Communion with the Saints

I don't mean to take sides here in a debate between freedom and authority. I'm neither Catholic nor Orthodox, but the Protestant denial of our doctrine of the "Communion of Saints" just seems too shallow to me. A lot of things changed from the Mosaic era of the Tanakh to the Messianic times of the New Testament. Admittedly, it is true that Saul was not supposed to request a seer to conjure up Samuel for questioning, but he did so, and he suffered for it. It was common practice among the heathen in ancient times to consult with seers to bring up the spirits of the dead for various reasons. Therefore, the Israelites were forbidden to follow such practices because it could also be used to contact more powerful spirits, demons, to seek augury of the future. God's chosen people were only supposed to pray for such wisdom directly to Him. No demon should ever be asked for advice.

By contrast, the doctrines of Mary are safe. They are not an accretion of dogma invented by the Catholic Church. They are old and secure, long predating any schism in the Church. They begin with the writings of the Apostles and the Evangelists, John and Luke, and presumably James, Paul and Peter, and they are found in Scripture: John's gospel and Revelations. When Paul went to Jerusalem, they agreed on what would be the kerygma, and then everyone taught about the virgin birth and such from then onward. Mary was still alive then, and Luke would come back to interview her. 

The Church has always presupposed that the saints are aware of things going on here on Earth, and so we can talk to them. There have been hundreds of visions of Mary contacting us. You can cut away too much by refusing the long-held teachings of the Apostolic deposit in the Early Church. From the very first ecumenical council in 50 AD, we have venerated Mary as the Mother of all the believers. And it is ancient custom, from the millennium before Christ, that the mother of the King is the recognized Queen. It reduced rivalries and infighting when the King had many wives. Further, more than one person who went on to become a saint has claimed to receive visions of other saints who went before them.

We do not hold seánces to bring up the dead or speak to demons. That most definitely IS forbidden in Scripture. There is no parallel in that with praying to Mary or the saints. They stay where they are, and we don't ask for boons, only for intercession. We do believe that God listens to their requests, and takes their faith and ours into consideration. Thus, the "communion of saints" can help us to become better disciples of Jesus. We have no need to ask them to tell us "secrets" of the future, or hidden mysteries, nor to suggest what choices or actions we should make. As believers in Christ filled with the Holy Spirit, we pray directly for such wisdom, and if we receive such from our patron saints, we may choose to confirm it with Jesus in prayer for ourselves. As always, we must be cautious, for the Adversary would be happy to trip us up. Yet all the same, a holy vision should not be rebuffed.

One could wonder why reports of speaking with the saints have become so rare among the Protestants of today. It cannot be due to a lack of infilling by the Holy Spirit. There are plenty of Churches that teach about the gifts and fruits of the Spirit. But nowhere do we see either a statue of Mary or an icon of any saint. It must be that the Commandment to avoid any sort of "graven image" has been taken too far to include the depiction of prior holy believers whom we might do well to remember and emulate. Without any images to remind us of the saints, we are far more likely to forget about them and neglect their examples. Sadly, that seems a shame. It is like forgetting who our ancestors were, and neglecting to pray for our parents and grandparents to be well and rewarded in Heaven. Our forebears may indeed be quite comfortable, and the saints surely are, but their remembrance can only rebound to our own good as we so honor them.

We never worship these images of the great leaders of our faith. They would be affronted and quick to rebuff such idolatry if we did. The statue or icon of a saint is not an idol. It is not a dwelling place of a spirit to whom we can make an offering. Veneration is not of this kind, but rather a calling to mind of a person who deserves respect and honor. We recognize the saints as persons whom we would benefit to learn from, and we recall the lessons they taught. We do not dedicate our lives to their service, because that kind of consecration belongs only to God: Our Father, his Son, and the Holy Spirit. If we touch or kiss them, it is a sign of respect and a token of our desire to meet them one day in Heaven. 

Surely, you can see that such admiration and "veneration" of the saints is nothing like the conjuring of dead spirits that is forbidden in the Bible. We want no part of the counsel of demons. But a prayer offered to a holy resident of the halls of Heaven, requesting a petition to Our Lord upon his Throne, can hardly be equated with those ancient vile practices. The "Communion of Saints" is a worthy practice observed by all Christians right up until the second Schism of the Reformation, and it deserves recognition from everyone who aspires to rise to a place in their ranks.

What about the Immaculate Conception?

The Catholic Church has declared it an essential doctrine of faith to believe that the Virgin Mary was herself conceived without sin, so as to be able to bear Jesus without passing on humanity's original sin. This is the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. They say that it was necessary to back up one generation to single out one woman to be born special, to be chosen for the Mother of God. The reasoning, however, seems a bit flawed. Perhaps, it might have been better to allow us the freedom to figure this out on our own. Let's take a look and see. 

If Mary was not originally "immaculate," then God would have had to intervene to prevent Jesus from inheriting original sin. Surely, the Messiah, Son of the Living God, could never be born with original sin. That would have invalidated his sacrifice for our sins. Only a sacrifice without blemish could possibly make the necessary atonement. Mary had to be without sin in order to bear the Son of God, and that includes even original sin. The enormous significance of this event clearly demands it. 

