Our Lord Jesus Christ had real enemies, and they hated Him. The Gospels are punctuated with numerous clashes between Our Lord and the Pharisees; and finally the Chief Priests and the Sanhedrin.
Today, Our Lord still has real enemies, and they hate Him. This hatred is manifested in two ways: a despising of Our Lord as God and Man, and a hatred for His Church.
During Holy Week, I reflected on Good Friday, not as an isolated event, but an event that is played out in history as a contemporary event, each and every day. Every day is a Good Friday, as every day is an Easter Sunday. The spiritual drama: the clash between Jesus Christ and Satan is as alive today, as it was 2000 years ago on that first Good Friday in Jerusalem.
Who are the protagonists in this spiritual war?
On one side we have Jesus Christ, true God, true Man and His Church. On the other side, we have Satan, his minions, satellites, and deluded followers.
Who were with Our Lord, and who are they today? Who were against Our Lord, and who are they today?
Let us try to identify and review the two sides, joined in spiritual battle:
The Enemies of Our Lord:
1. Judas Iscariot.
Here we have the Traitor. Here we have the man who received the greatest gifts and threw them all away. To much is given, much is expected. Judas, the man who was personally selected by Jesus, who personally witnessed His miracles, heard His Divine Voice, heard the beautiful words of healing and salvation. Sadly, Bishop Judas, refused the blessing and rejected Our Lord and betrayed in into the hands of "sinful men". Who are the modern day successors of "Bishop" Judas?
They are the apostate bishops. Men, like Judas, personally chosen by Our Lord, who have betrayed their Master. What drives these is varied: for some it is the world (lust for power and money), for other flesh (sexual perversion and sin; the easy life, food and drink), for others it is the devil (men, once consecrated to God turning to the occult, and even Satanism). It is the successors of Judas who plunge the dagger the deepest, and pain Christ and His Church the most. The greatest enemy is wayward, treacherous Catholic bishops.
2. The High Priests and Sanhedrin; Pharisees and Scribes.
These are the men, who knew who Jesus was, but refused to believe out of pride. These men are what St. Thomas Aquinas referred to as "Judeaos Majores". Jews, who were brilliantly educated in the Sacred Scriptures, but blinded by spiritual and national pride. These were men who were determined to impose their will on God, to fashion a Messiah in their own making; but a suffering Messiah, they would not have. Nor would they countenance a Messiah who would incorporate all nations into Himself, where there would be neither Jew nor Greek. The Messiah would be according to their will. The non-believing Pharisees were condemned: "Why do you cherish wicked thoughts in your hearts"? (Mt 9:4), asked Our Lord of them? This answer, 2000 years later has yet to be answered.
Today, the ancient hatred, rage, anger, is perpetuated in the Talmud and Kabbalah. They are a perverted distortion of the Mosaic religion (the once only true religion that was fulfilled by Our Lord), which has gone from not only rejecting and blaspheming Jesus Christ nad Our Lady in the Talmud (where they profess that the Son of God is in Hell, boiling in excrement, and that he was a son of a prostitute), but to re-fashioning the Jewish Nation itself as a pantheistic emanation of the substance of God (as is professed in the Zohar). This is the tragedy of trying to impose one's will on God. "Crucify Him, crucify Him", resonates throughout time. Yet there is always hope, Nicodemus was a member of the Jewish elite but broke with them to follow Jesus. Fr. Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne, once a faithless Jew, entered a church and RESPONDED (to which ALL Jews are given equal graces, otherwise God is a fraud) to God's promptings. Fr. Ratisbonne (yet to be canonized, I wonder why?), dedicated the rest of his life to the conversion of the Jews from their darkness.
3. Pontius Pilate.
The Roman Governor was a religious indifferentist, whose sole loyalty was to the State, the power and glory of Rome. When warned by his wife, he washed his hands, and handed Our Lord over to the Jews to the Crucified. Indifferentism and the State. If only the early Christian martyrs had burned a spec of incense to Caesar, all would be glossed over, Jesus Christ would join Zeus and Athena as just another "god", in the State ordained religious liberty for all. But it was not to be: no compromise. Today, Pilate is a Freemason, a Fascist, a Communist, a totalitarian of any colour: his modern creed is that the State decides morality the State reigns supreme, the arbiter of religion is the State. Jesus Christ is but another figure along Buddha, Mohommed, Moses, this guru or that guru. After all, "what is truth"?
4. The Mockers at the Cross.
Just who were these men, who stood there mocking? "He saved others, let us see if he saves himself..." They were well read in the Scriptures, they understood the charges against Our Lord. But they mocked. Were they the "intellectuals"? Today, these men are perhaps represented by the modern day "intellectual": the professor, the journalist, the writer... Many and varied are our contemporary "intellectuals", who love to scoff and mock Our Lord.
5. The Roman Soldiers.
These were the men who actually implemented the physical abuse, the torture. They were the unlearned thugs, the manipulated masses, controlled by the State and the religious authorities. These are the uneducated rabble. These are those who are pawns in the game. Yet, even pawns are offered the graces to cease attacking Christ.
Next: The Friends of Our Lord.
The Friends of Our Lord:
1. Our Blessed Mother and the Women at the Cross..... the lay faitful.
2. St. John. .... the faithful bishops and priests in time of greatest perecution.
2. The Daughters of Jerusalem: do these women who weep for Our Lord represent those Jews who through the millenia have come to know, love and believe in Our Lord. Women who were not afraid to show their love in the face of the hatred of the Chief Priests and the Romans?
No comments:
Post a Comment