Timely, today's Gospel is the whipping in the Temple (Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew 21,10-17.):
And when he was come into Jerusalem, the whole city was moved, saying: Who is this?
And the people said: This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.
And Jesus went into the temple of God and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple and overthrew the tables of the money changers and the chairs of them that sold doves.
And he saith to them: It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves.
And there came to him the blind and the lame in the temple: and he healed them.
And the chief priests and scribes, seeing the wonderful things that he did and the children crying in the temple and saying: Hosanna to the son of David, were moved with indignation,
And said to him: Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus said to them: Yea, have you never read: Out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings thou hast perfected praise?
And leaving them, he went out of the city into Bethania and remained here.
We have made the modern Christian Church a den of thieves run by the chief priests and scribes. Can we at least have some decorum in the House of Prayer for Jesus?
Another thing I am sick of the BS me-too fad "what is a woman?" The whole "women are being erased, etc. etc."
You know what? What is a man?
Where are the men? Oh yeah, they have been "erased" years ago, now they are just gay or wanna be tranny/transvestites. People are ugly inside and out. No amount of clown makeup is going to make any "guy" or "gal" look pretty when their ugliness seeps out from the inside.
Hey, female athletes - if a freaking male transvestite is pretending to be a female because he sucks at male sports, DO NOT compete against the tranny. Stand your ground and state YOU WILL NOT COMPETE AGAINST A MALE IN A FEMALE SPORT.
No one cares, especially about morals and living by the Ten Commandments. On Substack, I wrote about the gay staffer who had sex on the tables in a Federal building in Washington DC and called out his lack of shame. Nothing happened to him other than he was "fired" (but I am sure he has a much better gubermint job now). No one on Substack really cares about gay fornication out in public places. It is all meh. Why be surprised at trannies and gays hooping it up in a Catholic church?
Walking into the Capitol building can get you years in prison, but having and filming gay sex in a gov't building in the Capitol, then posting it to your gay friends (who are also gubermint employees) that is perfectly A-OK. Nothing to see here.
Pug, In January I read from Joshua through to Nehemiah. These books--esp Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles--have been so helpful to me. In them I see that what we see now is what obedient Judah saw then. Seems very similar.
And the congresswoman whose desk was defiled said nothing. Absolutely nothing. I would have called for a public exorcism of that desk and then said I QUIT! She sits there to this day, in dried grossness (you know it was never cleaned by that African illegal alien). Yuck.
Churches. They're sure not perfect. They are reflections of human nature. An awful lot of them resemble toxic waste pits as well, but can still somehow manage to make people feel good. Not the best places to look.
I'm not overjoyed with the state of The Church myself, but I still belong to one. It's a Reformed church, something I would not have chosen -- I knew about this one but had avoided it. But it's where I was eventually led, the story involving another person, a new believer, that was in need of a church equipped to disciple such people well.
This one is accepting of differences within reasonable bounds, and especially of differences in maturity, creating a space for people to grow (up). It's not perfect. It's sufficient. The differences I have with the theology, which can be discussed without getting kicked out, serve as seeds for my own growth. Strange how that works.
I began an in-depth study of 1 Corinthians in January, one that I expect to last most of the year. I was going to study something else, but "something" told me to do this. So far I have completed two chapters. I am working with a very well written Greek-based commentary rather than simply reading the text or following a curriculum, and picking up more Greek as I go, which slows things down but provides more time for them to sink in.
The Corinthian assembly ("church" is an English language thing) was quite a mess, but it was a gathering loved of God and of Paul. I never truly got that before, although the text shouts it out once you begin to understand Paul's language. This mess was one of the _good_ churches. There are clues to this in the Greek that don't readily translate. They probably can be seen in the English anyway, but it was never presented this way to me, and I was missing a great deal of what was written.
This study is teaching me things about the church I belong to, and how to regard and respond to the problems it has. I'm not trying to fix those. I'm trying to see beyond the problems, and onward toward what there is to do there. I don't know where this goes from here.
This wouldn't work just anywhere, but this is where I was most recently led, and it works for the present.. There's a former church that I continued to reach out to for three years after I left, and seemingly to no avail. In terms of community, that one was my favorite, but the teachings were deeply corrupt, as I was allowed gradually to discover, and are even worse now.
