Post by naomhadomnan on Jul 28, 2011 8:25:46 GMT
We betray the Church when we refuse through sloth or indifference or selfishness to use the power of the Church to destroy evil within us and free ourselves from the bondage of sin. We betray the Church when we refuse to grow up: when we refuse to use the power that is offered us to grow in love and vision and free ourselves from the bondage of sin; when we keep our worship at the infantile level, and confuse religion with magic, and treat prayer as though it meant filling up a blank cheque for all the goods we require. We betray the Church for all the goods we integrate into sentimentality, so that religion becomes an emotional self-indulgence; or when, for the love that should set out to heal the world of God, we substitute the selfishness of an isolated self-culture. We betray the Church when we think it sufficient to be busy about many things and to fulfil with accuracy our external religious duties, instead of remembering that our primary duty is to be men of vision, to be one with God. We betray the Church when we develop a sectarian intolerance – not the divine intolerance which will not allow the truth to be whittled down to accommodate error or evil, but the diabolic intolerance which will not admit that others too may know something about the truth, and love and be loved by God. We betray the Church above all by the sects and schisms which still divide the Church – and if we say that these are not our fault or our responsibility, perhaps it is the greatest betrayal of all.
We need to recall the noble words of the Papal Legate, Cardinal Pole, at the second session of the Council of Trent: that the evils which have come upon the Church and rent the Body of Christ have come ‘because we left the well of living waters’, so that ‘of these evils we are in great part the cause, and therefore we should implore the divine mercy through Jesus Christ’. “Consider then”, he says, ‘the birth of these heresies which in these days are everywhere rife. We may indeed wish to deny that we have given them birth, because we ourselves have not uttered any heresy. Nevertheless, wrong opinions about faith, like brambles and thorns, have sprung up in the God’s-garth entrusted to us. Hence even if, as is their wont, these poisonous weeds have spread of themselves, nevertheless if we have not tilled our field as we ought – if we have not sowed – if we took no pains at once to root up the springing weeds – we are no less to be reckoned their cause than if we ourselves had sowed them; and all the more since all these have their beginning and increase in the tiller’s sloth... “O Lord, to us is confusion of face, to our princes and to our fathers who have sinned. But to thee, O Lord our God, mercy and forgiveness, for we have departed from thee... And on us is the malediction and the curse.”
Pg 152
The betrayal of the Church is our responsibility, and lies on our shoulders like a cross. The building of the Church is our responsibility too, and stands before us like a challenge. And always we must be either betraying or building: there is no neutrality. For the building is not something special that we have to do: if we are living in God it is everything that we do. Every act of betrayal, if it had been an act of worship and love, would have helped on the work of building. It is as simple as it is difficult. We build God’s Church if we obey God’s Church, responding to the life and power that are given us and so becoming holy. We build God’s Church if we treasure and ponder over his truth till it takes possession of us and makes us strong and mature of mind, so that we learn to see the problems and circumstances of every day as God would have us see them, and help on the endless development of dogma. We build God’s Church if we try in his power to become men of prayer, and so to live in him and to be made whole.
Pg 155
‘The Heart of Man: A book for every man’ (1944) by Fr. Gerald Vann, O.P.
We need to recall the noble words of the Papal Legate, Cardinal Pole, at the second session of the Council of Trent: that the evils which have come upon the Church and rent the Body of Christ have come ‘because we left the well of living waters’, so that ‘of these evils we are in great part the cause, and therefore we should implore the divine mercy through Jesus Christ’. “Consider then”, he says, ‘the birth of these heresies which in these days are everywhere rife. We may indeed wish to deny that we have given them birth, because we ourselves have not uttered any heresy. Nevertheless, wrong opinions about faith, like brambles and thorns, have sprung up in the God’s-garth entrusted to us. Hence even if, as is their wont, these poisonous weeds have spread of themselves, nevertheless if we have not tilled our field as we ought – if we have not sowed – if we took no pains at once to root up the springing weeds – we are no less to be reckoned their cause than if we ourselves had sowed them; and all the more since all these have their beginning and increase in the tiller’s sloth... “O Lord, to us is confusion of face, to our princes and to our fathers who have sinned. But to thee, O Lord our God, mercy and forgiveness, for we have departed from thee... And on us is the malediction and the curse.”
Pg 152
The betrayal of the Church is our responsibility, and lies on our shoulders like a cross. The building of the Church is our responsibility too, and stands before us like a challenge. And always we must be either betraying or building: there is no neutrality. For the building is not something special that we have to do: if we are living in God it is everything that we do. Every act of betrayal, if it had been an act of worship and love, would have helped on the work of building. It is as simple as it is difficult. We build God’s Church if we obey God’s Church, responding to the life and power that are given us and so becoming holy. We build God’s Church if we treasure and ponder over his truth till it takes possession of us and makes us strong and mature of mind, so that we learn to see the problems and circumstances of every day as God would have us see them, and help on the endless development of dogma. We build God’s Church if we try in his power to become men of prayer, and so to live in him and to be made whole.
Pg 155
‘The Heart of Man: A book for every man’ (1944) by Fr. Gerald Vann, O.P.