Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:08 <inaudible>,
Speaker 1 00:21 I guess, uh, I'll make a remark before we get going. So we should be thankful for what we have. I, uh, I was just on retreat with one of my very, one of my very good friends had to leave their treaty early cause of his mother go back to Malay. She's a priest from Malaysia. His father died two years ago and uh, the priest called up his mother and said, uh, well since your son says a lot mass, I'm just calling to let you know that he won't be able to see mass for a year. His father in the parish or actually on any das in property. And he hadn't. And that's, that's so pastoral care the priest gave to his mother when, when his father died. So they actually ended up, the Buddhist invited them. So he said mass in the Buddha. They're, the guys are chanting on the other side of some wall and the Muslims and Hindus brought the food.
Speaker 0 01:15 Yeah.
Speaker 1 01:16 I mean heaven help those priests in that diocese, you know? So we had to pray for those people because the burial of the dead is a corporate work of mercy and it's just astonishing. But be thankful for what we have and remember the people that don't.
Speaker 0 01:33 Okay.
Speaker 1 01:36 Today on the great feast of Pentecost, we're going to revisit a topic that we've looked at before. Now to put it all into context, we'll take a moment to make sure we have a clear grasp of our actual objective, uh, situation. And do that. This quote from the Pope Leo the 13th quote, the race of man after it's miserable, fall from God, separated into two diverse and opposite parts of which the one steadfastly contends for Truth in virtue. The other, those things which are contrary to virtue and the truth. The one is the Kingdom of God. Honor, namely the True Church of Jesus Christ and those who desire from their heart to be United with it so as to gain salvation must of necessity serve God and his only begotten Son with their whole mind and with an entire will. The other is the Kingdom of Satan and whose possession and control are all whosoever follow the fatal example of their leader and of our first parents.
Speaker 1 02:41 Those who refuse to obey the divine internal law would have many aims that our own and contempt of God in many aims also against God. Close quote the vicar of Christ. Okay, so mankind is divided into two and only two camps. One camp is headed towards heaven, the Kingdom of God, an earth, the true Church of Jesus Christ. Now the camp is headed towards hell and as the Kingdom of Satan, and that's not all thanks to Adam, we all start life in the Kingdom of Satan. Excepted of course our Lord. I bless it mother. Some mankind is divided into only two camps, the Kingdom of God earth, the True Church of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of Satan, and we're all born as members of the Kingdom of Satan and that's still not all. See, God is under absolutely no obligation to move us into his kingdom. No one can say to God that it's unfair if he doesn't move him out of the Kingdom of Satan into his kingdom.
Speaker 1 03:50 So our actual situation is it mankind is devoted, divided in two camps, and there's only two camps. The Chemo God on Earth, the True Church of Jesus Christ, and the keynote was Satan. And God's under absolutely no obligation whatsoever to move any of us out of the Kingdom of Satan into his camp. And if he has, it's a peer mercy. It's just a mercy. Okay. So over the past year, we've considered from several points of view in order to make sure that we have the correct Catholic understanding, because in this area there are lots of misunderstandings. We've considered from several points of view of the dogma. There's no salvation outside the Catholic church in order to deepen our understanding, this dog, my today we'll meditate on the sermon given by Saint Peter on that first Pentecost. And in the process we'll rely heavily on the analysis. The late great Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton. Monsignor fent was one of outstanding two mystic theologians of the last century of Vatican to Monsignor Fenton.
Speaker 1 05:02 Was a member of the prep theological commission, the doctrinal commission, the commission on faith and morals. He also served as a pretest, which is a, that's just a fancy Latin word that means a theological expert. He was a theologian, uh, at the council for Cardinal Auto Fiani who is the head of the holy office. So I've condensed an entire chapter from one of his books and to just, uh, you know, paragraphs. So what falls is essentially a very long edited quote with all that as background. Let's first listen to the end of that great Pentecost sermon preached by our holy patron, Saint Peter Saint Peter quote, do pennants and be baptized every one of you and the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And with very many of the words did testify and exhort them saying, save yourselves from this perverse generation. They therefore that received his word were baptized. And we're adding that day about 3000 souls close quilt, the Holy Ghost do pennants and be baptized. Every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ. For the remission of your sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Save yourselves from this perverse generation. They therefore that received his word were baptized and we're adding that day about 3000 souls.
