The Mystery of the Church…

This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable.  It has not been verified by the author. 

“So, I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.” I think these last weeks, the great feasts, we had the ascension, then Pentecost, then the Holy Trinity, then corpus, Christi and today, Saints Peter and Paul, have been very especially helpful, providential for understanding the great struggle that we’re going through in the Church right now. And so, in this passage I just read, our Lord is speaking about the conflict, the terrible conflict of the attacks of hell against the Church. And so, we see both the human element, which is Peter, and we see this attack from hell. But then there’s also our Lord Himself. He says, “I will build My Church.” And so, we see this great conflict that the Church is in and that we’re experiencing in an extreme way right now. And so, our little Mission of Divine Mercy has been involved in that beyond what we were expecting. And so, there’s a question that comes to a lot of people – well, is the attitude, the messages of the mission, are we rejecting the Church? Are we taking, like a position, like our protestant brothers? And so that’s a very important question, and it’s very understandable in this and the confusion of this. Are we, is the Mission of Divine Mercy, with the messages that we’re receiving, is it a rejection of the Church, of the mystery of the Church? And we’re speaking about prophetic messages. And one of the roles of prophetic messages is to help us see what’s difficult for humans to see, to understand what’s difficult for humans to perceive. And so, the messages are certainly helping us to be realistic about evil, about the attacks of evil that our Lord is speaking about here in the gospel. But especially, and this is the point I want to focus on, the messages are not rejecting the mystery of the Church. The messages are affirming the divine mystery of the Church, affirming that divine mystery. But when we say mystery, we mean something that is beyond our human understanding. But as the Church has always taught, the Church is the Mystical Body of Jesus, and that’s what the messages are affirming, the Church is the Mystical Body. And so that means that the Church, the Mystical Body of Jesus, that all of us are called to participate in these two great mysteries of Our Lord Himself – His incarnation, God, becoming man, taking flesh, His incarnation and His redemption, His suffering and death and resurrection, what’s called the paschal mystery. And so that’s very important that we’re not rejecting the mystery of the Church, but on the contrary, we’re affirming the true depth of its’ mystery. So, let’s look at those two mysteries. The Incarnation, first, which helps us to understand that the Church is both human and divine. Because the Church participates in the incarnation. And our Lord, we know He is God Himself, become man. And so, the Church participates in its way, in that. And so, for instance, we have sacred scripture, which is the word of God, but it’s expressed in human language. And we have the sacraments, which are instituted by our Lord Himself to give His Divine Grace. But it’s through the ministry of humans using visible elements, and it’s for humans. So, in the Church also, as the Catechism says, “the Church is both human and divine, but whereas in Jesus, the human element is without any sin. In the Church here on earth, we know is made up of sinners, us and others, we’re all sinners. That’s what we say right at the beginning of Mass. We confess that we’re sinners, and sometimes we know that it’s very hard for people to see what is divine in the Church, because they see so much sin in its members; so many people see the Church as just a corrupt institution, and there’s some truth to that. The Church is a human institution, and there is corruption in it.  And so, a lot of people, but there’s more than that. The common phrase we hear today is people saying, “I’m spiritual, but not religious.” And what they often mean by that is that religion just seems to them so human and so corrupt that they don’t want to be a part of that; that it seems very far from the spiritual yearnings that they have. And so, the Church should be truly spiritual. That is a spiritual communion, a true spiritual communion of people, but it’s also a human institution, and so that’s very mysterious and very challenging – how the Church can be both a divine communion and also a human institution. And so that’s very, as I say, very hard to understand, but that’s what our Lord is manifesting here. He’s giving the Church so that when, when He leaves visibly from this earth, it will have a human visible head to continue to shepherd it as His representative, which is Saint Peter and the popes who follow Him, and then the apostles and their successors, the bishops. And as I said, this is very challenging, and we all know people have been scandalized by the members of the hierarchy who are living bad lives, giving bad example. But what the messages are talking about today is something beyond that. It’s not just members of the hierarchy giving bad examples, but the Lord’s using a very different term, not just sinful, even evil shepherds, but he’s using the term usurper, which means that they don’t legitimately hold those offices. And so that’s the first point, that the Church participates in the incarnation of Jesus. So, it has both a human element and a divine mystery.                                    