It is always helpful to remember and reflect that whenever Our Lord speaks of the Kingdom of God/Heaven on earth, He is speaking of the Catholic, or if you prefer -- The Universal Christian Church. So, in today's Gospel -- The Gospel accordding to St. Mark 4:26-34, we see a foreshadowing of the Church as when Jesus said the gates of hell shall not prevail against us. During this Gospel Jesus strengthens our first bishops by foretelling the growth of the Church. This growth is described on two levels -- It's physical growth -- over the centuries since Jesus founded the Church, which was His mission, it has grown from a small group of believers huddled literally and figuratively underground to the worldwide Institutional we see today, indeed, protestations about its irrelevance not withstanding it is difficult to think of a more influential institution world wide -- and its spiritual growth or the growth which takes place within the individual member of the body of Christ on earth -- we enter through the narrow gate of Catholic School, Religious Education classes, and through conversion RCIA, the Church looks mysterious and barely scrutable. As we grow, walking with the Lord through the Liturgical year, receiving the sacraments initially and then continuously overtime the grace from these sacraments, indeed as our interior life grows, the Church grows and we come to see it as it was provided for us by Our Lord as Holy Mother Church and the means of our salvation.
It is at this point that we are able to see not just the Church but in contrast the World, which we are in but not of, as it really is. It is also at this point, that we turn with breaking hearts to see our separated brothers and sisters -- the Protestants -- as they really are. Though over the years as John Paul II has explained to us in His encyclical on Ecumenism, our separated brothers and sisters cannot be held responsible for the original heresies of Protestantism, sola fide and sola scriptura, being the two most salient of Protestant heresies, our heart still breaks. We watch them their noses pressed against the glass of misunderstanding and misinterpretation as we partake of the fullness of the banquet Our Lord had brought to all, and then through the other side of the same glass we watch as the chew on stale old tuna sandwiches as if these were all that Our Lord had provided.
And then we begin to act on their behalf praying, celebrating and dedicating Masses for them, when I think of the numbers of closeted nuns and brothers who dedicate their lives praying endlessly for their conversion, it is no wonder that we see the examples of Scott Hanh and his wife and the countless other separated brethren who come home to the Truth.
For we then begin to experience as Jesus described the external growth and the internal growth, as we step from the other side of the glass through the narrow gate and into the fullness of the faith that Jesus brought and bought for us, we begin to appreciate why we are here, is this not due to the same prayers of these same cloistered nuns and brothers, again a part of the church we do not see until we enter through the narrow gate When we see Jesus Physically present int he Eucharist, when we walk into a Church, anywhere in the world, and see a lighted candle near the tabernacle, and know that Jesus is physically present, and thus we genuflect before Him -- these are some of the things that Our lord was talking about when he compared the Church to a mustard seed and the ripening process of grain.
But even here it does not stop. This eternal growth of the understanding of the mysteries of the Church that Jesus founded never ends, until we pass from the kingdom of God/Heaven on earth to the Kingdom of God in Heaven, at which point all the mysteries, all the whys of understanding will be reviled to us, even the mystery of Protestantism, why our separated brothers and sisters would fall for such an obvious ploy of the devil -- to get people to believe they are actually "saved" or going to heaven, when they are not. This is the most heartbreaking aspect of being in the Church and seeing Protestant friends and relatives. why would they fall for such an obvious ploy, and remain convinced that the stale old tuna sandwich is what Our Lord wanted for them, and that their salvation is "assured" through the words of Luther or Henry VIII or any of the countless others who broke off from a branch that broke off from a branch, for once Luther started the precedent of Protestation and separation it could only continue, all connected by baptism to the original vine of truth started by our Lord, and at the same time all so far removed from our Lord's original vine that they can no longer see the entire truth and the fullness of the faith they are missing.
It is at this point that we are able to see not just the Church but in contrast the World, which we are in but not of, as it really is. It is also at this point, that we turn with breaking hearts to see our separated brothers and sisters -- the Protestants -- as they really are. Though over the years as John Paul II has explained to us in His encyclical on Ecumenism, our separated brothers and sisters cannot be held responsible for the original heresies of Protestantism, sola fide and sola scriptura, being the two most salient of Protestant heresies, our heart still breaks. We watch them their noses pressed against the glass of misunderstanding and misinterpretation as we partake of the fullness of the banquet Our Lord had brought to all, and then through the other side of the same glass we watch as the chew on stale old tuna sandwiches as if these were all that Our Lord had provided.
And then we begin to act on their behalf praying, celebrating and dedicating Masses for them, when I think of the numbers of closeted nuns and brothers who dedicate their lives praying endlessly for their conversion, it is no wonder that we see the examples of Scott Hanh and his wife and the countless other separated brethren who come home to the Truth.
For we then begin to experience as Jesus described the external growth and the internal growth, as we step from the other side of the glass through the narrow gate and into the fullness of the faith that Jesus brought and bought for us, we begin to appreciate why we are here, is this not due to the same prayers of these same cloistered nuns and brothers, again a part of the church we do not see until we enter through the narrow gate When we see Jesus Physically present int he Eucharist, when we walk into a Church, anywhere in the world, and see a lighted candle near the tabernacle, and know that Jesus is physically present, and thus we genuflect before Him -- these are some of the things that Our lord was talking about when he compared the Church to a mustard seed and the ripening process of grain.
But even here it does not stop. This eternal growth of the understanding of the mysteries of the Church that Jesus founded never ends, until we pass from the kingdom of God/Heaven on earth to the Kingdom of God in Heaven, at which point all the mysteries, all the whys of understanding will be reviled to us, even the mystery of Protestantism, why our separated brothers and sisters would fall for such an obvious ploy of the devil -- to get people to believe they are actually "saved" or going to heaven, when they are not. This is the most heartbreaking aspect of being in the Church and seeing Protestant friends and relatives. why would they fall for such an obvious ploy, and remain convinced that the stale old tuna sandwich is what Our Lord wanted for them, and that their salvation is "assured" through the words of Luther or Henry VIII or any of the countless others who broke off from a branch that broke off from a branch, for once Luther started the precedent of Protestation and separation it could only continue, all connected by baptism to the original vine of truth started by our Lord, and at the same time all so far removed from our Lord's original vine that they can no longer see the entire truth and the fullness of the faith they are missing.
copyright 2011 Fred Celio
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