SUPPLEMENT TO THE SERMON FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT. APPLICATION OF A KNOWN LIKENESS.

 

BAPTISM OF JWS CHRIST BY SAINT JAUN THE BAPTIST

Commenting on the Gospel of the Second Sunday of Advent, I presented and developed an interesting question: Can it be said that there will be "signs" that allow us to discern the proximity of the Parousia and that make known the state of the Faith and the situation of the Church in these moments? What do Sacred Scripture and Tradition tell us about it?

Despite the length of the sermon, with its quotes and material for reflection, there may be those who feel that the issue is not sufficiently resolved. Which reminds me of a famous text, which I want to share, paraphrasing it and applying it to our case. It is a Parable ... Let's see.

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I hear you say, with a certain kind of disgust: the writing seems very poor; neither corresponds to our expectation, nor is it capable of filling our curiosity. We expected clear and particular news not only about the substance, but also and much more, about the circumstances of the state of the Church in recent times. We hoped that the signs and signals would not only be evoked, but would also be explained and clarified with clear ideas ...

We hoped, for example, to see and understand perfectly the external structure of the Church at that time, its institutions, its hierarchy, its laws, its liturgy, its ceremonies in the external rite, its discipline, the administration of the Sacraments ...

You can ask as many of these questions as are offered to your imagination, since the field is certainly vast; but the answer to all of them seems to me as easy as it is brief and compendious.

If I answered that all these things I do not know, because I do not find them in Revelation, will you therefore have the right to deny everything, even the substance?

So that you can understand a little, I propose a Parable, a Similarity:

A few years before the birth of Jesus Christ, when the entire Roman Empire, with the civil wars over with the death of Antony and Cleopatra, had been left at peace under Augustus, a little Rabbi, rightly reputed to be the least, or one of the very little ones, he began to read and study the Sacred Books with formal study; adding for his better intelligence the no less principal study of how many writers or legislators were accessible to him.

Having persevered in this study for more than twenty years, he finally understood, among other things, three capital points, or three very serious mysteries, which already urged, or could not take long according to the Scriptures.

He understood first, with clear ideas, without being able to doubt it, that when the Messiah came (whose coming was already urging, according to the weeks of Daniel, chap. IX) the people of God, who had waited and desired him for so many centuries, would be his greatest enemy; that he would persecute him, that he would condemn him, that he would treat him as one of the most wicked criminals, putting him at last in the infamous and painful torture of the cross.

In the second place, he held that, because of this supreme crime, and much more because of their unbelief and stubbornness, Israel, for the most part, would be reproved by God and would eventually cease to be God's people.

He finally understood that, instead of wicked and unbelieving Israel, God would call all peoples, tribes and languages, from among whom (those who heard and obeyed the Gospel) would draw another Israel, another people, another church of his without greater comparison and better; that in this church, scattered over the earth (and at the same time congregated in a single moral body, and animated and governed by the same Spirit of God), a clean and pure, and infinitely pleasing sacrifice of righteousness would be offered to her everywhere to God himself; and that this sacrifice would no longer be according to the order of Aaron ... but according to the order of Melchizedek. (Melchizedek was king and priest of Salem or Jerusalem in Abraham's time)

On these three capital points, which he had understood with clear ideas in reading and studying the Holy Books, our Rabbi wrote a poor and simple pamphlet; all the more so convincing that even the most learned and learned, the columns seemed to be, found no reasonable way of directly contesting it, although they sought it with every possible effort. Why?

Because he faithfully cited in all their context very clear places of Sacred Scripture, beginning with Moses and all the Prophets.

Because it combined some places with others; and with this combination he made the truth of God more evident.

Because with this clear and undeniable truth of God, he convinced of arbitrary, improper, violent, and therefore false the interpretations that were intended to give to these very clear places of Holy Scripture.

Nevertheless; As these ideas, although perfectly and manifestly in accordance with the Scriptures, seemed diametrically opposed to the ideas vulgarly received, it was as a natural consequence that not a few got into an uproar, some more, others less, according to the talent and scholarship of each one.

