Today at Holy Mass in the first reading from the Book of Malachi an interesting two lines jumped out at me…..”For he is like the refiner’s fire, or like the fuller’s lye. He will sit refining and purifying silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, Refining them like gold or like silver that they may offer due sacrifice to the LORD.”…….Malachi is telling the world and us that we are not ready yet for the Lord’s second coming….”He will purify the sons of Levi, Refining them”……God continues to purify the world and the Church…Sanctifying it and making it holy…All things, both good and bad work towards this end….Notice again the words of Malachi - “the refiner’s fire” - The process of purifying gold or silver requires fire….Its the fire that burns away all the impurities in the metal - Leaving only what is pure…This is a good analogy as to what we see in the Church, the world and even within ourselves……..Mankind in and through his free will “screws everything up” more times then we can all count…But God “works through” all those screw ups….He uses them to purify both us and the Church……Before Father Joseph Ratzinger, who become the future Pope Benedict XVI, in 1969 made a prophetic statement during a radio address……I have referenced this statement often in these reflections…..I do this because I believe what Pope Benedict stated is “spot on”…………..Here is the statement in its entirety
“The future of the Church can and will issue from those whose roots are deep and who live from the pure fullness of their faith. It will not issue from those who accommodate themselves merely to the passing moment or from those who merely criticize others and assume that they themselves are infallible measuring rods; nor will it issue from those who take the easier road, who sidestep the passion of faith, declaring false and obsolete, tyrannous and legalistic, all that makes demands upon men, that hurts them and compels them to sacrifice themselves. To put this more positively: The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints, by men, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day, who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality. Unselfishness, which makes men free, is attained only through the patience of small daily acts of self-denial. By this daily passion, which alone reveals to a man in how many ways he is enslaved by his own ego, by this daily passion and by it alone, a man's eyes are slowly opened. He sees only to the extent that he has lived and suffered. If today we are scarcely able any longer to become aware of God, that is because we find it so easy to evade ourselves, to flee from the depths of our being by means of the narcotic of some pleasure or other. Thus our own interior depths remain closed to us. If it is true that a man can see only with his heart, then how blind we are!
“How does all this affect the problem we are examining? It means that the big talk of those who prophesy a Church without God and without faith is all empty chatter. We have no need of a Church that celebrates the cult of action in political prayers. It is utterly superfluous. Therefore, it will destroy itself. What will remain is the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church that believes in the God who has become man and promises us life beyond death. The kind of priest who is no more than a social worker can be replaced by the psychotherapist and other specialists; but the priest who is no specialist, who does not stand on the [sidelines], watching the game, giving official advice, but in the name of God places himself at the disposal of man, who is beside them in their sorrows, in their joys, in their hope and in their fear, such a priest will certainly be needed in the future.
“Let us go a step farther. From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge -- a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. Undoubtedly it will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. In many smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care will normally be provided in this fashion. Along-side this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly. But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. In faith and prayer she will again recognize the sacraments as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholarship.
“The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek. The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed. One may predict that all of this will take time. The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution -- when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain -- to the renewal of the nineteenth century. But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.
“And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. It may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but it will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man's home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.”
“The Catholic Church will survive in spite of men and women, not necessarily because of them.”
American Christianity believes we just “float into heaven”…..This has never been taught by the Catholic Church and Protestants who believe this, as do many Catholics have “sanitized” death, suffering and eternal salvation and in the process watered down the faith….The purpose of life is to allow God to sanctify us…We do that through our cooperation with him and by relying on Sacramental grace, daily prayer, fasting and living a sacrificial life - This “process” in effect “chips away” all the impurities of our life day by day - Transforming us into a holy people……And if we “fall short”, which must of us do…And if we ask Christ to forgive our sins….we spend some time in Purgatory, where God in his mercy “finishes us off”, making us the people we were born to be….That is the process people! ….......The closer we get to God now, the more he can use us in the world to save souls…..This should be the one and only goal of every Baptized Catholic, to grow in holiness each and every day….And God is working! - Believe it!………We are told in Scripture……”I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.”…….There is no such thing as “cheap grace” just as there is no such thing as a “free pass” into heaven…..We must carry our cross and it’s "the cross" itself that purifies us as we walk with it.
“Your ways, O LORD, make known to me; teach me your paths, Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my savior.”
Today at Mass the words of the Prophet Malachi are read to us….He tells us that God will purify the sons of Levi, Refining them like gold or like silver that they may offer due sacrifice to the LORD”…......Take a guess who the “sons of Levi” are? - That is you and me - We are the Church…..God is “working on us”…..And as we say in New Jersey - “We can do this the easy way or the hard way”…..Cooperate with God - He is the master builder - When its all said and done - The finished product will speak for itself……“The Catholic Church will survive in spite of men and women, not necessarily because of them” - So “play nice in the sand box boys and girls” - Allow God to do what he does! - Its going to happen - Like it or not - So be apart of it……..JMJ
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