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The great enemy of the Catholic Church, the heretic Martin Luther claimed that man has no possibility of earning merit before the Lord God, because as a result of original sin he cannot cooperate with God's grace in any way. And, on the other hand, divine grace in the human soul does not find the field for effective action. Therefore, Luther argued that man accesses justification and can be saved sola fide and sola grace through faith alone, but understood as an act of hope, an act of trust and through divine grace alone. Hence Martin Luther advised his followers such nonsense as Pecca Fortiter, Crede Fortius. Sin hard, but believe harder.
Meanwhile, in today's lesson, St. James the Apostle admonishes us all to be doers of the word, not just hearers deceiving ourselves. Already, as we should remember, faith without works is dead. And we might wonder, at this time when so much is being said about Martin Luther's supposed achievements, when Protestant pastors are invited to Catholic, supposedly Catholic temples, to deliver sermons. Who, then, is right? Are the Lutherans following the example, the teaching of Martin Luther? Or the Catholics who hold to the teaching of St. James the Apostle.
Dear faithful, Martin Luther said of the letter of St. James that it was a straw letter, suitable as a fire starter for the stove. He denied it the character of an inspired book and consequently claimed that the letter of Saint James does not belong to the canon of Scripture at all. It is not as we are told that Catholics and Protestants have the same Scripture. This is a lie. This is a widespread lie today. Martin Luther removed from Scripture all that did not fit his heretical teaching.
And as Catholics, we know perfectly well who is right. It was not Luther, but Saint James the Apostle. The Lord Jesus warned us repeatedly. Not everyone who says to me: "Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." As Catholics, we believe that the source of justification and salvation is God's grace and the good works that man, cooperating with God's grace here on earth, performs. And we realize that every day of our lives, using reason, using the free will that God has given us, we have to make a whole series of different decisions. We have to decide that we will do something and refrain from doing something else. As Catholics, we are well aware that between obeying the one who is the truth and the eternal reward in the Kingdom of Heaven, man must complete the work of crucifying the old man.
We must, my dears, overcome our weaknesses, our frailties, using the grace that the Lord God gives us through the sacraments. We must, my dears, crucify the old man, which involves hardship, effort, suffering. But without this crucifixion of the old man, a new man reborn through God's grace will never be born. And yet we should all live in such a way that we can echo the words of St. Paul. And now it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. What we believe, what we hope to achieve, must be reflected in our deeds, in what we do, what we say, how we think. Hence the importance, especially in our era, of the exhortation of St. James the Apostle, this warning that we should not be mere hearers of the word deceiving ourselves, but that we should be doers of the word.
God's grace from the greatest sinner can make a saint, but it is up to man to cooperate with God's grace. And we are living, my dears, in a time when Catholics are being destroyed by neo-Protestantism. One of the foundations of the new post-conciliar religion of man is neo-Protestantism. And we see, my dears, after all, all around us a whole lot of people who say that it doesn't really matter what a person does, what he says, how he lives, because, after all, the Lord God is merciful, He must forgive everyone everything. We see a whole mass of people who have given up any spiritual work, spiritual struggle, who simply go with the flow, because it is easier, it is more convenient, and who live in this conviction that they will get to heaven anyway.
We are living, my dear friends, in an era in which we are dealing with asymptomatic Catholicism. And this asymptomatic Catholicism is not only a problem of post-conciliarism, but also, unfortunately, of Catholic tradition. A whole lot of people who call themselves Catholics, who have the name of Jesus on their lips, the name of the Mother of God. But my dear friends, when we take a closer look, it turns out that the Catholic religion in their lives has no meaning, does not affect their lives in any way. A meaningless Catholicism. Catholicism without meaning, because after all, God's grace is supposed to transform us. And tempting is this vision of Martin Luther. Do whatever you want. God is merciful. God will forgive you everything. Tempting is this vision that a whole lot of modern people, modern supposedly Catholics, believe in. It is supposed to be such a lighter version of Catholicism, a light version, easy and pleasant. But in fact, when we take a closer look at all that Luther preached, all that has been promoted since the Vatican Council, we realize that what we are really dealing with is an extremely pessimistic, sad vision of human life.
A vision of life in which we are not able to change anything, we are not able to improve anything, because that is what this Protestantism boils down to. When we think about it, what is really behind those words of Luther, sin hard, but believe harder, we realize how dramatic, how frightening, how depressing this vision of our life is, a life in which we are unable to change anything, improve anything.
Dear faithful, God's grace has the power to transform us. Today I would like to draw attention to two great problems among Catholics today, including in the Catholic tradition. Two Achilles' heels. It is worthwhile for us to make an examination of conscience and answer the question to what extent this is a problem that concerns me. First, my dear friends, we live in an era in which for a whole lot of people the tabernacle has become a monitor, in front of which people nowadays spend long, long hours, which has become for them like a temple, a source of knowledge of the world. And while in the circles of the Catholic tradition usually this problem of television manages to be solved less or better, sometimes the receivers disappear from homes, land in an account somewhere, are used only in some extraordinary circuŠ¼stances, there is, after all, a much greater danger.