And then that leads us to the second, the Church also shares in the redemption, the mystery of the redemption, the paschal mystery. And so, we know that, well it’s very striking that in the Gospel, right after this passage that we just heard of Jesus giving Peter his mission, then we have this passage. “From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised.” So, our Lord is giving them a prophetic light. After Peter makes this proclamation, the Lord gives him a prophetic light. And how do they respond to that prophetic light? “Peter took Him and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘God forbid, Lord, this shall never happen to you.’ But Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan, you are a hindrance to me, for you are not on the side of God, but of men.’” Peter could not accept this prophetic word, speaking of the suffering and death of Jesus. Peter was still, at this point, he was speaking not with his faith, but with his human criteria. And it seemed him unworthy of Jesus, but Jesus rebukes that. Jesus needs to prepare the apostles for the fact that His humanity will suffer and be condemned and be humiliated and die and seemingly be destroyed, but to rise in glory. And, you know, we’ve heard that over and over and over and over again, since we were little kids, but it’s so hard to accept when we encounter it in real life. And it’s so hard to accept when we encounter it in the Church. The Church here on earth, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus, is called to follow Him, so that its human element will suffer and follow Jesus’ path of not just suffering but death. This is very hard to believe; just like Jesus’ Passion required extreme faith, not just a little bit of faith, but extreme faith; so extreme that many of His disciples, even of the apostles, failed. And so, when the Church is called to follow Jesus in His passion, it requires extreme faith, to trust that all is in God’s hands, and that the Church has to pass through this humiliation, suffering, darkness, obscurity, death, to be transformed in victory, in life, in radiance and holiness. And so, what the messages are proclaiming is not a rejection of the Church, but it’s a proclamation of the true, divine mystery of the Mystical Body of Jesus. And just as Jesus’ crucifixion, which seemed to be the sign for many that He could not be God, He obviously couldn’t be God if that was happening to Him. And yet that was actually the moment which was preparing the great manifestation of His divinity, of His Holiness. And so, it’s precisely the moment in which the Church will live, the Passion of Our Lord, and which many cannot accept that it will be transformed into holiness. And so, the messages that we’ve published have very often, almost over and over again come back to this point. So, I’ll read to you one of those passages from one of the messages. This was from last September, September 20. He says, “what is taking place now children, has not happened before.” There’s something that has never happened before that is taking place. “Do not forget this. Do not be afraid. Remain in me. You see that My Church, that I founded upon the Holy foundations of the apostles, and that soul by soul, brick by brick, I have built up throughout the centuries, has been infiltrated, wounded, undermined.” And so, we’re seeing what the gospel is talking about, both the foundation and action of Jesus, and then the attack by hell. “The order that I placed in her for the good of all My children, has been rejected, just as a tree whose branches have been attacked by pests, consuming leaf after leaf, impeding and deforming any new growth, causing the branches to wither, damaging the main trunk and exposing it to even greater infestations and diseases. You see what has taken place in My beautiful Church. The plague of pride, of lack of faith and of idolatry has infested the branches of my tree, which should only produce abundant fruits, nourishing and full of life, shade and shelter. Constant reminder of the provident love of your God. Children, the most dangerous and disastrous infestations are the ones that enter imperceptibly, that develop in darkness and hidden from view, grow and grow.” And that’s what He so often said, that what is happening is very subtle. It enters in a very hidden way, very deceptively. So many people don’t realize that anything is happening, and it goes on, “and when you finally see them come to the surface, how pervasive they have already become, impossible to eradicate, except through the most extreme measures, a complete pruning down to the root. Do not be scandalized at what I say to you, at my words of correction, at the truth