Cremation - METAMORPHOSE (Ephesians 511)

APRIL 2011/JULY 2012/JULY 2013/30 NOVEMBER 2014/25 AUGUST 2015 Defending Our Catholic Faith - A Wakeup Call
By Ron Smith
"Not to oppose error is to approve it, and not to defend the truth is to
suppress it" - Pope St. Felix III Note: In this report I may occasionally use bold print, Italics, dotted
underline or word underlining for emphasis. This will be my personal
emphasis and not that of the source that I am quoting. Note: Throughout this missive you will occasionally see bold type for
emphasis. These emphases are always mine personally and are not the
emphasis of a source that I am quoting - thank you! Also, text appearing in
Italics is a quotation from Holy Scripture unless indicated otherwise.
MICHAEL'S NOTE: I HAVE COLORED SOME OF RON SMITH'S WORDS RED FOR EXTRA
EMPHASIS My dear friends - maybe former friends when you finish reading this
missive! For a couple of years the recurring thought has come to me that
most of us are not doing our Catholic duty of defending our faith in those
particularly difficult areas of abortion, birth control, liturgical abuse,
euthanasia, fetal stem cell research, human cloning, pornography, and
homosexual marriage or civil unions*. There are additional areas that are
also important but these issues seem to be at the forefront. Jesus Christ
and his Bride on earth - the Holy Catholic Church - NEVER intended for even
one of us to sit idly by as these atrocities keep occurring all around us.
"The first commandment requires us to nourish and protect our faith with
prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to it."[i] *I can extend this list- Michael
"Towards God, the Christian has the lifelong obligations of love and
service. (1) The will of God must be put first on the list of personal
values, and must be kept there throughout life; (2) he must never think or
live as if he were independent of God."[ii]
"Since, in our own time, new problems are arising and very serious errors
are circulating which tend to undermine the foundations of religion, the
moral order, and human society itself, this sacred synod earnestly exhorts
laymen - each according to his own gifts of intelligence and learning - to
be more diligent in doing what they can to explain, defend, and properly
apply Christian principles to the problems of our era in accordance with
the mind of the Church."[iii] My friends read that statement one more time.
That was Vatican II speaking in the early 1960's! Was that not credibly
prophetic regarding the conditions of our world today?
Early on during the time that I was researching our liturgy, I read a book,
Eclipse of Truth - Part 1, The Law of Worship. A couple of convicting
quotes stayed with me: "Thus, according to the obligations and rights which
belong to all members of Christ's Church, not only is there no room
afforded for liturgical abuse - but the faithful are bound to defend the
Faith when necessary from such occurrences when they are confronted with
them."[iv]
"It is, truly, a most regrettable thing that liturgical abuse has gone so
far. There is no question that such abuse is an offense against God and
against His Church - the Body of Christ. Catholics faithful to the Church
are duty bound to seek to stop liturgical abuses."[v]
Most who will receive this missive are married couples. "The sacrament of
marriage takes up and re-proposes the task of defending and spreading the
faith, a task that has its roots in Baptism and Confirmation, and makes
Christian married couples and parents witnesses of Christ 'to the end of
the earth,' missionaries, in the true and proper sense, of love and
life."[vi]
"Obedience to the Holy Spirit includes a faithful observance of the
commandments of God, the laws and precepts of the Church, and just civil
laws."[vii]
Recently the Holy Spirit has relentlessly been prompting me to write this
missive and get it out to many. I again resisted for a long time because I
did not want to face the prospect of losing more of the few friends that I
have left. But, so be it! The Lord consoles me by saying, "You are my
friends if you do what I command you".[viii]
Isn't He the only one who really counts? When Judgement Day for me arrives,
I will not have to answer to a single one of you who are reading this now -
I will only be answering unto God. As someone once said, "You gotta do what you gotta do." "If I preach the
gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been
imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it."[ix]
"But Peter and the apostles said in reply, 'We must obey God rather than
men'."[x]
One lady from my parish said that if she spoke up on some of these
atrocities she would be persecuted. Back in the first few centuries,
persecution meant the imprisoning, beating and killing of Christians.