The most (and the least sane) said: is this not the least, or one of the least among all our scribes? Well, is it credible that this little one has come to discover such great and new mysteries, which until now had been hidden from our most learned? And they were scandalized in him.

Others, saner or more astute, knowing well the difficulty of directly fighting the substance of that writing (in which they found nothing other than the Scripture itself faithfully quoted and combined) devoted themselves entirely to attacking the circumstances.

Of course, they began to oppress the little author with questions, no less importunate than laughable, to which neither he nor anyone else was capable of answering.

 

They asked him, for example:

 

- What would this new people of God, this new Israel, or this new Church made up of so many peoples, peoples and languages ​​be like?

- What is their order, or their hierarchy?

- What would be your capital city, or the center of unity of such a vast church?

- What are its laws, its customs, its discipline, its exterior worship, its priesthood, its sacrifices, its ceremonies? Etc etc.

Some strongly urged him (and not a few, tempting him, to be able to accuse him), to explain more about the literal intelligence that he intended to give to that text of Malachi: My will is not in you ..., nor will I receive any offering from your hand. Because from where the sun rises to where it sets, my name is great among the nations, and in every place it is sacrificed and offered to my name a pure offering; for great is my name among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.

 

They asked him to explain with clear ideas:

 

- What sacrifice would this be?

 

- With what rites or ceremonies would the true God be offered?

 

- If there were everywhere temples as magnificent as the one in Jerusalem?

 

- If there were priests taken indifferently from all peoples, tribes and languages, or from any particular tribe or family?

 

- What dresses would these wears, both in the temples and outside of them?

 

- If the new Israel of God would be forced to be effectively circumcised and to observe all the law of Moses?

 

- If instead of this law there would be another and which one? Etc. Etc. Etc.

 

The little scribe or Rabbi, hardly worthy of the name, felt not only embarrassed, but oppressed with so many questions.

His answer to all of them was general (nor could it be otherwise); for the mode and particular circumstances of our present Church are certainly not found in Revelation, despite the fact that the whole substance of this great mystery is very clear.

Thus, he said loudly, without fear of the storm of stones that he saw in the hands of the populace: the thing will happen punctually, just as it is written, then, as the Lord says, although for another purpose: My advice will subsist, and all my will will be done. Israel will cease to be God's people because of their unbelief, and the people will be called to take their place. The particular way and circumstances with which this great mystery will be worked, I do not know, because I do not find it express and clear in the Sacred Scriptures. I only know from them (he went on to say) that the Messiah, when he comes, will offer himself as a sacrifice to God his Father for the sins of the whole world. I only know that this very long-lasting offspring, or, what seems the same, this continuous succession of God's children, begotten by the Messiah himself with his most painful death, with his blood and with the outpouring of his divine Spirit, will be so many in all the earth, that it will be impossible to number and count them: that same righteous my servant will justify many with his knowledge, and he will bear their sins upon himself… He will sprinkle many peoples. I only know from Psalm CIX that, having offered himself for sin, he will be an eternal Priest, and no longer after the order of Aaron, but after the order of Melchizedek.

In this way our simple Rabbi responded to all the questions that were put to him, and to all the difficulties that were proposed to him.

And indeed, how was it possible that an ordinary man (and even if he had been of perfect science), could answer thirty years before the birth of Jesus Christ to so many and such diverse questions about the way of being of our present Church?

Who could then know with clear ideas and individual circumstances, what had to happen in the world after the death of the Messiah?

The substance of this great mystery is certainly found in the Scriptures, and our own experience teaches us so, and makes us realize it very frequently; but the particular circumstances are not found.

For how could those who lived in Jerusalem in the time of Augustus know or even suspect them?

- Could then be proven with some place in Scripture, that the Messiah would choose twelve humble and simple men, to found his Church and call and gather in it all sorts of people?