Behind the local corruption was a deeply corrupt denomination with which I became involved, briefly as a conference delegate, and as part of my learning curve, leading to my exit, after which it merged with a congregation from another corrupt denomination. Train wreck. Even so, I haven't totally given up on it.
My present church, in contrast, left its original denomination of nearly 60 years that was rapidly going downhill, and joined another that is still a faithful one as these things go. Ironically, that denomination had itself been formed by churches leaving another denomination, namely that of the group that merged with my former church leading to its further demise. Small world.
It's enough to make you want to just have your own church, under the staircase. Such is life on the narrow path. Oh Lord. Just give me Jesus. I look to a day when there are no longer denominations. Thankfully, as our call to worship hymn this morning proclaimed, "Jesus is coming again."
"Oh Lord. Just give me Jesus. I look to a day when there are no longer denominations."
I look to the day when there are no more man-made institutions. Why do we have to make things so complicated and chaotic? Your comment reminds me of how many Protestant denominations there are and how you can easily just open your own church and become the pastor and preach the prosperity Gospel! There is a Youtube guy I watch who I believe is Protestant and talks alot about the problems in this world from people and institutions. He says much of what I am thinking: https://www.youtube.com/@nickvaughnjones
Like you I left my former parish church which was way too "woke" and didn't care for saving anyone's souls. Then I went to a traditional parish church which is way too rigid and only cares about what clothes women wear. Still not caring about saving people's souls. So right now I'm churchless and probably will remain so until God points me somewhere, if anywhere.
I know Jesus' Church will prevail, and it will always be until the end, but I have no clue what that Church will be or look like in the future. I just know it can't be chaotic, money-grubbing, hypocritical and full of liars and caring nothing for people's eternal souls.
Napoleon, after my writing to you yesterday, your words hung in my mind, and brought to me today a 'morning thought', so at 4:30, sitting on the top of the back stairs, I called down to my husband in the kitchen (he rises about 4 a.m.) to posit this thought: that the current Pope is probably a diversity hire, and perhaps he will make the very position of Papa irrelevant. For serious Catholics this would be dreadful. My corollary "thinkery" (as we term my musings) was that the Internet --perhaps largely through Substack and Gab--is allowing the creation of a kind of house church--certainly on Coffee and Covid I see and feel a decided Christian presence. As if, through these Substacks, we can be as our forebears, drawing a fish in the sand beneath our feet to say tacitly, " I am a follower of the Way, are you one also?" What then would remain is to make a suggestion for a gathering place--a first time meet-up (which some Coffee+Covidites have already done). Yes, I am a Protestant, from an ancestry (1620, Plymouth) which prefers simplicity in the church building; you are a Catholic from an ancestry which prefers the ethereal (the 'beauty of holiness'?) in art in the church building. New thought just now to posit: that that "Ecumenism" of my late childhood--late 50's, 60's was a creation of politics. Not of the longing human heart. Perhaps now begins the time.
Very interesting VVV. You are right about the Ecumenism in the 60's. In the Catholic Church this brought the Novus Ordo (New Order) of the Mass. This is when the Church essentially destroyed itself, like the secular world is doing with the Great Reset (New World Order). What will the new Christian Church look like? First it must bring together all true believers in Jesus who live by the Ten Commandments and the Gospel. The ONLY goal of the Church should be to save souls for eternity and fight against satan whose only goal is to damn souls for eternity. It would be wonderful if Protestants, Catholics and all other Christians (that includes Messianic Jews) would finally come together as Jesus wanted. Dreams....
Re Novus Ordo, because I sang while in college, had opportunity to sing a number of masses, in Latin, of course, and so do greatly appreciate the beauty of the words of the mass. Quite apart from being a Latin teacher!
When these events occur, I read "the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church" more literally. On Holy Saturday, Christ harrowed hell, but hell should not be read as the place of the damned. It refers to the place of (all) the dead. Those who have died the first death. So, we must go forward in time, taking as our marching orders to rescue men's souls from the second death. To cooperate with God, and not with Satan as was done at St. Patrick's.