But what human woman could ever be herself without sin, much less be free from original sin? After all, it was a woman who listened to temptation and ate of the forbidden fruit. It was the first woman, Eve, who caused us all to bear the stain of original sin. But Adonai is omnipotent, isn't He? So, what stops the Holy Spirit from removing the stain from Mary, along with any other sin (presumably venial), at the moment when she consented to conceive? He is eternal, so all time is present before Him to manipulate if He chooses.

If God thus performed such a retroactive miracle to cleanse Mary, then Jesus could be conceived without sin as required. And if Mary never sinned after Jesus' birth, it could also be that the same cleansing would have strengthened her free will and reset her inclinations to desire only the good. It only makes perfect sense that she would be the best mother to our Lord as He was growing up under her care.

It just seems like a pointless overstatement to declare that Mary was first conceived to be immaculate. It begs the question of why she didn't get the stain from her mother. It also implies that the Holy Spirit spent centuries searching for the right girl to choose. He was going to have to do a miracle anyway. Rather, in his own right time, He finds the girl with the right bloodline, and poses the critical question: "Are you willing?" When she accepts, the perfect cleansing is performed. Simple.

Oh! How I would wish that the Holy Spirit would do such a miracle for us! Cleanse us at our baptism (or confirmation) to allow us to consistently recoil from temptation and sin. But then, that would vindicate Pelagius and condemn the rest of us. Instead, we need a continuous condescension of grace to forgive the sins we do not avoid, for whatever reasons, and to bring us back to a proper relationship with God. We may amend and improve our behavior, bit by bit as we grow older, but we never quite rid ourselves of the inclination to sin. We have to trust that Jesus' sacrifice will suffice. Perhaps, in the Millennial Kingdom, we may be gifted with both a resurrected body and a rectified inclination that chooses the good. 

Obviously, I agree that Mary needed to be sinless in order to conceive by the Holy Spirit. Our Lord had to be born without sin, and to live without sinning. If the Son of Man, being divine, could not live on Earth without sin, then Satan wins the argument. Mankind isn't able to be worthy of Heaven. But Jesus did manage to beat Satan and resist temptation. And He did go to the cross willingly to die as a sacrifice for our sins. He shed his blood so that He could give us his righteousness. 

Of course, He knew He would rise again, but his flesh didn't know that. Still, if Jesus had had to bear the stain of original sin, and the broken inclination that misaligns our free will, it would have been a much more formidable challenge for Him to live without sin up through the day of his Crucifixion. Even God didn't want to risk that much. It was enough that He had to become a mere human, when He was God walking among us. God had to exercise grace and mercy as never before to take on the mission of being our Messiah, and He earned his place to be our King for 1,000 years. 

We can now look forward to the days when we shall see Jesus' Mother as Queen beside his throne. Mary is also our mother, just as Jesus asked the beloved disciple, John, to care for her as He hung on the cross. Her place is assured by miracles, bestowed according to her humility and acquiescence to the divine will, and we know that she lived in the light of his grace all the days of her life. It just doesn't make logical sense to declare that God was waiting, looking for a girl who would be born without original sin, when He could fix that all at the same time when He covered her with his Holy Spirit. 

Hail Mary, full of grace! Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. 

Ecumenism will Ruin our Faith

Ecumenism is the attempt to meld all of the world's religions into one. But to do that, they want to split off the divinity of Jesus Christ, making Him into just another "inspired" Prophet. Jesus is not merely a prophet! He is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God! This has been God's plan from the beginning, and we can't change or subvert it. We try to do so at our peril. 

Why is this the way God wants history to go? From the beginning, God has wanted to live here with us. God wants to be our first Love and first concern, our Prime Motivator, if you will. But somehow, we lost our trust in Him, and decided to go our own way. The result was disaster after disaster. Without God, we have no moral compass, no objective right or wrong, and we behave shamefully toward each other. All through history, He has been trying to call us back, to listen to Him. But He gave us free will, and we want to follow our own desires and devices. The problem is not just selfishness and sin, however, but the fact that we have no plan, and our vision is too small to see the "big picture." We need Him to spell it out for us. We need revelation. 

Just look at the histories preserved in the Bible, especially if you have never looked at them before. After the Exodus, throughout the Judges, and into Samuel, God never wanted Israel to crown a human king. He wants us to follow and obey Him, not to bow to any human authority. He allowed it just to give in to our demands, and it proved to be generally a bad idea. Only King David did his best to truly love and serve the Lord. So God promised that the Messiah would follow, in the proper time, from his line. Thus, Jesus was born in his line, and was known as the Son of David.

Jesus is our Messiah, our Saviour and our King. As one third of the Holy Trinity, He is the Son of the Divine Ruler of the Cosmos. He was incarnate as a fully human person, and came down to be our Compassionate and Merciful King. Jesus is the fully Divine God who truly understands what it means to be human, and He knows why we need mercy and forgiveness. From the first days of the uncorrupted Garden of Eden, God has always wanted to walk among us, and now He can. He only wants us to believe in Him, to desire to be near Him, and to Know and Love and Trust Him... in other words, to have faith in Him. He counts that faith as righteousness. 

