This will be a time of judgment and purification for the Church. I firmly believe that good will come of it—although the Church will suffer severe scars for decades. I have no doubt that the sexual abuse crisis will drive countless Catholics from the Church and prevent countless other people from entering into full communion with her. That in itself is cause for great sorrow.
The Kingdom of Heaven Is Like a Net Thrown Into The Sea
Instituted by Christ and founded on the apostles, the Church on earth is the kingdom of heaven in its seed and beginning. The Church is God the Father’s intended home for all people, deigned to be so from before time began. She is inclusive, barring no person from communion with her and her founder, Jesus Christ. It is only the individual who voluntarily excludes himself by rejecting communion with the Church through free-choices that are incompatible with the love of Christ and the rule of his kingdom.
Jesus’ Teaching Parables: The Mustard Seed
Was Jesus wrong about mustard seeds? If we’re worried about that, we’re missing the point. Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed is not intended to make scientific horticultural statements. Rather, he used the example and imagery of mustard seeds and the bushes they produce to make a metaphorical comparison with the kingdom of heaven.
Pope Paul VI and The Prophetic Witness of Humanae Vitae
Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae, promulgated three years after the close of the Second Vatican Council, rapidly became at the time of its release the most intensely mocked and reviled Church document in centuries, perhaps amassing more derision than any other solemn teaching of the Church in the entire history of Christendom.
Responding to Mighty Deeds
Today’s gospel serves as a powerful lesson—admonishment—against Catholics who have been entrusted with the fullness of divine revelation and the treasury of the Christian faith in Christ, yet have nevertheless squandered it through acts of injustice, apostasy, and heresy toward the Tripersonal God.