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| Wedding Feast |
I could rattle off a range of topics that inevitably
seem to always be top of mind for many Catholics and which the Catholic media
leaps at each time it can publish something in this regard. Contraception,
ordination of women, divorce, praying the Confiteor, the new English
translation of the Mass, in vitro fertilisation, same sex marriage and abortion
are just some of the many subjects that many Catholics challenge continuously.
There are many more!
These debates and challenges, of Church
teaching, are always positioned to be in the best interest of all members of
the Church. They are presented as the means whereby the Holy Spirit is allowed to
work and guide the Church. I don’t presume to know how the Holy Spirit may or
may not choose to work so I won’t make any comment about this point.
I do however understand a little bit about
common sense. Common sense firstly tells me that certain subjects are naturally
just wrong and that no amount of arguing or discussion will change this fact. It
is therefore a senseless debate. Same sex marriage is just one example of such a
topic.
Common sense however also tells me something
far more important. Common sense tells me that Satan has managed to very
effectively distract most Catholics from the reality of their personal
relationship with God. He has used these “hot button” subjects to his advantage
to distract us.
Satan, that being who many Catholics today
sadly don’t truly believe exists, is successfully creating much confusion
amongst Catholics and is achieving his objective, of leading us away from God, quite
successfully. If Satan used Twitter, I bet he would be tweeting right now, “ROFLMAO
at these Catholics”. (That’s “Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off” for
those who may not be familiar with Twitter speak term "ROFLMAO".)
The reality is that, for the majority of
Catholics, many of the “hot button” subjects, like the subject of whether women
should be ordained as priests or not, whether same sex partners should be
permitted to marry or not, whether IVF should be permitted or not, and many of
the other topics, just are not material in their personal pursuit of holiness. Allow
me to illustrate my point with this example:
When my son was in primary
school, aged about 13, he engaged me in a very serious debate regarding what
degree he would be studying towards when he went to University. He also
explained to me what subjects he would therefore need to study in high school in
order to gain entrance to that degree. While it was good to see that he was
thinking ahead and that he had goals to which he was working, the discussion
was actually immaterial at that point. If he had then proceeded in that same conversation
to debate with me why it was necessary for him to be studying certain subjects
in primary school, which he clearly would not need for university entrance, I
would have explained to him that it was immaterial to him at that point. The
only material discussion at that point in time was whether he needed the
subjects to get into secondary school, which precedes university. He would be
foolish to stop working on those subjects because this would result in him
failing to get to secondary school, never mind university.
Satan wants us to be distracted from the
matters that are really of material concern to each one of us in our own
personal journey to personal holiness. He wants us to worry about subjects,
like, for example, whether women should be ordained as priests, so that we
forget that which is important to us personally.
Satan wants us to forget to pray regularly
every day, to forget to attend Mass frequently, to forget to do an examination
of conscience each day, to forget to receive the Sacrament of Confession
frequently, to forget to study our faith continually, to forget to do our
ordinary daily work in such a way that it gives glory to God, to forget to help
those in need and so I can go on.
As Satan successfully distracts us from the
material matters in our personal circumstances, which will lead to our personal
holiness, he is happily able to tweet “ROFLMAO”. He has successfully stolen
from us the wonderful gift that God wants to give us, the gift of eternal
happiness with God in heaven. He has caused us to be like those invited guests,
in today’s Gospel of Matthew[1], who made excuses and were
not willing to go to the Kings wedding feast because they had other things to
do.
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