Speaker 0 06:28 Hmm.
Speaker 1 06:29 Well discussing Saint Peter's sermon, Monsignor Fenton points out quote both the text and the context, the acts, the apostles assure us that the people who hated St Peter's and junction to save themselves from this perverse generation entered the true Church of God, the Kingdom of God on earth. They entered the Catholic Church, not Saint Peter's words on this occasion meant anything at all. They signified that the individuals to whom he was speaking were in a situation which would lead them to eternal rune if they continued in it. They were described as belonging to a perverse generation. They're told to save themselves by getting out of it, the institution which they would leave, but the very fact of leaving this perverse generation was none other than the Catholic church itself.
Speaker 1 07:24 The clear implication of Saint Peter Statement is that the church, the Kino of God, was the only institution or social unit of salvation not to be within the society was to be within the perverse generation within which a man was faced with eternal and entire spiritual ruin. To leave the perverse generation was to enter the church by God's institution. The process of salvation itself involves a passage from the Kingdom of Satan in to the church. Enough for the proper. Understand. This doctrine is imperative to understand the religious condition of the people to whom Saint Peter Develop delivered a sermon sermonette first Christian Pentecost. The acts, the apostles, which we just heard in the epistle, describes him as Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven.
Speaker 1 08:22 A great many of these people were pilgrims, men and women who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the great Jewish feast of Pentecost. Our Lord had died on the cross. Only a little over seven weeks before Saint Peter delivered that sermon, and many of the people who listen to Saint Peter must have been on their way to Jerusalem at the very time or Lord died. They'd begun. Their pilgrimage is an act of worship in the Jewish religion. At the very time when the Jewish religion was the one approved, especially by God, and when the Jewish religious Commonwealth was actually the supernatural Kingdom of God on Earth, the Church of the Old Testament, these people as individuals probably had nothing whatsoever to do with the persecution and murder of incarnate word. They'd started on a journey as members of God's chosen people, the people of his covenant, their journey to Jerusalem was made precisely in order to worship and honor God.
Speaker 1 09:22 They were truly devout individuals. Yet seven weeks before the religious body to which they belonged had ceased to be God's church. The Jewish religious social unit had definitively rejected our Lord, the Messiah as promised and Old Testament. This company had hitherto enjoyed its position as God's Church by virtue of the fact it accepted and professed. It's acceptance of the divine message about the promised redeemer. In rejecting the redeemer itself himself, this social unit had automatically rejected the teaching God had given about him. The rejection of this message constituted abandonment of the divine faith itself. By manifesting this rejection of the faith, the Jewish religious unit fell from its position as the company of the chosen people. It was no longer God's church, his supernatural kingdom on earth. It would become part of the Kingdom of Satan.
Speaker 1 10:31 Well, the great joys social, and it was checking our Lord, the little company of the disciples organized by our Lord around themselves. Ron himself retained its faith. It continued to accept and to bear Lord, and to believe the divinely revealed message that centered around him. Thus at the moment of our Lord's death on calvary, the moment when the old dispensation was ended in the Jewish religious association ceased to be the supernatural kingdom of God in Earth. This recently organized society of our Lord's disciples began to exist as the Kingdom of God on earth. This society was the true continuation of Israel. The men who in it were the truth sons of Abraham in that they had the genuine faith of Abraham. The society was the Newest Association of the chosen people. Its members were at Saint Paul called them the elect or the chosen of God. It was the true church or company, the faithful in the sense that no man could attain to eternal salvation unless he passed from this life within it. This organized society within which unworthy members would be intermingled with the good until the end of time was actually our lords on mystical body. So it was that when Saint Peter spoke the crowd at first Christian Pentecost, the society which he had been constituted, the visible head was actually the Church of God. His heres who a few weeks before weeks before had belonged to God's supernatural kingdom on Earth by me, by means of their membership in the Old Testament community now actually found themselves in the perverse generation precisely by means. That same membership, when St Peter First spoke to them, they were in a position from which they needed to be saved. They were no longer members of the chosen people.