that I showed to you for your own good children. You are part of My Mystical Body, a living part of My Church, and I am your head. I am the cornerstone without which everything crumbles.” And here, Sister added a note, which I think is very important. She says, “He is trying to remind us that He is the head, the Lord and Master of the Church, and that even though the chair of Peter is, for the moment, usurped, and with it, much of the present hierarchy compromised, this does not mean that the Church is without a head or leader. Jesus is the head. The office of the Pope is that of being the vicar, that is to say, the one who represents the head, but is not the head, and the head is over the whole Church, the militant here on earth, the suffering in purgatory and the triumphant in heaven. That is why Jesus promised that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her still stands, even if for a brief time, in part of the Church militant, still here on earth, she may be usurped and infiltrated. Another thing I perceive, with regard to the structure and authority of the Church is the importance and parallel of what the Church lived from Jesus death on Good Friday, through His resurrection and then Peter’s triple confession of faith. With what the church is living today, Jesus had died and was laid in the tomb, Peter had denied Him and fled. The apostles and disciples were scattered and confused. The visible authority and structure of the newly born Church was, to all appearances, shaken, destroyed, gone. What remained, a small group gathered around our Blessed Mother, sharing her grief, the dreadful and horrific trial of faith and the agonizing wait before the resurrection and the fulfillment of Jesus words. I am quite ignorant, and can, of course, be mistaken. I only know that the head does not leave us forsaken.” And so that’s the note that sister added. And so again, I want to emphasize this point, the Mission of Divine Mercy and these prophetic messages, it’s not a rejection of the Church. It’s very different from the position of our protestant brothers. It’s being realistic, as scripture is about the attacks of evil, but above all, it’s proclaiming the mystery of the Church as the Mystical Body, who, like Jesus in His incarnation, has both a human and a divine mystery, and also is called to follow him in His paschal mystery. So, it’s an affirmation of the divine truth about the Church. And so, the message goes on, “you belong to the Lamb who was slain and who ransomed you with His blood. You belong to your Jesus. You children for whom these words are new, hard, piercing and that cause you confusion. I say to you, trust in your Jesus. Trust in your Abba. Trust in the holy light of our most Holy Spirit. It is not you who are to shed light on these times and on what is taking place. Your thinking children is too limited and wounded by the fetid confusion of the enemy. It is I who give you light children, do not forget this. Your Jesus gives you the light that you need now in order to cooperate in the plan of our Abba, of our mystery, a plan of love and mercy that unfolds from age to age, guiding, enlightening, purifying. My children My Church, remain in peace in My heart. Do not be afraid, children, how much more you will see just as I saw My apostles and disciples be shaken, flee, deny Me, seen in ruins, what I had with so much effort and love, gathered, formed love. But children in My gaze from the cross, there was also the peace that what was taking place was necessary, and that I would see My chosen ones purified from all their pride, their human way of thinking and acting, ready for the kiss of divine fire that would finish transforming them completely. My little ones who love me, I say these words to you that you might remember that after the purification of My Church, after My reconquest, you will see her renewed, completely pure, full of light, full of abundance of My grace as she came forth from My heart, as I was pierced.” So again, this is not a rejection of the Church. It’s accepting the Church in the fullness of her mystery. He goes on, “the victory is won, children, but you must still live the battle and reparation as an offering, as a sacrifice, united to Me, as I made reparation for you, as I offered Myself to the Father, as I sacrificed it all in order to obey and fulfill the work of My Father, the salvation of all His children. Remain in Me. Do not be afraid. Everything will be shaken as you cannot imagine, much that you thought permanent will crumble down, but do not be afraid. Look at Me. Remember that any victory of our enemy is illusory, temporal, more fleeting than the morning fog. I am the victory. I am. There is no other. Be at peace, children. I see your hearts. I see your pain, your fears and your doubts, your anguish. Bring them to Me, place them in My heart. Repeat My name. God with us. Repeat it and be at peace. My mother covers you with her most holy mantle, and I cover you with My blood. Do not be afraid. Look at Me. Your Jesus loves you.” Amen. 

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Matthew 16:13-19