Pentecost
by
Father Courtney Edward Krier
THE SPIRIT of the Lord has filled the whole world, alleluia! and that which contains all things has knowledge of his voice, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia! Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered, and let those who hate him flee before him. (Introit; Wis. 7:1; Ps. 67:2)
2000 years ago the greatest events in the history of the world were taking place in a span of 34 years that would change the world for the next two millenniums. The first was the Incarnation, the Eternal Word uniting a human nature to His divine nature, becoming the God made man. This was followed over 33 years later by that same God-man, Jesus Christ, being sacrificed on the cross in atonement for the sins of the world. Three day later Jesus Christ rose from the dead and 40 days later He ascended into Heaven, the purpose of His coming into this world being fulfilled—the redemption of mankind and the founding of a Church that would be the means of receiving that redemption. Before His death on the Cross and after His resurrection He promised to send the Holy Ghost and told His disciples to wait in Jerusalem (cf. Acts 1:2ff) before beginning their mission to preach salvation and granting remission of sins through baptism: And he said to them: Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned. (Mark 16:15-16)
Ten days after His Ascension, the promised Holy Ghost descended upon the Apostles and immediately the Apostles began their mission as one reads in the Acts of the Apostles:
And when the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, they were all together in one place: And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them: And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they began to speak with divers tongues, according as the Holy Ghost gave them to speak. . .
Peter said to them [the crowd]: Do penance, 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. For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all that are far off, whomsoever the Lord our God shall call. And with very many other words did he testify and exhort them, saying: Save yourselves from this perverse generation. (Acts 2:1-4, 38-40)
Pope Leo XIII expressed this descent and working of the Holy Ghost, the birth of the Church, as follows:
The Church which, already conceived, came forth from the side of the second Adam in His sleep on the Cross, first showed herself before the eyes of men on the great day of Pentecost. On that day the Holy Ghost began to manifest His gifts in the mystic body of Christ, by that miraculous outpouring already foreseen by the prophet Joel (ii., 28-29), for the Paraclete "sat upon the apostles as though new spiritual crowns were placed upon their heads in tongues of fire" (S. Cyril Hier. Catech. 17). Then the apostles "descended from the mountain," as St. John Chrysostom writes, "not bearing in their hands tables of stone like Moses, but carrying the Spirit in their mind, and pouring forth the treasure and the fountain of doctrines and graces" (In Matt. Hom. L, 2 Cor. iii., 3). Thus was fully accomplished that last promise of Christ to His apostles of sending the Holy Ghost, who was to complete and, as it were, to seal the deposit of doctrine committed to them under His inspiration. "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now; but when He, the Spirit of Truth, shall come, He will teach you all truth" (John xvi., 12-13). For He who is the Spirit of Truth, inasmuch as He proceedeth both from the Father, who is the eternally True, and from the Son, who is the substantial Truth, receiveth from each both His essence and the fulness of all truth. This truth He communicates to His Church, guarding her by His all powerful help from ever falling into error, and aiding her to foster daily more and more the germs of divine doctrine and to make them fruitful for the welfare of the peoples. And since the welfare of the peoples, for which the Church was established, absolutely requires that this office should be continued for all time, the Holy Ghost perpetually supplies life and strength to preserve and increase the Church. "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever, the Spirit of Truth" (John xiv., 16, 17). (Divinum illud, May 9, 1897)
This was not without first establishing a foundation. The Twelve Apostles (Ambassadors; cf. Matt. 10:1ff; Mark 3:4; Luke 6:13) were chosen from among seventy-two disciples (cf. Luke 10:17) to be sent as representatives of Christ with Peter chosen to be the rock of faith and head of the Apostles (cf. Matt. 16:18). Upon this foundation the Church spread through out the world, with Peter establishing his seat of authority first in Antioch and then in Rome and the other Apostles establishing local seats of church authority in various cities: Jerusalem, Corinth, Thessalonia, Ephesus, Smyrna, Alexandria, etc. Successors of the Apostles were chosen to continue the mission of the Church as the Apostles sent Paul and Barnabas (cf. Acts 13:2ff) and others. The Church was firmly established throughout the Roman Empire and beyond by the time of the death of those first Apostles. The seat of Peter was replaced by Linus, and then Cletus. Later, when the Arian and other heresies were ravaging the local Churches, the Council of Nicea was convoked requiring all who claimed to be a Catholic bishop to attend and give profession to the Apostolic Faith and setting that the Church would be forever known as One in Faith, Holy in Doctrine, Catholic in universality and founded on the Apostles and their legitimate successors. The Church would continue to grow and only those bishops and priests would be recognized who acknowledged the authority of the Bishop of Rome over the Church—who himself would be recognized as bishop of Rome who held fast to the Catholic Apostolic Faith. As various heresies would arise, the Pope would call a Council to defend that Catholic Apostolic Faith, making it clear that the Catholic Church is always one in Faith and in its understanding of that particular teaching now denied by a heresiarch and his adherents.
