There is so much confusion all around. Certainly, it is found in all of
the world, but one would never expect to find it within the Catholic
Church. In our formation, we learned that we could find the Church that
Jesus established when He was on earth by the four marks, or qualities,
that His Church and only His Church, was to have, namely, unity, holiness,
universality and apostolicity. We learned, too, that the only church in
existence that has all these marks is the Roman Catholic Church. Each of
these marks were explained at length to give each one of us the opportunity
to go through them apply them to existing churches, and, on our own, to
find THAT church which Jesus founded. On our own, we found it to be the
Church to which we had the blessing to belong, the Roman Catholic Church.
Now, it seems that the confusion within the Church takes away from its unity.
The confusion within the Catholic Church was not always there, at least
for those of us who carried out its precepts faithfully, and found it to be
a haven of peace, joy, security, and strength. Others may have been
effected by confusion, but it was nothing that we, of the faithful, even
gave a thought to. It must be stated that the mark of unity is in no way
threatened by confusion. The Church still teaches a oneness of truth;
there is still a oneness in leadership. This confusion has a source
outside of the internal fabric of the Church. The Church is still One,
Holy, Universal and Apostolic, and will be so till the end of time.
Today, it is evident that something has happened along the way to unsettle
those of us who religiously held onto every precept given to us by our
bishop, pastor, and the sisters. Confusion seemed to enter into the minds
of the faithful after Vatican II. Why should anything like that be? The
Council was convoked by the saintly Pope John XXIII, seen to its happy
conclusion, and promulgated by Pope Paul VI. It was a Council, as was
every Council in the history of the Church, enlightened, inspired, and
guided by the Holy Spirit. As such, it proposed nothing but that which was
true, and that which was to bring to the faithful a solid spiritual base
from which to enter into a world beset by confusion, plagued by every sort
of error and moral aberration.
The one, true Church of Jesus was now to launch out into the waters of
humanism, materialism, paganism, atheism, all fostered by the worldly, and
enter into an exciting new evangelization. It was to go out into the
secular world, to renew all things in Christ, and with the Holy Spirit
reigning within it, and with Mary, His Spouse, declared to be the Mother of
the Church, to renew not only the Church, but the entire face of the earth.
What has surfaced now is that the implementation of some of the decrees of
the Council fell into the hands of its enemies and, instead of the Church
entering into the secular world to do its best, the secular world entered
into the Church to do its worst.
Jesus, while on earth, spoke words which will give light to the above. I
quote the passages to bring forth immediate clarity.
"The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a man who sowed good seed in his
field. While everyone was asleep his enemy came and sowed weeds all
through the wheat, and then went off. When the crop grew and bore fruit,
the weeds appeared as well. The slaves of the householder came to him and
said, 'Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the
weeds come from?' He answered, 'an enemy has done this.' His slaves said
to him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?' He replied, 'No, if you
pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them
grow together until harvest, then at harvest time I will say to the
harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning;
but gather the wheat into my barn'" (Matthew 13: 24-30).
"His disciples approached Him and said, 'Explain to us the parable of the
weeds in the field.' He said in reply, 'He who sows good seed is the Son
of Man, the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom.
The weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is
the devil. The harvest is the END OF THE AGE, (author's emphasis) and the
harvesters are angels. Just as weeds are collected and burned with fire,
so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send His angels
and they will collect out of His kingdom all who cause others to sin and
all evildoers. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there
will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like
the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears ought to hear"
(Matthew 13: 36-43).
Surely the above, in part, could fit into the entire history of the
Church, nonetheless, Jesus made reference to the END OF THE AGE. Making
every effort to read the signs of the times as Jesus, Himself, had
encouraged, in fact, in a way, commanded us, we have many evidences that we
presently are in that frame of time. Jesus makes it clear as to what has
happened in the Church. In the next installment we shall continue in this same vein and research what has and is happening.