The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friends in Christ,

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a good man who sowed good seed in his field, but while men were sleeping, an enemy came and over-sowed weeds among the good seed. The True Catholic Church is this Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus Christ is the good man Who sowed the good seed of true doctrine. This world is the field in which the seeds are sown. The enemy is the devils and their human agents, and these over-sow the weed seeds of heresies, lies, or false doctrines. They have multiplied false teachings of God and the Church, creating numerous false kingdoms of God but true kingdoms of Hell. There is and can only be one Kingdom of Heaven.

Evil spirits cannot create; they always follow and imitate. First the good seed was planted, then the enemy sowed bad seed. First came prophets; then came false prophets. First came Christ, then anti-Christ. First the True Church, then many false Churches. First came true doctrine, then many and varied false doctrines arose.

As the bad seed concealed itself — appearing as good seed, so the devils conceal themselves to appear as angels of light, and the heretics conceal themselves to appear as true believers. Once the seed has sprouted, the differences become rather apparent to those with eyes trained to discern them. And those with this gift of discernment are first inclined to root out the bad plants. Pull out or cut down the bad so that it does not encumber the good. This sounds like a good idea, but Jesus shows us that it is not. When we pull up the bad plants, we also disturb the roots of the good plants, and they are harmed in the process. So it is the same in the human realm. We must suffer the evils of the demons and their agents for a time in this world.

The devils not only follow and imitate the good, but they are also adapting their evils to the times, place, and people. In the time of the Prophets, they imitated with false prophets. However, when it was clear that the false prophets belonged to false gods and that there was only one true God, the demons lost the upper hand. When they presented false Christs in place of the true Christ, it was at first very effective; over time, people saw through the deception, as there can be only one Jesus Christ. The devils saw the good of the One True Church, and so they multiplied many "Christian" denominations or churches. When the elect caught on and understood that the only true Church is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, the demons had to adapt again; they planted anti-popes to create schisms and heresies, and the elect soon discerned this. Finally, we see that the demons have now advanced to produce false priests, bishops, and sacraments, within a false "Catholic Church" with its anti-popes. The weeds are almost indiscernible from the good or true plants. They are not only in the field of this world but have moved in and taken over the very buildings and property, vestments, language, etc. of the True Church.

The deception is almost perfect. Using the physical buildings, artwork, vestments, terminology, etc., they have deceived the majority. Only a few can truly discern the impostor. Many focus on only one thing and then are blind to everything else.

Some focus on the Church's physical buildings and remain faithful to the structure no matter what happens within its walls. The doctrine, morals, faith, sacraments, etc. all fall away, but they keep attending the same building because it is all they ever understood.

Some understand that the truth is not physical buildings, but focus only on the language used. They are easily deceived as long as the deception maintains their favorite liturgical language. The late Bishop Louis Vezelis OFM labeled this group "The Latin is Lovely Club." Doctrine, validity, etc. are irrelevant to these as long as they maintain a nice ceremony or show. These are often very impressive, but without true priests they are nothing more than a stage play. The validity of the sacraments is of no concern to these. The validity of the priesthood is of no concern.

Again, to accommodate the times, the demons strive to imitate everything all at once to deceive men by one means or another. We find their grand success before our eyes — they have the physical buildings of the Church, they have imitated the titles of the Church — pope, bishops, priests, they have imitated the sacraments and terminologies, they have imitated the ceremonies, etc. However, with each imitation there are signs to discern these fictions from the Truth.

We must pray and labor to be able to discern all of these deceptions — not just one or the other. Our goal is not to try and destroy them all, but rather to protect ourselves from becoming a demonic plant and perhaps be able to lead others to the True One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church given to us by God the Father, established by Jesus Christ, guided and protected by the Holy Ghost. We must avoid the temptation to become one with the bad seed sown by the enemy and seek to convert the bad seed around us so that it may become good seed to be gathered together into Heaven at the end of the harvest of this world.

May the Immaculate Heart of Mary inspire, guide, and protect us.

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