Re: Dissidents....

It could be the sub-zero cold in Nebraska... Brrrrrr...perhaps it has affected me thinking processes(?)...but here goes:

It's a "long shot" perhaps, but my thoughts while watching and listening to this song, performed by John Hiatt, reminded me of the Catholic Church and what dissenters try to accomplish with their disparaging remarks as they try to rewrite Church history, or attempt to make the Church "conform to their image." An organization to placate their heretical teachings, their political agendas, etc.

"There ought to be a law, with no bail, smash a guitar and you go to jail, with no chance of early parole, you don't get out until you get some soul." Excommunication is the Church's way to "purge" out sin, here on this earth, in hopes that those in darkness will 'see' and come to the Light of the World and be transformed to bring others to Christ, becoming "stars" or lights to the world, with the Fullness of Truth.

And: "but he's still trying to break his momma's back" Dissidents are trying to "break their Mother's back" too, so that she'll be what they want her to be. Not gonna happen folks. Not gonna happen.

"It breaks my heart to see those 'stars' smashing a perfectly good guitar, I don't know who they think they are, smashing a perfectly good guitar." The Church Jesus founded is perfect, as far as moral teaching, etc. but it is made up of sinners, imperfect souls. Peter denied Christ, but repented and was forgiven. Judas despaired of hope...and we know what he ended up doing. I'm not saying where his soul is, I'm not God. Dissidents aren't God either, and when they start telling the Church what She should be and what She should do, then they're playing God, and playing God badly! The Catholic Church's doctrines and her dogma is perfect, handed down by Jesus to those he placed in authority to guide us in this world and in the Faith on our journey to Heaven.

The Church and the Magisterium are given to us from Christ. It takes faith, however, to believe that. Will Jesus find faith when He returns to earth? Will that faith have grown in us and become perfected by our adherence to His Church and Her Teaching? Or will he find angry dissident children, clamoring against His Church, and railing against Him, due to a prideful desire to be "inclusive" as dictates our current, P.C. culture - i.e. being liked by everyone because of fear of standing on and for Truth? We all want to be liked, I battle that daily. I don't want to be hated and I don't have some masochistic desire for pain and suffering, either mental, or physical. Jesus was hated by most of the culture of his day, so am I to think I will have it easy and be loved by all? Do I desire the praise of others more than I desire to please God at the cost of even my own life?

These dissenting groups and factions in the Church today (just as they've cropped up since the gnostics) are in effect 'smashing' the Church because they don't like this or that teaching, doctrine, dogma. They then need to be "expelled" until they come to their senses, and confess rebellion and repent of their sins. They don't get excommunicated (as was done recently in Lincoln NE.) by a "Authoritarian Church" or a "Bully Bishop" but they excommunicate themselves by their very actions. It's not the Church being cruel or insensitive,as some would have us believe, but only a Mother exercising "tough love." As many of us know from raising kids, a very necessary means is "tough love" at times, to be implemented for the good of the child, as his or her very life might depend on such punishment. God, our Father, chastens those he loves...and I for one, am very glad He does so. I needed to be chastened many times in my life, and am only filled with gratitude now, that His Severe Mercy (a great book by Sheldon Vanauken by the way but I digress) was "planted on my backside." Depending on how recalcitrant, rebellious or defiant a child might be, will determine the severity of discipline implemented.

These "cafeteria Catholic" groups are taking their anger,allowed to fester inside them, to a level of trying to conform the Church to their culture. The Church need not and will never conform to the culture. Her purpose on earth is to bring Christ to people and people to Christ. She is to LOVE the culture enough to not let it remain as it is, when it has become darkened by sin and is choosing death over life. Conversions of sin-sick souls need to take place i.e. in "jail" for purgation. "Go and make disciples of all nations" was the mandate to the Early Church. So I ask, do we do that by becoming exactly like what the culture dictates us to become? Or do we become Christ to others, loving them enough to pray they not remain in sin, but to tell them to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and be forgiven. Jesus didn't say, "I forgive you," to the woman caught in adultery, with this addendum "But hey, if you wanna keep on in your adulterous behavior, who am I to judge? It's really okay with me, because I don't want to appear to be like a big ol' bully, you know?"

Jesus was NOT CONFORMED to the culture, he didn't use "inclusive" language to "not offend" people. His pure LOVE did NOT permit sin to continue, but He transformed lives and hearts and souls, so that the desire to sin became less and less in these souls as they were changed more and more into "little Christs." His mercy and love changed hardened sinners into shining vessels to reflect His image to a sin-sick culture and world.

If it breaks my heart to see those "stars" (Catholics who've been given the light of Christ to be the light of the world, yet remaining bent on making the Church bow to their ideologies and agendas) then what does it do to the Sorrowful Heart of our Mother, Mary, and the precious Sacred Heart of Jesus? Can you picture Mary Magdalene thanking the Lord for his mercy in forgiving her sins, having dried her tears on his blessed feet, then turning around and demanding of Him to allow her to be a priest? I surely can't. Yet, isn't that what so many have done, and continue to do with their bashing and smashing Church doctrine? I certainly don't have hate lurking in my heart for dissenting folks, but I do have pity, and feel very sorry for them. What is the day like in the life of a dissenter that is filled with such anger for the Church as to devote their lives trying to change what will never, (happily) change? I don't find them all that pleasant to be around. When I go off on my own tangents, I'm not very pleasant to be around either! Just ask my husband! I just pray to keep getting off my own "high horse" and running to the Father for Mercy and Grace while it is yet "today" and not be caught in the end, at my death with a fist raised in anger at Holy Mother Church...for that is a fist hurled in anger against Jesus Christ Himself. I don't want to be in that number
when the Saints go marching in!


susie