Speaker 1 12:35 It's extremely important for us to remember that the People St Peter Urge to save himself from a perverse generation in which they were living. We're definitely not men have no religion at all. They were developed members of establishment, which had been less than eight weeks before God's supernatural kingdom on earth and that establishment, they had learned love for God and Zealand, his service, many of them were so moved by zeal for the service of God. They were willing to travel very considerable distances and undergo serious hardships in order to assist at the temple sacrifice in Jerusalem during the days of the great feast of Pentecost. Saint Peter did not recommend these, the church to these people merely as something far more perfect than the religious affiliation that they already possessed. On the contrary, Saint Peter made it clear that it was necessary for them to transfer themselves from the perverse generation in which they then existed to a condition of salvation. The acceptance of his teaching was in fact an entrance into the church. It is in line with this teaching that Saint Paul in his epistles refers to those within the church as saved. The entire context of the new testament brings out the fact that by Andrew during the church, men are actually being saved from the dominion of Satan, the Prince of this world. Saint Peter made it clear that in entering the church, the people to whom he was speaking at first Christian Pentecost, we're really being saved.
Speaker 1 14:11 We must not lose sight of the fact that in her own day there's sometimes a tendency to imagine that persons who are in a position comparable with that of the people to whom Saint Peter's sermon was addressed are really an acceptable position. In every age of the church. There's been one portion of Christian doctrine which men have been especially tempted to misconstrue or deny in our own times. It's that part of the Catholic truth which was bought out by special force and clarity by Saint Peter and his first missionary sermon in Jerusalem. It is somewhat unfashionable today to insist as Saint Peter did, that those who are outside the two Church of Jesus Christ stand in need of being saved by leaving their own positions and entering the church. Nevertheless, this remains part of God's own revealed message. It's a part of Catholic doctrine that entrance into the church actually by becoming a member of the church and when this is impossible, at least by an implicit though sincere desire, intention, entrance to the church is part of the process of salvation is equally a part of Catholic teaching.
Speaker 1 15:24 However, that this is by no means the only part a man is saved from the evil belongs to the Kingdom Satan by his entrance into the church, but this entrance in no way guarantees that he will actually enjoy the beatific vision for all eternity. The process of salvation is not fully completed. A man cannot be said to be saved in the full sense of the turn until he's attained the beatific vision itself. Thus, despite the fact that it's possible for a man to be within the church and to lose his soul, salvation is itself a process which involves his social aspect. Everyone who's been born since instead of Adam. The exception of course of our Lord is blessing mother. Everyone is coming into the world as a member of the fond family of Adam and thus as a one who belongs to what St Peter does designated as the perverse generation.
Speaker 1 16:23 What Pope Leo the 13th called the Kingdom of Satan. The process of salvation is a process by which such men had been brought from that condition of a version from God into enjoyment. The beatific vision involved in that process by God's own institution is a transfer from the Kingdom of Satan into the one supernatural kingdom of God on earth. Since the moment of our Lord's death on the cross, that kingdom has been, again, by God's own institution, the Catholic Church, the mystical body of Christ, honor close quotes, Monsignor Flint, and it is extremely important for us to remember that the people at St Peter Urge to save themselves from the perverse generation in which they were living were definitely not men, have no religion at all. They were devout members of the establishment, which had been less than eight weeks before God's supernatural kingdom on earth and that establishment, they had learned love for God and zeal in service.
Speaker 1 17:37 Many of them were so moved by seal for the purpose of the service of God. They're willing to travel very considerable distances and undergo serious hardships or the cyst of the temple sacrifices. Saint Peter didn't recommend the church to these people as something merely far more perfect than a religious affiliation. They already possessed. No, he made it clear that it was necessary for them to transfer themselves from the perversed generation in which they then existed into a condition of salvation. The acceptance of that teaching was in fact entrance into the church. The entire context of the new testament brings out the fact that by entering the church, men are actually being saved. The Dominion of Satan, the Prince of this world, Saint Peter makes it clear that an entering the church, the people to whom he was speaking on that first Christian Pentecost were really being saved in our day.
Speaker 1 18:37 There's sometimes a tendency to imagine that persons who are in a position comparable with that to the people to whom Saint Peter was preaching are really unacceptable position. It is unfashionable to put it mildly, to insist as Saint Peter did, that those who are outside the two Church of Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church stand in need of being saved by leaving their own positions and entering the church unpopular, not they remained part of the revealed message of God. Okay, let's review what we've seen on this topic over the course of the year. We've seen that it's a dog with a Catholic faith that the Roman Catholic church is actually the one and only supernatural kingdom of God on earth. The one and only institution outside of which no one at all is saved and outside of which there is no remission of sins. We've seen. It's a great mystery that is visible society. This organization which so many bad members are mingled with the good is actually the one and only supernatural kingdom of God on earth.
