Catholic Bible 101

"You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men."

1. Loving God with all we've got, and

2. Loving our neighbor as ourselves.

One of my pet peeves about going to Mass today is all of the chattering and visiting that takes place before Mass. In the old days, everyone was quiet, and prayed before Mass. There was a lot of reverence for Jesus in the Tabernacle back then. Today, in some churches, it appears that the emphasis has been taken off reverence for Jesus and put squarely on fellowship. Now I am all for fellowship, bigtime, but not in the sanctuary. Fellowship should be after Mass, IMHO, in the foyer, outside of Church, or in the Parish Hall.  We should be "preparing to celebrate this sacred mystery", as the priest says at every Mass, even before we get to Church. If we're listening to the news, or stuffing ourselves with bacon and eggs right before Mass, I'm not sure we are properly preparing for this sacred ritual where heaven meets earth.

So please try to be super quiet before Mass so as not to disturb others who may be trying to pray. This can be difficult with kids, for sure, but it isn't very difficult to not go and gossip or chat with someone in the sanctuary before Mass. IMHO, the Bishops need to put the tabernacle back into the main sanctuary at all churches. This leads to a reverence that just isn't there if the tabernacle is hidden in a back chapel and is not front and center on the altar.  And may the priests please, please, please, start hearing confessions before all Masses, on Sundays as well as weekdays. The "call the rectory for an appointment" thing just isn't working.  Re-emphasizing the sacrament of confession and how it is so important to receive the Eucharist only in the state of grace would truly help the reverence in Mass, I think.  

And bring back the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament occasionally!  If it truly is Jesus, and it is, then let's all start acting like it!

As the antisemites and the antichrists of the world try to drive us away or make fun of us or even kill us, let's all remember that we win in the end, and these secular forces and false religions of the world will all lose. And our God who is the Lion of Judah, the Lamb of God, and The Good Shepherd, will have the lion lay down with the lamb when it's all over....And since He is Our Father and the King of Kings as well, we are all princes and princesses in the Kingdom that will last forever. So maybe we should all start acting like we are!

A lot of people get VERY upset whenever The Church comes out with a document that says its members either have to do something, or are forbidden from doing something.  It's almost like these people think - "Who is the Church to tell ME what to do?"  In the world today, most people want to do what they want to do and when they want to do it, and they detest it when the Church dares to speak out about their particular thing, whether its shacking up, abortion, using condoms, going to church on Holy Days, etc.  "After all, I'm me, and NO ONE is going to tell me what to do!"

This sounds a lot like satan, who, at the creation of the angels, rebelled from God's plan, and decided to go his own way, taking 1/3 of the angels with him to perdition.  His pride that "NO ONE is going to tell me what to do!" led him straight to hell.  

In life, we all have rules we must follow as civilized members of society. We have to obey the speed limits on the highways, we have to pay our taxes, we have to pay our bills, etc.  Imagine if everyone just said to hell with all of that, and just did their own thing. What kind of society would we have?  A very chaotic one, with more and more deaths caused from car wrecks, fewer taxes to support food stamps, etc.  So why is it when the Church proposes rules for our salvation in heaven that so many people get upset? 

Imagine if football had no rules, or baseball, or basketball!  No, all things in life have rules. The absolute worst thing that can happen to a man is to do whatever he wants to, whenever he wants to, because that usually leads to alcoholism, sexual addictions, gluttony, etc.  So please consider this the next time the Church says no to Freemasonry, no to artificial birth control, no to abortion, no to women priests, etc.  Jesus said in Luke 10:16 to the leaders of His Church (Matthew 16:18 ) - "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me."

How many times have we all heard that "I don't go to Church anymore, because there are too many hypocrites there."  However, the history of the church from day 1 is that there have always been hypocrites in the church. Peter denied Jesus 3 times after seeing Him perform miracle after miracle.  Peter himself walked on water for a while at the behest of Jesus.  Thomas refused to believe that Jesus rose from the dead after the resurrection. Judas turned Jesus in to the Sanhedrin in an act of betrayal.  It's no different today, where people go to Church on Sunday to receive the Eucharist on the same tongue that they blasphemed God with and slandered others with during the previous week.

And of course there are those who stay away because of the church scandals in the priesthood, which has affected less than 4% of priests over 50 years (that means that over 96% of priests are clean as a whistle).  The so called "mainstream media" would have us all believe that those numbers are reversed.  

However, the real scandal in the church is not the low percentage of scandalous priests;  the real scandal in the church is in the pews, not on the altar.  The sins of parishioners that are confessed to the priest in the confessional week after week, if made public like the sins of the priests, would probably make the sins of the priests seem miniscule in comparison.

So to clear all of this up, I say that "The Church is not a museum for saints; rather, it's a hospital for sinners!"