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!
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