At a time when three men claimed to be Pope, the Church came together at the Council of Constance in 1415 to have their claims set aside and choose a Pope (Martin V) who would be over all Catholics to preserve her unity.
When, 1500 years after Christ and 100 years after the just mentioned Western Schism, innovators wanted to completely reject the Catholic Faith and her morals, the Council of Trent was convoked by the Pope (Paul III) in 1545, to settle once for all the Catholic Faith in regard to the Church as the means of salvation—for the innovators, rejecting the Church, introduced faith as the sole means of salvation, which faith itself was claimed to be obtained solely through the Scriptures as understood by each individual. Despite their growing power, the Catholic Church withstood the attacks of the Innovators and Secular Leaders and continued to uphold the Catholic Apostolic Faith in its purity.
In the Age of “Enlightenment” and “Reason”, when the Church was presented to the world as outside of reason, the Church during the Vatican Council of 1870 once more pointed to that source of her life, the Spirit of Truth, and proclaimed that being guided by the Holy Ghost she cannot err since God is Truth and sent the Spirit of Truth to the Church: But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you. (John 14:26)
Attacked from all sides and from within by Modernism, the Church found herself unsupported by most of her members—clergy and laity—so that when a false Council was called to change the Catholic Faith to fit-in with the Modern World, they embraced it. This Council adopted concepts of a false philosophy that viewed man as the source of his destiny which he is able to control through natural evolutionary progress. The adage—Out with the old, in with the new—swept this Council and by means of mass media campaigns and support from erstwhile enemies the product was a new Church, the Vatican II Church or the Conciliar Church. In Rome, in every city, in every country the Roman Catholic Church became the Vatican II Church—just as in Northern Europe the Roman Catholic Church became the Lutheran or Evangelical Church and in England every Roman Catholic Church became the Church of England.
The question immediately arose: Where is the Catholic Church now? And faithful Catholics began to search for the Catholic Church. This was chiefly accomplished by finding bishops and priests who, despite Vatican II, refused to change, preserving the same faith, the same sacraments, the same sacrifice. But this immediately created a crisis. To cover everything here would be a massive task, but simply stated, there was no longer acknowledgement of universal jurisdiction by a reigning pope since the man sitting in the Vatican was not Roman Catholic. There was no longer local jurisdiction because the bishop sitting in the Bishop’s office was no longer Catholic and eventually no longer even a valid bishop. Priests who continued to uphold the Roman Catholic Faith were put out in the cold for not accepting Vatican II. Yes, some, such as Marcel Lefebvre would toy with a pope-not a pope. But he and others would not declare black is black and white is white, rather they would put the two together and say everything is gray so it doesnot matter and end with a pope but no authority and a Church but no faith. No sane person could hold on to such contradictions, they could only choose to ignore the contradiction and assert that the Church must have a Pope (even though when a Pope dies the Church continues without a pope).
Where is the Roman Catholic Church? It is a question waiting for an answer. Of course this cannot mean the Church has ceased to exist because Christs promise: The gates of hell shall not prevail against it (cf. Matt. 16:18) and Christs promise: I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. (cf. Matt. 28:20) guarantees the continued existence of the Church. It is rather these words of Christ in speaking of His Apostles: You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid; neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. (Matt. 5:14-15) But that light was not shining.
Not seeing the Church as expected, some Catholics went to schismatics, not understanding that by doing so they left the Catholic Church, nor understanding it was a course just as bad since many of these schismatic clergy are without valid orders. Others settled on going to anyone reading the Mass prayers, even laymen in clerical garb. Still others simply left the Church in despair or remained at home no longer believing the true visible Church existed.
But there were those who remained faithful, who sought to keep the Church as she was constituted, who set up Mass centers and called the faithful to keep the faith of their fathers. When it came to Holy Orders, priests and bishops being ordained and consecrated, Archbishop Pierre Martin Ngô-dinh-Thuc was obliged to consecrate bishops in the hope that these bishops would restore the Church in its mission for the salvation of souls. It was expected of these bishops to band together to restore the Church in its visible unity, found seminaries, train priests, and fulfill the mission of the Church and once more establish a juridical hierarchy.
Where is the Church? On Pentecost Sunday the Church was united and the Church was made visible when the Apostles came forth from the upper room:
And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James of Alpheus, and Simon Zelotes, and Jude the brother of James. All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren... And when the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, they were all together in one place... But Peter standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and spoke to them: Ye men of Judea, and all you that dwell in Jerusalem, be this known to you, and with your ears receive my words. (Acts 1:13-14, 2:1 and 2:14)
Those who came to seek salvation on the first Pentecost found the Church together because that has always been her first mark: unity. Her visibility is found in the hierarchy, the Apostles, because that is found with Peter and the other Apostles—and this visibility should at least be sought after today by bearing the marks of the Church: one, holy, catholic and apostolic. The Holy Ghost dwells in the Catholic Church, guides the Catholic Church, and is communicated to the members of the Catholic Church.
O GOD, who this day instructed the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant that through the same Holy Spirit we may always be truly wise and rejoice in his consolation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and rules with you in the unity of the same Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. (Oration of Mass) |