Speaker 1 19:46 We've seen this is one of the truths most frequently attacked in our own time. We see that this is a truth that may we may be gravely tempted to overlook or Passover in order to make the teaching of the Catholic Church more acceptable to those who are not of the faith. We've seen that this infallible Truett must be understood in a sense in which the church herself understands it. We've seen it. Christ commands us to be incorporated by baptism into his mystical body, which is the church. We've also seen that Christ commands us to remain United to him and to the pulp through whom Christ himself governs the church here on earth. We've seen it as a consequence. No one will be saved who knowing full well that the church was divinely established by Christ still refuses to submit to the Church or withholds obedience from the pulp, the vicar of Christ on earth.
Speaker 1 20:38 We've seen it. Christ the Lord decree the church to be a means of salvation without which no one can enter the kingdom of eternal glory. We've seen order to be saved is not always required that a man be actually incorporating the church as a member, but as necessary that it'd be United tour by desiring desire and longing at a minimum. We've seen this desire to belong in the church need not always be explicit as it is in the case of catechumens, but that when a person is invincible, ignorant, God accepts an implicit desire which is called implicit because it is included and that good disposition of soul whereby a person wishes his will to be conformed to the will of God. We've seen that baptism is absolutely necessary to salvation for our Lord. As expressly said, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
Speaker 1 21:28 But the absence of sacramental baptism can be supplied by martyrdom, which is called a baptism of blood or by an act of perfect love of God or perfect contrition along with the desire at least implicit of baptism. And this is called the baptism of desire. We've seen there four great truths of the faith, which everyone who has use of reason must know and believe in order to be saved. These four truths are one. There's one God too. God rewards the good and punishes the guilty. Three there are three persons in the one God and for the second person, our Lord Jesus Christ became man and died for our sins. We've seen this as the teaching, both scripture and tradition, also the teaching of those great doctors at Church, Saint Augustan see Thomas Aquinas, Saint Alphonsus, and over the past three centuries, this teaching is Bree reaffirmed by Rome on at least three separate occasions.
Speaker 1 22:19 We've also seen that no one can go to heaven unless he's in the state of sanctifying grace and that sanctifying grace is not caused blind vincible ignorance, invincible ignorance is not some kind of sacrament, invincible ignorance cannot even dispose the self receiving sent find grace much less give grace to the soul. Invincible ignorance has never been a means of grace or salvation, not even for the invincible, ignorant people that live up to their conscience, but we have seen that in the case of invincible, ignorant people put people that do live up to their conscious as Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches God, His mercy will lead those souls to the net knowledge of the necessary truths of salvation, either by sane and Misher to initiary to him like you sent Saint Peter to corneas or even send them an angel if needs beet. Instruct them rather than let them perish without their fall and if they accept this grace, they will be saved as Catholics. Okay. That's a summary of what we looked at over the course of the year. There's a lot to ponder there. For now. Let's just consider what are the practical implications for each one of us? What should we take away from this on his beautiful Pentecost Sunday? First, if we Catholics ever lead leave the Catholic Church, we are moving ourselves from the Kingdom of God
Speaker 2 23:46 into the Kingdom of Satan. What does that mean? It means we can't be saved. If we leave the church, we can't be saved. Everyone needs to burn this into his mind. If I leave the Catholic church, I can't be safe. I want us to see, especially addressed the young people here right now. Priests aren't completely stupid. I'm fully aware. They're young people that come to mass because your parents make you that or some of you, they're toying with the idea of when you leave home, leaving all the Catholic stuff behind for the love of God, for the salvation of eternal soul. Don't leave the church. Listen to me. Don't leave the church. If you leave the church, you can't be saved.