Computer screen and smartphone screen. How many hours a day do Catholics spend sliding their fingers across a small color screen? How much time a day do we waste, my dear ones, on things that are completely unnecessary and unnecessary to us? And we must realize that the time we once lost will never come back to us. This time that we have wasted is already wasted forever. We will not get this time back again. This, my dear friends, is a huge, huge problem among traditionalists as well. The screen, which has become a tabernacle for us, which has replaced the Lord God, which has replaced our prayer, the performance of state duties. We have become slaves to the little color screen.
And the second Achilles' heel of modern Catholics, including traditionalists, is pointed out directly by St. James the Apostle in today's lesson. And if he who professes to be devout, not restraining his tongue, but deceiving his heart, his devotion is vain. We must ask ourselves, what does it look like in my life to observe the eighth commandment? Because we are very eager, often, much and unnecessarily talk about other people's faults. We are, my dears, simply gossipers, although we don't want to admit it. We willingly participate in detraction, God forbid in slander, but these slanders in the bosom of Catholic tradition are not lacking. There is no shortage of those who try to spread false news about other people. They do not restrain their tongue.
Saint James writes plainly, "He who does not restrain his tongue cannot be a pious person, for a pious person knows what a danger, what a threat to another person the tongue can be. How much damage can be done to an innocent soul with the tongue?" And this detraction and slander have become the daily bread for modern people. And more than one will immediately defend himself, that after all he is not saying anything, he is only listening. But if the thief did not have a fence to buy the loot from him, he would not steal. And many a slanderer would not do evil with his tongue, if it were not for those who willingly turn their ear to hear this evil.
So, dear faithful, it is worthwhile for us on this fifth Sunday after Easter to make this effort and consider to what extent the two issues I just pointed out to you are a problem in my life. To what extent am I enslaved by monitor screens and to what extent am I unable to tame my tongue?
Dear faithful, the great danger is that if we don't live up to what we believe, one day we will start to believe the way we live. This was the case of Martin Luther. This was the source of the drama of all the heretics, all the unfortunates who ended up in hell. The Catholic religion requires us to be the ones to conform to the Lord God, to his law, to his will, and not to create for ourselves an idol tailored to our vision, our needs, our imaginations. Martin Luther. Lutherans claim to love the Scriptures, but Luther did not conform his life to the Scriptures, but conformed the Scriptures to his life, to his ideas, cutting, removing from the Scriptures the inspired text, the text that comes from God himself.
And we see, my dears, the history of the Church shows a whole lot of people who, instead of submitting to the Lord God, to his will, to his law, created for themselves an idol adapted to their lives. And this is also the problem of the whole post-conciliar religion of man, which no longer preaches that the Catholic is to serve the Lord God, to do his will. It is man who stands at the center today, and it is the Lord God who is supposed to be his servant, and one creates a God who conforms to the whims of fallen man. This is not the road to heaven. This is the road leading directly into the fires of hell. Where Martin Luther and his ilk are most likely to fry.
May we not take this road. May we, my dears, always have our eyes wide open. May we always be ready to cooperate with God's grace, which the Lord God grants us because He desires our salvation. This threat from the Neo-Protestant heresy is a threat as real as possible, a universal threat. We can see how many souls have fallen into the clutches of this heresy in the last few decades. How many nominal Catholics today are actually pure-blooded Protestants?
On October 13 in the year of our Lord 2017, the 100th anniversary of the end of the Fatima apparitions, a bizarre event took place at the Vatican. The Argentine Jesuit by no means invited Catholics that day to pray the rosary together, to penitential services. On that very day, the Vatican held a meeting for Protestants, for Lutherans. And on the place of honor in the Vatican stood not a statue of Our Lady of Fatima, but a statue of Martin Luther. And during this meeting Bergoglio stated, among other things: "I like all good Lutherans very much. There are very many good Lutherans who truly hold to the teachings of Jesus Christ."
And does one who follows Luther's satanic advice really truly hold to the teachings of Jesus Christ? Sin hard, but believe harder. Does he truly hold to the teaching of Jesus Christ who takes scissors and cuts out of the Scriptures what does not suit him? Does he truly hold to the teaching of Jesus Christ who falsifies it? You don't have to be a doctor of theology, my dears, to give a simple, clear answer to these questions.
But what Bergoglio said is the essence of the new post-conciliar religion. The new post-conciliar religion likes good Lutherans and claims that they truly hold to the teachings of Jesus Christ. Why does it do this? Because the new post-conciliar religion is based on the same neo-Protestant foundation, on the same ideas that accompanied the Protestant heretics. Hence this sense of unity, of brotherhood between post-conciliar clergy and Protestant pastors. Hence this inviting of Protestants to preach in once-Catholic temples, or inviting them to help distribute Holy Communion, as is common in Germany, for example.
Dear faithful, aware of what a great threat neo-Protestantism is in modern times, we wish to echo the words of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre today. With all our heart and soul we belong to Catholic Rome, the guardian of the Catholic faith and the traditions necessary for its preservation, to eternal Rome, the teacher of wisdom and truth. On the other hand, we reject and have always rejected following Rome with a neo-modernist and neo-Protestant tendency, which was clearly evident during the Vatican Council and after the Council in all the reforms that resulted from it. No authority, not even the highest in the hierarchy, can force us to abandon or diminish the Catholic faith, which the Church's magisterium has clearly expounded and professed for more than 19 centuries. Amen.
Topic: Bishop Stobnicki Sermon - Fifth Sunday after Easter (Read 1071 times)