soul and mind. Then he will be worthy to preach the Gospel handed down since the Apostles.
Some Anglican women do hear a call from God to full-time service amongst Christian people; but it is mistaken as a call to Priesthood, when it is not His wish that women be priests, nor that people believe that Anglican Orders are valid.
Christ was betrayed and left alone with His enemies because people were afraid - or did not believe in Him. Today, He sees many Catholics betray Him when they dispute or ignore His Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, or other teachings of the Church, and when they criticize priests and lay-persons who speak the truth about sin and virtue.
Priestly celibacy enables a man to move towards Heaven on an uncluttered highway, without distractions. He can be single-minded in Christ's service until his old age, when he can enter Heaven, and be rewarded for all Eternity for his self-giving, and enjoy the bliss of God's love, with all the Saints.
Every priest needs a charitable heart. God the Father, like Jesus, knows what a man is like. He sees each man's soul and personality, gifts and background and attitudes. He calls to the Sacred Priesthood only men who are suitable for that special vocation.
The living God is a 'Holy Fire', blazing with love in our sanctuary, it seems, as we gather to offer Him honour and praise in His house of prayer, through the Holy Mysteries. Christ is Present; with His Angels and Saints, enfolded in the glory of the Father: glory into which we hope to plunge at death, having been purified in the Sacred Liturgy. Our reverent attention should be drawn towards God, for Whose glory this Church was built.
The Lord wants us to remember that our Catholic churches have been built for the glory of God and not the glorification or parishioners or Clergy. That is why it is not appropriate to have self-assertive, frivolous or irreverent behaviour taking place within.
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