We can't allow ourselves to be fooled by this emasculated version of "acceptable religion." It is "New Age" political correctness, and it won't work. This will be nothing less than a reprise of the northern Kingdom of Israel's whoring after foreign false gods. This new "Woke" theology is nothing more than a mish-mash of mediocre "cafeteria compromise," selected solely for its potential to intrigue and titillate our selfishness and sound pretty to our ears. In other words, we will have chosen to listen only to what we want to hear, and to censure anything that could challenge or offend us or our neighbors. That kind of religion does nothing to guide us to a better life, and it encourages sloppy thinking. It calls us to follow stupid slogans and to champion the wrong causes, without ever seeking to understand either the relevant history or the fundamental moral significance of the situations. False gods, indeed. Such foolish stiff-necked refusal to listen only ever ends with God's anger and abandonment, if not to his eventual wrath.

I am not so blind as to allow blind fools to lead me. I have already seen where this goes. I concocted my own version of it 30 years ago, and it was quite effective. And then a friend told me, "Yeah, you included a bit of everything, so that everyone could accept it, so that it comes out sounding universal. It even sounds very Christian, except for one thing, you left out Jesus." I was pleased to hear it. I had started out as "Christian," and seen how He was the stumbling block that the world stubbornly refused. I even thought of converting to Judaism, because that was the closest real religion to what I already believed, and I wanted to be among the "chosen people." 

But a few years later, I began to ask, how then does one get saved? And I realized, Jesus said, "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father, but by Me." And no one else has any access to God's mercy and grace to forgive sins. God showed us that He had given Jesus full authority to teach by letting Him do the miracles that so amazed everyone. And then, when we had given Him over to be crucified to death, God raised Him back up from the grave as proof of his divinity. You can't get rid of Him that easily. 

We need Jesus. So I abandoned my heresy. I now attend the Catholic Church, although I still have my reservations concerning the schisms, and accept some Protestant and Orthodox views. You NEED Jesus. You can't get to Heaven without Him. 

The best you can do with the ecumenical hybrid religion (it's not a faith) is to achieve peace in this world. And when has the best possible outcome ever materialized? You don't want to see the persecutions that will come first to enforce it. It's going to get crazy out there, so stay with Jesus. God will be watching to protect you and save your soul.

In the meantime, while we watch the world declare its heresies, it will be good to say the Rosary, and repeat the Jesus prayer always in our hearts. Read your catechism, preferably an older edition, and learn the history of the early ecumenical councils from before the Great Schism of 1054 AD. This you can teach. The Catholic version of the Nicene creed is correct, with the Filioque, and the western saints are true to God. But don't dismiss the spirituality of the Early Church Fathers and the Orthodox Church, nor the protests about the abuses that caused the rebellion of the Protestant Churches. They all have valid points, or God would have let them wither. Watch for and discern the heresies. 

The Catholic Church has as its main problem the assertion of the paramount authority of the Pope. He is not infallible, even in the "limited capacity" of Papal Bulls. The Pope needs to humble himself and step down, to admit that he is the equal of all the other Patriarchs. The Chair of Peter is not the epitome of authority, and the Pope is no more the "Vicar of Christ" than any other Patriarch. Jesus had twelve disciples, and they all recognized James as the leader of the Church in Jerusalem. 

But for now, there are many Patriarchates scattered around the globe, and some newer congregations that lack focused leadership. We cannot let our pride dictate division in the Body of Christ. The other Churches must find a way to allow the Catholics to retain some dignity, and accept that they have not been astray for a thousand years. If we must ignore separated councils in order to stand together, we can let them be valid for those who need to follow them, and disregard their points of disputation insofar as they avoid outright heresy. In all the essentials of faith, let us seek unity, but in the parts that don't directly affect our salvation, we can allow for flexibility. 

But we can never call an ecumenical council with the goal of accommodating the world's variety of cultures and religions. That kind of outreach is not true evangelism. It is merely capitulation, deposing our King in order to welcome foreign invaders. That can NEVER be acceptable. We might as well all bow down to Muhammad and accept subjugated status as dhimmis, because they will never compromise to accomodate us. Their clearly stated aim is to bring the whole world to worship their Allah under Islam and Sharia law, and the pressure of that would eventually end all dissent.

The only True faith is belief that Jesus is both God and Man, the Messiah promised to the Jews, and the only begotten Son of God. And He shall be the One True King of the Kingdom of God, on Earth as it is in Heaven, for the Kingdom and the Power, and the Glory is his, now and forever. 

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Help me to amend my ways, and lead me to follow thy path. Lord Jesus, teach me thy Way of Truth, and let me share thy Life, now and forever. Amen. 

Hail Mary, full of grace! The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end. Amen. 

Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins. Save us from the fires of Hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who most need thy mercy. Amen. 

Come quickly, Lord Jesus! The tribulations are about to begin. Do not let us be forced to receive the Mark. Amen!