Thanks for the translations, Mr G!
You are welcome, here is another:
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (6 July 2003)
The first thing that must be noticed by today's gospel is the beginning: "At that time the people urged themselves to Jesus to hear the word of God." The people are crowding for Jesus, not the Pharisees! These divinely inspired words reveal the falsehood of those who say, "Let the priests think, you must just follow and obey, do not break your head." What a hubris, what a mistake. If they, these believers, had followed their priests, they would all have been lost.
Now, however, it is not only the case that we are not allowed to follow today's Pharisees, those bishops who place "the civilization of love and peace" in place of Christ's truth (John Paul II, 1.1.2001), but we are in a similar situation to the people of that time: we want to hear (I hope) the word of God and we often do not know where we can find it. The Pope does not give it to us, for his message is that of his inaugural encyclical, Redemptor Hominis (no. 10:2): "The astonishment at the value and dignity of man is called The Good News, Gospel. It is also called Christianism." The latter sentence was even censored in the official German translation, it was evident and even this translator, since Paul VI, too much of a hard subject. This message of John Paul II is pure and unashamed humanism in the worst variant, not humane, but godless.
Let us not receive the word of God from the bishops, for there are at least five different worldviews in ten bishops, and as far as priests are concerned, the cloak of love is to be covered over their emptiness. Nothing is to be expected from there.
So where do we find the Word of God? The twenty ecuмenical councils (among which the 1962-1965 is certainly not to be counted) give us the answer: 1. In the Scriptures, especially in the New Testament; 2. In the doctrine of the ecuмenical Councils; 3. In the teaching of the popes, provided that it is infallible or does not contradict tradition on any point.
Does the last sentence burden us with the duty to study theology? May the answer be in the spirit of St. Thomas Aquinas: distinguendum est (one must distinguish):
Of course, not all can study theology, where? Almost all universities are decomposed by heresy, and in the few circles where tradition has remained, there is virtually nothing that can approach a former university degree. Nevertheless, we have our teachers: the Holy Scriptures (I repeat myself), the encyclicals of the popes, which are available in German, and the priests who follow this only true tradition, whether that is the hw. Mr. Father Milch in his immortal sermons, or the priests of the work of Archbishop Lefebvre. In no case, however, can our minds retire:
Those who love God must think about Him.
"And He sat down, and taught the people from the ship."
How refreshing these words must have been for a crowd that only ever heard the monotonous singing of Pharisees, whose most important teachings were their own holiness and the embarrassingly accurate observance of largely nonsensical Sabbath rules! Although the Pharisees and scribes were educated, their complacent, condescending, and superficial sermons must have conveyed little knowledge, for the blindness that comes from pride deprives any education of its benefit.
Then Christ commands the fish to go into the net to Peter and others. The reaction of Peter, who was certainly not the most intelligent apostle, shows his great heart. In exemplary love and humility, he throws Himself at Christ's feet and cries out, "Lord, go away from me, I am a sinful man!" In view of the wonderful event, the instinctive thought of this humble fisherman is: "Oh Lord, I am not worthy...!" What a magnificent example of humility! How much this basic attitude is lacking for all those , especially in "our circles" – who seem to consider themselves worthy enough to receive miracles, visions and messages from heaven. How much this humility is lacking for those of us who had not been confessing for some time and yet are carefree after a memorably said domine era non sum dignus... approaching the greatest of all miracles, the Lord himself in the host!
Like all miracles of Christ, this one is the illustration of another mystery: "... from now on you shall catch men."
The meaning of this saying seems to have been lost for good in the twentieth century: as I know from passionate anglers, baiting is an art and, as I know from fishermen, net-throwing. You don't catch fish by scaring it or doing nothing. But that is the fault of today. The priests and the faithful have always driven out the fish through arrogance, lovelessness and stupidity, but it was not system! Although until the fifties a canonized father of the mission, Marcel Lefebvre, could still set true records of the mission, as Hans Jakob Stehle proves, Eastern politicsbegan as early as 1917. In the end, ecuмenism, which was raised to the goal in 1965, developed into the one already on March 19, 1930 (!!!), in which, sung in St. Peter's Basilica, the Filioque had fallen victim during the creed!
Without love and without truth, one cannot fish as much as without a boat and without a net. Even if the net – the truth – is holey, nothing will be caught. This is precisely the doctrine of today's Gospel: Christ tells Simon: "... throw out your nets to catch." And although last night was unsuccessful, Simon replies, "In your words, I will throw out the net." Christ shows the future Apostles what a spectacular success they will have if they obey Him and do their duty. If the net had been holey now, they would not have caught anything, if the boat had not been kept tight, they would have sunk.
In the past, the mission has often failed because it was loveless, now it is just a name, because actually the fish are told to stay at sea.
We must also remember the nets and the boat: if we want to convert our Lutheran neighbor, we will not succeed if we confirm to him in a "hierarchy of truths" that he believes the most important thing anyway, even if we prophesy hell to him fiercely and from above. For human fishing for conversion, the boat is love and here above all prayer, patience, feeling, and the net is the uncompromising, complete truth. In prayer we implore the gift of God, faith, in patience we hear the questions AND the responses, with emotion we try to draw attention to eternity. As far as the truth is concerned, we must never give in anywhere, not give up Iota Unum, but produce something well: the Sanctifying Grace and its source, the sacraments.
What else is missing?
"And they... left everything and followed Him."
Topic: Fr. Gregory Hesse website (Read 2229 times)