Fourth
Sunday after Easter, April 28, 2013
Epistle –
1 James 1: 17-21 Gospel - John 16: 5-14
“I have yet many things to say to you:
but you cannot bear them now.
But when he, the Spirit of truth, is
come, he will teach you all truth.”
Our wonderful St John Vianney,
the Curé of Ars, wrote about this quote from today’s Gospel with regard to two
charges made against the Catholic Church. Dissenters, those who teach error, charge
the Church with inventing new doctrines. They say because of this she is no
longer the Church of Christ. Those without faith charge just the opposite, that
the Church holds to the doctrines of Christ and the Apostles without any
modernization and therefore is the enemy of progress.
The Church has added no
new doctrines, but dissenters have. Jehovah’s Witnesses have thrown out the
Trinity, claiming that Jesus is not God the Son, but is a lesser god created by
God. Martin Luther added salvation by faith alone and threw out whole books of
the Bible. Judaism is still waiting for a military Messiah. Islam teaches that
St. Michael the Archangel appeared to Mohammed and contradicted the Son of God.
There are many other examples.
The progress of the
Church is laid out in the passage I quoted. It tells us that the Holy Ghost
will insure that the teachings of Christ will be ever better known and
understood, and that the Holy Ghost will cause an every-increasing influence of
Christianity on mankind. Let’s first ask why the Apostles could not bear the
things Christ had yet to say to them? The Apostles themselves give us the
answer. Until the Ascension they still had a worldly disposition. They even
asked Jesus just before His Ascension: “Wilt thou at this time restore again
the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1: 6) Their worldly mindset
prevented them from fully understanding the divine mysteries. As Jesus said, they
could not bear it. Later they understood and dismissed a military kingdom of
the Messiah. That was the Holy Ghost working within them making the Faith clearer.
The Apostles from the
beginning of their ministry offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at which
they changed bread and wine into the Body and Blood of our Lord. Even so, the
early Catholics still visited the Jewish synagogue. They did not abandon this
practice until later, with the widespread growth of the Church and the Faith.
All this refers to the words of our Lord, that the Apostles could not bear more
because they had no understanding. But with the departure of Christ and the
coming of the Advocate, the Holy Ghost, they did understand all the teachings
of Christ, and this was an example of the progress of the Catholic Faith.
This progress did not
end with the death of the Apostles. It has continued through the centuries. Jesus
appointed Peter head of His Church and gave him the power to loose and bind. In
other words, after the Ascension, Peter
was the final authority on Earth of what is and what is not our Faith. Going
back to Genesis, God promised Jacob in a vision that in his seed all the tribes
of the earth shall be blessed and that He will be with him and will not leave
him “until I have accomplished all that I have said.” (Genesis 28: 14, 15) Just
so, our Lord promised: “Behold, I am with you all days, even to the
consummation of the world.” (Matthew 28: 20)
It is unthinkable then that this final authority on earth would end when St. Peter
died. Heresies began popping up early in the Church, and after Peter’s death is
was necessary that that final authority be continued, that it have the
authority to determine what is the True Faith and what is not.
“The existence and
qualities of God, His relations to the world through creation and redemption, the
most holy Trinity, divine grace and its relation to our free will – these are
all subjects which are taught in divine revelation,“ but because of our imperfect understanding these
doctrines underwent many misstatements by teachers of error. “To protect
against this, and to proclaim the truth in opposition to them, and to define it
as far as possible in human language, that was the work of the Holy Ghost in
the office of instructor of the Church.” (Sermons of the
Curé of Ars, 4th Sun. after Easter) The progress of
the Catholic Church consists in this ever-clearer definition of the truth, and
is the fulfillment of our Lord’s promise: “But when he, the Spirit of truth,
shall come, he will teach you all truth.” (John 16: 13)
There is another sense
in our Lord’s words: “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear
them now.” This refers to the influence of the teaching of Jesus on the conduct
and morals of people. And again we are
speaking about the progress of the Church. The parable of the leaven which
spread throughout the bread dough is an example of how His teaching works. It
was a few years after the Ascension, with the rapid spread of the Faith, that
the Apostles realized the full meaning of that parable. Charity was a
commandment already known from the Old Testament, but the great fruit that
charity yielded through the Holy Ghost they had yet to witness. Jesus had
impressed the importance of charity upon the Apostles, and the influence this
had on them is shown by their letters. They gave many directions to the
faithful about the mutual obligations of married persons, parents and children,
masters and servants, rulers and subjects – all these were founded upon
charity. Many practiced the voluntary sharing of property. Poverty, chastity
and obedience were practiced by the Apostles as shown by the words of St.
Peter: “Behold, we have left all things and followed thee.” (Matthew 19: 27) Poverty, chastity and obedience is practiced today in the
religious orders and is a visible sign of the progress of the Church. Fasting,
too, is founded upon the teaching and example of Jesus, but its practice and
restrictions, ordered to suit countries
and the times, and to suit the ability and conditions of the people, that is
left to the authority of the Church under the guidance of the Holy Ghost.
A good example of making
the Faith clearer is the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of
Mary, which was formally defined by Pope Pius IX in 1854. Mary’s Divine maternity
is the primary reason we know that Mary was conceived without original sin. At Luke 1: 28 she is greeted by the Archangel Gabriel who said, “Hail,
full of grace, the Lord is with thee: Blessed art thou among women.” How could
Mary be raised to this highest dignity of being “full of grace” if her soul had
not first been prepared for it by the greatest share of divine graces given to
any creature, that she was about to receive the highest of all dignities, being
made the mother of God? (Douay Rheims [Haydock] Bible)
Popes and bishops throughout history have on numerous occasions instituted and
promoted veneration of “The Immaculate Conception” and this was the regular
teaching of the universal Church. There were contrary opinions; that the Church
did not honor Mary’s conception, but, rather, honored her sanctification. This
was incorrect, and to put an end to controversy, Pope Pius IX issued the
Apostolic Constitution, Ineffabilis Deus,
which did not invent a new dogma, but only made clear the teaching of the
Church through the ages. It was a perfect example of the Holy Ghost at work in
the Church and of making the Faith clearer to everyone.
If there are things in
our Faith that you do not understand, or that you cannot bear, as Jesus put it,
then trust in His Church; ask questions, study your Faith. Follow St. Paul’s
advice in Hebrews 13: “ Be not led away with
various and strange doctrines. For it is best that the heart be established
with grace . . .” That grace is called Sanctifying Grace and you will find it here,
in the Mass and the Sacraments. +++
We Celebrate the
Traditional Tridentine Latin Mass
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