Halting the Trajectory of the Church's Passion & Death

About this sermon

When the Jews and Romans put His Majesty, Our Blessed Lord, to death on Calvary, they could not do this anyway they wanted. A certain trajectory had to be followed according the permissions of God. Without these permissions, the crucifixion could not take place. To gain these permissions, certain things had to take place such that a green light would allow them to proceed to the next stage. The first permission or green light (i.e., to arrest and bind His Majesty) was granted only after the betrayal of Judas was complete. The next green light (i.e., to blindfold, strike and spit on His Majesty) took place only after Peter had denied Him three times. And so on with the other lights and permissions. The final green light was only granted when the people and their leaders as a whole rejected the Kingship of Christ and accepted the leadership of the State, saying, "We have no king but Caesar." Then and only then did Pilate finally hand His Majesty, the King of kings, over to be crucified. This same trajectory must be followed if the Mystical Body of Christ, the Holy Catholic Church, is to be crucified. As some state leaders at this time have indicated, this same trajectory is being followed now and will be followed with great alacrity if certain people are elected to office. In this election year, we have a chance to defend ourselves from such barbarity and limit their progress along the trajectory of crucifixion. Some important quotes on the Passion of the Church: In the encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi, Pope Pius XII says, “the mystical Head, which is Christ, and the Church, which here below as another Christ shows forth His person, constitute one new man, in whom heaven and earth are joined together in perpetuating the saving work of the Cross: Christ We mean, the Head and the Body, the whole Christ” (no. 77) Pius XII: “From the outset it should be noted that the society [i.e., the Church] established by the Redeemer of the human race resembles its divine Founder who was persecuted, calumniated and tortured by those very men whom He had undertaken to save” (no. 3) Pope Pius XI in his encyclical on the reparation due to the Sacred Heart of Jesus: “the expiatory passion of Christ is renewed and in a manner continued and fulfilled in His mystical body, which is the Church. For, to use once more the words of St. Augustine, "Christ suffered whatever it behoved Him to suffer; now nothing is wanting of the measure of the sufferings. Therefore the sufferings were fulfilled, but in the head; there were yet remaining the sufferings of Christ in His body" (In Psalm Ixxxvi). This, indeed, Our Lord Jesus Himself vouchsafed to explain when, speaking to Saul, "as yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter" (Acts ix, 1), He said, "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest" (Acts ix, 5), clearly signifying that when persecutions are stirred up against the Church, the Divine Head of the Church is Himself attacked and troubled. Rightly, therefore, does Christ, still suffering in His mystical body, desire to have us partakers of His expiation, and this is also demanded by our intimate union with Him, for since we are ‘the body of Christ and individually members of it’ (1 Corinthians xii, 27), whatever the head suffers, all the members must suffer with it (Cf. 1 Corinthians xii, 26)” (no. 14). Cardinal Journet wrote, “The purpose of these stigmata [St. Pio] is to remind us in a stunning way of the sufferings of God martyred for us and of the necessity for the entire Church to suffer and die before entering into glory… The stigmata are a bloody sermon, at the same time tragic and splendid. They will not allow us to forget what the true signs of the sincerity of love are.” For more please visit http://reginaprophetarum.org/#/ & remember to say 3 Hail Marys for the priest

Topics

• Church & Fellowship
• Heaven & Eternity
• The Church