The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear friend,

Nothing is quite so frustrating as to see our best efforts go to waste. Yet, it is true that most efforts are failures.

In today's epistle St. Paul tells the Corinthians of all his tribulations, and yet he also points out the reward for all his efforts.

The Corinthians were being led astray by false teachers who were attempting to make the Christians there half Jewish and half Catholic. What a painful sight this must have been to St. Paul to see his efforts being undermined so easily. In reading between the lines we see that it was very painful for him to say these things, but he was forced by necessity.

How quickly the devil and his human agents move in and begin to destroy that which God has built up. The heresies were rampant in the first days of the Church and have continued throughout history right up to the present day and will continue to the end.

It is just as in the parable in today's Gospel reading. The grain falls upon many different types of ground. But of all this seed only a small portion of it falls on good ground and grows and produces fruit.

The heretics abound even today. The Judizers are here today and work very diligently to prevent the grace of God from taking root in the souls of men. The modernist Novus Ordo would have us look up to the Jews as our "elder brothers in the faith". The Novus Ordo is a new religion; a Jewish corruption of the true Catholic Faith.

The Jews do not precede us in the Faith. The Jews have never had the true Faith. They have rejected Christ and all that He taught. The Jews practice a false religion that is not the same as the faith of the Old Testament Catholics. Our Fathers in the faith from the Old Testament were Catholics who believed in and followed the one universal Faith. And they were anticipating the coming of Christ. They would by no means reject Christ nor would they have anything to do with the many branches and different aspects of what we know today as Judaism. Judaism is a false religion.

God's grace has fallen upon the souls of those in the Novus Ordo, but is of no avail because of the atheistic Talmudic influence of the Judizers.

Next in line among the heretics we see the many Protestant sects. Many of these too have been Judized.

The Protestant rejection of the Sacrifice of The Mass is inherently a rejection of the Blessed Sacrament which in turn is a direct rejection of God Himself.

Thus the Novus Ordo and Protestantism are both very inhospitable ground for the germination of God's grace.

The last bit of inhospitable ground is among the thorns which choke out the grace of God. God's grace can take root and grow but it is soon suffocated by the thorns. The "traditionalists" appear to fit this sad type of soil all too perfectly.

The soil appears to be good but it has many noxious weed seeds just waiting to germinate as soon as the good seed is planted. It soon overgrows and chokes out the good seed. The many "traditionalists" have, what appears to be, everything that would make them truly Catholic, but there are always the thorns of pride, vanity and disobedience choking out any grace.

The few seeds that are left and that fall on good ground are like the Corinthians who heeded the words of St. Paul. They are the few true Catholics who have been protected from: the Jewish fowls of the air; from the hard Protestant rocks; and from the choking thorns of the Traditionalists.

Lest the true Catholics become proud, God has allowed the violent temptations of Satan (and those other groups) to buffet them. And as much as we would like to be free from these attacks, Our Lord says to us just as He did to St. Paul: "My grace is sufficient for thee; for power is made perfect in infirmity." Let us therefore say with St. Paul: "Gladly, therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me."

Franciscan Benefactor Seraph Subscription Electronic copy of the December Seraph ($2.00)in Adobe Acrabat format. Vocations Have you remembered God?