Speaker 2 24:46 If you leave the church, you can't be saved. Second, we're already in the Kingdom of God. We have already been placed into the Kingdom of God. We should all meditate on that undeserved mercy. Each one of us can think how much God must love me. Each and every one of us here that he's given us this priceless gift. He's taken us out of Keno, Satan, and he's placed us in a kingdom of God, and that's in spite of the fact that we're sinners and he knew we were going to sin. He still loves us that much. He's taken. Each one of us are the condition of being a child of wrath, born into the Kingdom of Satan and he's moved us, or that Kino darkness and confusion of bondage in the Kingdom of light and grace and truth, the holy Catholic Church. It's a pure mercy. It's a pure mercy, and even for all eternity, we can never be thankful enough,
Speaker 0 26:10 sir,
Speaker 2 26:14 since we're in the Kingdom of God, the true church, that means God is with us. He's with us. He hasn't left us who? Orphans nosy with us. They're the most busted sacrum to altar, which is just so amazing. It's unbelievable. No saying with us like that. When we're in a state of grace, he's present in the depths of our soul. Father, son, Holy Ghost, and most blessed at trinity is president us. He's moved us from being children, wrath and kind of Satan to such a position that we've become his temples. We've become temples of the living God. He's with us. That means not only can we visit him and the Tabernacle, but as long as we're in the state of grace, we can visit the most plus attorney just by simply turning inwards in prayer. Think a dignity to which God has called us. He's moved us from being his enemies to becoming his temples and we didn't do anything to deserve it and a lot of things to not deserve it.
Speaker 0 27:31 Fourth,
Speaker 2 27:34 once we've been moved in this state of grace, once we've been given the supernatural life, sanctifying grace, there's really nothing that anything was <inaudible> had. Anything that we need to be afraid of except sin. We have nothing to be afraid of except sin because that's the only thing that can separate us from God. The only thing you can separate us from God is sin. So we have nothing at all to be afraid of except sin. We need to ponder that and fifth and finally, these truths need to be acted on. What are we doing? What are we doing? Since God is with us both in the most blessed sacrament, altar, and depths of our soul, we have power. We've got supernatural power readily available. We have infused virtues, faith, hope, charity, prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude. We have the seven gifts of the holy coast. We have supernaturally strengthened personalities, power from God himself, and we just have to use it. Ask him to strengthen you. Ask him to conform me more, more perfectly to him. Are we doing anything or are we reaching out to those around us? They're trapped in this perverse generation there locked bondage. The Kingdom of Satan. Are we reaching out?
Speaker 2 29:18 We got power. Supernatural power. We just have to use it. We're not just supposed to sit there. This is the church militant. We're not supposed to just sit there and bask in the fact that we're Catholics. We're supposed to go out and take this message of hope. This message of truth is message of love and freedom in a world locked in darkness and Sin
Speaker 0 29:44 <inaudible>.
Speaker 2 29:46 We need to do that principally in our actions. That's the most important because words are cheap. If you're not living the life, it's the most important thing is to be living an authentic Catholic life. Cause that preaches way louder than anything want to say. But our words need you to be there as well. The only thing we need to be afraid of is sin. And if we don't throw a lifeline to the folks that God has placed in our path, then who will? We've got something they need. We've got something they want, even if they don't know it yet, we've been placed in the Kingdom of God and we want them to have what we've got.
Speaker 2 30:30 No, it's not some kind of giant argument that's gonna do that. You don't make people Catholic by clobbering them. It's pretty easy to win an argument and lose his soul. So we need to know the arguments. I'm not against that, but we want to do it in the right way. Prayer, we need to be channel. We need to be gentle, but we need to do something. If you discover the cure for cancer, would you keep it a secret? We got the cure for hell. We have the cure for Hella and it's the only cure for hell.
Speaker 0 31:06 Wow.
Speaker 2 31:08 Don't keep it as secret. Pray and do something. We've gotta be gentle. We got to do something. Don't worry about getting it right. God works at broken instruments. That's the whole notion of the priesthood, isn't it? Don't worry about getting it right. God's with us. Just do the best he can. That's all we can do.
Speaker 0 31:32 It's close.
Speaker 2 31:35 If we leave the Catholic church, we can't be saved regarding the Kingdom of God. God is with us and want to instead of grace or his temples, the only thing that can separate us from God is sin. So that's the only thing that we really need to fear. We've got supernaturally strengthened personalities and we need to use them to reach out to bring the good news to the folks that God places in our paths. Each one of us can say, God has placed me in his kingdom, the Catholic church, and I don't deserve it. He's given me the means of salvation. He expects me try to help those around me. What have I been doing about this? What am I doing? What will I do?
