Courthouse and Church, Lawrence, Otago.
And yes, the phone calls started about 10:40.
I guess the texts today continue around persecution and the church response to this. I am going to quote Ann Barnhardt, who uses very Catholic language, but has the correct opinion on the current issue [1].
Yes, I saw that the Obama regime is threatening to arrest any priest chaplain who says Mass. Obviously, every Catholic priest chaplain should IMMEDIATLY go offer the August and Unbloody Holy Sacrifice in the most public way possible every single day and then force the Obama regime to either arrest them and physically drag them off the altar or sit down and shut up. Fix bayonets and CHARGE! No army ever won a war by cowering in fear.
The authorities have persecuted the church from the beginning. And from the beginning we have prayed. Despite hope, we have prayed. For at times there have been miracles: and at other times the blood of believers has spoken as a silent witness.
And anyone who considers the cross has no cost is lying to themselves.
1About that time King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. 2He had James, the brother of John, killed with the sword. 3After he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. (This was during the festival of Unleavened Bread.) 4When he had seized him, he put him in prison and handed him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover. 5While Peter was kept in prison, the church prayed fervently to God for him.
6The very night before Herod was going to bring him out, Peter, bound with two chains, was sleeping between two soldiers, while guards in front of the door were keeping watch over the prison. 7Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his wrists. 8The angel said to him, “Fasten your belt and put on your sandals.” He did so. Then he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” 9Peter went out and followed him; he did not realize that what was happening with the angel’s help was real; he thought he was seeing a vision. 10After they had passed the first and the second guard, they came before the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went outside and walked along a lane, when suddenly the angel left him. 11Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hands of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.”
12As soon as he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many had gathered and were praying. 13When he knocked at the outer gate, a maid named Rhoda came to answer. 14On recognizing Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that, instead of opening the gate, she ran in and announced that Peter was standing at the gate. 15They said to her, “You are out of your mind!” But she insisted that it was so. They said, “It is his angel.” 16Meanwhile Peter continued knocking; and when they opened the gate, they saw him and were amazed. 17He motioned to them with his hand to be silent, and described for them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he added, “Tell this to James and to the believers.” Then he left and went to another place.
1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,
2To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
3I am grateful to God-whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did-when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. 4Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. 5I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. 6For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; 7for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
8Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, 9who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, 10but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 11For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, 12and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him. 13Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 14Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.
Let’s be clear. Peter thought he was going to die. He thought the angel visiting him was a dream. When he did not — he went to the church.
And the church was fervently praying, against hope. When he turned up, poor Rhoda went as white as a sheet, thinking she was seeing a ghost. When he convinced her, the congregation thought she had lost her wits.
As an aside, one of the things that indicates the bible is not myth is that the people mentioned are very flawed. There is no great faith or great courage. People are fearful, superstitious, greedy, lustful. In short, they are people: they are human. Yet God calls them to greatness. We cannot tell that which we will be called to do. And we have to have faith that God is in control. Given the current pope, Julian speaks some wisdom.
I had a few thoughts this morning about the current pope’s recent remarks and performance.
First, I am not going to let this guy, the current Roman Pontiff, make me go full-on Traditionalist. Apart from anything else, I agree with the old dictum that one should simply be a Catholic, without reference to a party within the church, liberal, traditionalist, conservative, whatever.
Second, it is quite encouraging, and I don’t mean to be smart alecky, that one can do the downright peculiar and quasi-heretical things that John Paul II did, such as Qu’issing the Qur’an, and still not only get to Heaven but be a saint. In some ways, that is a comfort, and I do like Pope Francis’ emphasis on forgiveness.
Third, nonetheless serious Catholics, who have put up with a certain amount of difficulty in living the Catholic life, are not going to put with this slop coming from Rome at present for much longer. There is a chance that Francis will be ‘mugged by reality’ – I understand that even Pius IX began his papacy as a liberal and certain events wised him up. But there is also a chance that we are in for years of flatus from the present pope. It might be time to look more to Tradition and test the novelties. I had some practice doing this with some of John Paul II’s flights of imagination, and I suppose it might be time to do it a bit more.
We have been lucky in our popes in the last century, and even in the last few decades there have been no real shockers. But I am starting to fear that we finally have what we have been fearing since Vatican II – a dud.
I have a lot of time for Julian. Particularly since he called Ratzinger the “Rat in a hat” — which is a typical Australian affectionate nickname. However, I think we need to consider the extension that C.S. Lewis made when he talked about mere Christianity. We are not called to be hyper theologians, and those people we now look up to as hyper theologians — on my side of the Tiber Calvin, Lewis, Schaeffer and Stott were not considered theologians by the academy in their day (Calvin was a heretic [2], Lewis a layman, Schaeffer a missionary and Stott an Anglican Priest). They were facing the daily grind of life, and working with the local fishmonger, labourer, cobbler and physician. Some of them had a happy personal life — but Lewis was single for years had widowed soon after his marriage, and Calvin was a widower for most of his life.
None of them were perfect and none have it completely correct. But they said enough of the truth. For that they were shunned or worse (Calvin never intended to end up in Geneva — he was a refugee. Schaeffer left a comfortable life in St Louis to become a missionary with no clear support, and Lewis and Stott were despised because they were popular).
Our times are more corrupt than the War. The decadence of my early years has turned from liberty and licence to fascism, regulation and far more licence for the elite, while the peasantry have their very thoughts and conversations monitored in case we go feral. There is a great risk that the USA will become a soft fascist state: the EU is already there. In such societies, publically saying what is true is criminal: one must openly agree with the current set of lies.
And the gospel is founded in truth. It is unacceptable: the church must bow to the state. The confessing church, however, must never, never, never do this: that is one of the lessons of last century (the other is that liberalism destroys). If we confess the gospel there will be a cost.
But if we bow to the state our soul is forfeit.
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1. Ann, can I thank you for now having each post as a link? It means that one can hyperlink with less link rot.
2. Calvin was a trained theologian: at the Sorbonne. But it did not take, and he converted to evangelicism, which led to him having to leave France in a hurry.