Today, although those things still occur in lands far from us, persecution
here in our US of A amounts to our being shunned, denied revered positions
in our parish or diocese, denial of the better seats at banquets,
stigmatized by name-calling such as religious fanatic, traditionalist,
liturgical police, or self righteous, being recipients of 'hate mail',
being ignored by those formerly our friends, and - now it gets ugly -
refusal to stand next to us at the water cooler, and so forth.
This lady said to me, I won't be persecuted because I intend to never do
anything to be persecuted! I won't criticize her for what she said because
she really was speaking for most of us, including myself at one time in the
past. However, let us not forget Our Lord's advice, "Enter through the
narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to
destruction and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate
and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are
few."[xi]
Another friend has told me more than once that you have to be obedient to
your pastor in everything. If your pastor told you he was certain that
scriptures have proven to him that we can walk on water and he proceeds to
walk off a pier into the ocean, would you follow him because he told you
to?
The point I am trying to make here is that every one of us are only
required (as they say in the military) to obey lawful orders. So, if your
pastor tells you that you may not pass out anti-abortion literature on
Church property, you must obey him because that order is within his
authority to give. But, if he tells you to join in and recite part of the
Eucharistic prayers, it would be a sin for you to cooperate under the false
pretense of obedience.
Before I go on, let me (or should I say let the Lord) briefly address
persecution. I would be stating an untruth if I told you that you would not
be persecuted if you Defend Your Faith or otherwise evangelize. Persecution
comes with the turf! Enough of my words on this - listen to our Lord speak:
"If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to
the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to
the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.
Remember the word I spoke to you, 'No slave is greater than his master.' If
they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word,
they will also keep yours. And they will do all these things to you on
account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me."[xii]
"So they left the presence of the Sanhedrin, rejoicing that they had been
found worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name."[xiii]
"Bless those who persecute [you], bless and do not curse them."[xiv]
"If you are insulted for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the
Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you."[xv] "But I say to you, love
your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you."[xvi]
And finally, "In fact, all who want to live religiously in Christ Jesus
will be persecuted."[xvii]
I see a solution here for those who do not want to be persecuted, simply
don't live a life in Christ and deny him - refuse to do His work, a-hem!
"Evangelization takes many forms and employs many media of communications:
personal witness in one's circle of friends and co-workers; etc. It is
understood that, with the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, every
Christian receives the commission to bear witness to the message and work
of Christ, so that others may believe in Him."[xviii]
Does it not then stand to reason that if we remain silent, Christ remains
silent?!
"Confirmation [the Sacrament] means accepting responsibility for your faith
and destiny. Adulthood means that you must do what's right on your own, not
for recognition or reward but merely because it's the right thing to
do."[xix]
The Holy Spirit was seen as giving a particular strength to fight for the
Christian Faith and life. Think back to your youth (for most of us). Do you
remember Confirmation day when the bishop gave you a little slap on the
cheek? "This emphasis even found its way into medieval ritual, which had
the bishop administer a light tap or slap on the cheek of the one being
confirmed, to show him that he must be ready to lay down his life for the
Faith, must defend it and be a soldier for Christ.
Contemporary theology sees Confirmation as a completion of Baptism, a
sealing with the Spirit to enable the Christian to witness to his Faith in
a mature way.
Pope Paul VI, in the Apostolic Constitution on the Sacrament of
Confirmation, still sees this sacrament as endowing the recipients 'with
special strength' and obliging them 'to spread and defend the Faith both by
word and by deed' as true witnesses of Christ."[xx]
"By Confirmation, a baptized Christian becomes permanently marked as a
witness and is obliged to communicate the Faith, with the price of his
blood, if necessary."[xxi]
"The works of mercy are charitable actions by which we come to the aid of
our neighbor in his spiritual and bodily necessities. Two of the s