"taking as our marching orders to rescue men's souls from the second death. "
This is what it should be. This should be the ONLY job of the modern Christian Church. We don't need to save the planet, or someone's right to abortion or transgenderism, or any of that woke "jazz hands." That's for the secular world. Jesus' House of Prayer is for PRAYER. He said it and it is true. There are so, so many other places to thumb your nose at God. Why couldn't they "perform" in a broadway theater or slimy Times Square "theater"? Because satan wants their souls and yours. The modern Christian church has opened its arms wide for satan in the guise of "inclusivity", which means no more places of prayer.
I think you are right to remove yourself from the Catholic church as it does seem to be terribly corrupt. I recently photo of the interior of the Vatican and was blown away by all the satanic symbolism. When did this happen? When we weren't looking?
Right before covid, the Poop in the Vatican put an idol of the Pachamama (pagan God) on the altar to worship. He broke the First Commandment openly and gleefully. No priests complained at all. It took a lay person to say "no more!" That lay person stole the Pachamama statute and threw it in the Tiber River. Then the covid freak-out hit. God is not pleased at all. The Poop has also decreed that traditional masses are not to be said in the Vatican anymore. Only "woke" masses. The thing is, if the Catholic Church dies, all other Christian Churches will die as well. We are all connected - to Jesus. Modern Christianity is killing itself from within.
I have to agree with you. This Woke nonsense has infected every sector of our society. I hear mention of it too much. It's like we are in the pit of hell on earth. May God hp us to stay on the straight and narrow path!!
Oh, Napoleon! The path down which you have led me! First I checked into that YouTube of the Cecilia (ironic that she had the name of the musical saint) funeral, but didn't go too far, as it was all just too much show. Then back to your words. From there I was led to consider the earlier anti-Church movements, Albigensians, Cathars, Waldensians, Lollards--and stopped with them. I had not realized that Lollards were an English growth sprouting from Wycliffe.....Read their 12 Conclusions pinned, ~ 1395, to the doors of St. Paul's and Westminster--and Martin Luther gets all the credit for posting his theses two hundred years later in 1519? Reading through those 12 Conclusions, and finding nothing in them with which to take issue, I realized, by golly, I actually AM a Lollard. Then I realized that Chaucer's The Nun's Tale may be a fleshing-out of the contentions in the 11th conclusion. Now I will have to read that tale again, as I read it in 1969. Thank you for setting me off on this journey.
Thank you VVV for giving me things to read as well. I learn so much from people's comments. I know I'm a Luddite, but could I also be a Lollard? I love reading history and especially religious history.
Timely, today's Gospel is the whipping in the Temple (Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew 21,10-17.):
And when he was come into Jerusalem, the whole city was moved, saying: Who is this?
And the people said: This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.
And Jesus went into the temple of God and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple and overthrew the tables of the money changers and the chairs of them that sold doves.
And he saith to them: It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves.
And there came to him the blind and the lame in the temple: and he healed them.
And the chief priests and scribes, seeing the wonderful things that he did and the children crying in the temple and saying: Hosanna to the son of David, were moved with indignation,
And said to him: Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus said to them: Yea, have you never read: Out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings thou hast perfected praise?
And leaving them, he went out of the city into Bethania and remained here.
We have made the modern Christian Church a den of thieves run by the chief priests and scribes. Can we at least have some decorum in the House of Prayer for Jesus?
Another thing I am sick of the BS me-too fad "what is a woman?" The whole "women are being erased, etc. etc."
You know what? What is a man?
Where are the men? Oh yeah, they have been "erased" years ago, now they are just gay or wanna be tranny/transvestites. People are ugly inside and out. No amount of clown makeup is going to make any "guy" or "gal" look pretty when their ugliness seeps out from the inside.
Hey, female athletes - if a freaking male transvestite is pretending to be a female because he sucks at male sports, DO NOT compete against the tranny. Stand your ground and state YOU WILL NOT COMPETE AGAINST A MALE IN A FEMALE SPORT.
Meh, never gonna happen.
No one cares, especially about morals and living by the Ten Commandments. On Substack, I wrote about the gay staffer who had sex on the tables in a Federal building in Washington DC and called out his lack of shame. Nothing happened to him other than he was "fired" (but I am sure he has a much better gubermint job now). No one on Substack really cares about gay fornication out in public places. It is all meh. Why be surprised at trannies and gays hooping it up in a Catholic church?