- Could it then be proven with some place in Holy Scripture, that one of these simple ones, constituted a prince among all, would be sent to put his chair in the same capital of the great and superb Roman Empire?

- That this humble chair would remain firm and immutable in Rome, despite all the oppositions, contradictions and violence of the greatest empire in the world?

- That this empire that seemed eternal, would finally be forced to give up its position to the saddle of a poor fisherman?

- That this chair would be recognized and respected as the true center of unity of all true believers throughout the world?

- That these true believers from all over the world would build in all their cities, in their villages, and even in their countryside, innumerable temples to worship the true God in them?

- That in all these innumerable temples a continuous sacrifice would be offered incessantly to the living God; That is, the pure sacrifice and oblation spoken of in Malachi?

- That this sacrifice and pure oblation would not be anything other than the same Body and Blood of Christ that was offered on the cross once, and this under the species of bread and wine; according to the order of Melchizedek?

- That this sacrifice, in short, would be offered to God with these, or with those ceremonies?

All these particular things, that we now see and enjoy, could they be known thirty years before the birth of Jesus Christ, only with the lesson of the Law and the Prophets?

 

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Then apply the similarity to the matter we are dealing with now: what are the “signs” that allow us to discern the proximity of the Parousia and that make known the state of the Faith and the situation of the Church at that time? What do Sacred Scripture and Tradition tell us about it?

The application could not be easier.

To all the questions that they asked me, and to the questions and difficulties that the most wise men presented to me, I cannot answer in any other way than simply confessing (without having to be ashamed of this confession) that the Sacred Scriptures and Tradition do not say a word about the circumstances and particulars that would happen or will happen with respect to the situation of the Holy Church during the general apostasy, when the times of the nations are fulfilled, the partial conversion of the Jews has arrived, and the universal dominion of the two Beasts, the Antichrist and the False prophet.

I am also unaware of the manner and circumstances with which even those very clearly proclaimed by the Holy Scriptures and Tradition, but whose substance or general mystery are undeniably consigned, must be verified.

However, even in the midst of this ignorance and darkness, as far as mode is concerned, I think all that is good I can think, both morally and physically; and I extend myself as much as I can when I see myself as invited and even excited by the very vivid expressions of the Prophets of God.

 

There will therefore be a supreme test for the Church, which will be a true Passion, led by the man of sin, the son of perdition. And this, in turn, will not manifest itself until after a general apostasy, and after the disappearance of a providential obstacle, that is, the Catholic faith of the Roman Church.

Consequently, faith will almost no longer be found on earth, that is, it will have almost completely disappeared from all earthly institutions.

Finally, for the militant Church there will be a true defeat: "the Beast will be given the power to wage war on the saints and defeat them" ...

The Church will be deprived of all temporal power and will be stripped of the very brilliance that comes from supernatural gifts and the teachings of doctrine will be silenced ... (as Saint Gregory the Great says).

In those times the Church could be reduced to a single province ... (as expressed by Saint Roberto Bellarmino).

The Church will be taken more and more to simply domestic and individual proportions ... (as Cardinal Pie sentenced).

Ecclesia non apparebit ... (as taught by Saint Augustine), that is, the Church will not appear, it will not be visible, it will be eclipsed ...

This will happen in the end times, when the Church has been taken out of the way… (as Saint Victorino de Pettau explained).

The Church will disperse, it will be driven to go to the desert, and it will be for a time, as it was in the beginning, invisible… (as all the Fathers of the Church teach, as Cardinal Manning assures us).

Therefore, I admire with great admiration, to see the great and useless efforts that you try to make, I do not say to deny, but to do absolutely without this truth of God, which you already know, no less than I do; which I evidently infer from your claims, and much more from the ineffectiveness and even extreme coldness of your arguments.

 

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If your reading has come this far, perhaps you want to know who the author of the paraphrased Parable is.

Well, it is taken from the book of the Reverend Father Manuel Lacunza Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty, Third Part, Chapter XIII.

 

R. P. J. C. Ceriani