Walking into the Capitol building can get you years in prison, but having and filming gay sex in a gov't building in the Capitol, then posting it to your gay friends (who are also gubermint employees) that is perfectly A-OK. Nothing to see here.
Screw this human world. I have had enough.
Pug, In January I read from Joshua through to Nehemiah. These books--esp Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles--have been so helpful to me. In them I see that what we see now is what obedient Judah saw then. Seems very similar.
And the congresswoman whose desk was defiled said nothing. Absolutely nothing. I would have called for a public exorcism of that desk and then said I QUIT! She sits there to this day, in dried grossness (you know it was never cleaned by that African illegal alien). Yuck.
Yup. No north African contract gubermint cleaner is going to touch that desk with a 10 foot pole. Don't blame them. Burn it. Burn it with fire!
Churches. They're sure not perfect. They are reflections of human nature. An awful lot of them resemble toxic waste pits as well, but can still somehow manage to make people feel good. Not the best places to look.
I'm not overjoyed with the state of The Church myself, but I still belong to one. It's a Reformed church, something I would not have chosen -- I knew about this one but had avoided it. But it's where I was eventually led, the story involving another person, a new believer, that was in need of a church equipped to disciple such people well.
This one is accepting of differences within reasonable bounds, and especially of differences in maturity, creating a space for people to grow (up). It's not perfect. It's sufficient. The differences I have with the theology, which can be discussed without getting kicked out, serve as seeds for my own growth. Strange how that works.
I began an in-depth study of 1 Corinthians in January, one that I expect to last most of the year. I was going to study something else, but "something" told me to do this. So far I have completed two chapters. I am working with a very well written Greek-based commentary rather than simply reading the text or following a curriculum, and picking up more Greek as I go, which slows things down but provides more time for them to sink in.
The Corinthian assembly ("church" is an English language thing) was quite a mess, but it was a gathering loved of God and of Paul. I never truly got that before, although the text shouts it out once you begin to understand Paul's language. This mess was one of the _good_ churches. There are clues to this in the Greek that don't readily translate. They probably can be seen in the English anyway, but it was never presented this way to me, and I was missing a great deal of what was written.
This study is teaching me things about the church I belong to, and how to regard and respond to the problems it has. I'm not trying to fix those. I'm trying to see beyond the problems, and onward toward what there is to do there. I don't know where this goes from here.
This wouldn't work just anywhere, but this is where I was most recently led, and it works for the present.. There's a former church that I continued to reach out to for three years after I left, and seemingly to no avail. In terms of community, that one was my favorite, but the teachings were deeply corrupt, as I was allowed gradually to discover, and are even worse now.
Behind the local corruption was a deeply corrupt denomination with which I became involved, briefly as a conference delegate, and as part of my learning curve, leading to my exit, after which it merged with a congregation from another corrupt denomination. Train wreck. Even so, I haven't totally given up on it.
My present church, in contrast, left its original denomination of nearly 60 years that was rapidly going downhill, and joined another that is still a faithful one as these things go. Ironically, that denomination had itself been formed by churches leaving another denomination, namely that of the group that merged with my former church leading to its further demise. Small world.
It's enough to make you want to just have your own church, under the staircase. Such is life on the narrow path. Oh Lord. Just give me Jesus. I look to a day when there are no longer denominations. Thankfully, as our call to worship hymn this morning proclaimed, "Jesus is coming again."
"Oh Lord. Just give me Jesus. I look to a day when there are no longer denominations."
I look to the day when there are no more man-made institutions. Why do we have to make things so complicated and chaotic? Your comment reminds me of how many Protestant denominations there are and how you can easily just open your own church and become the pastor and preach the prosperity Gospel! There is a Youtube guy I watch who I believe is Protestant and talks alot about the problems in this world from people and institutions. He says much of what I am thinking: https://www.youtube.com/@nickvaughnjones
Like you I left my former parish church which was way too "woke" and didn't care for saving anyone's souls. Then I went to a traditional parish church which is way too rigid and only cares about what clothes women wear. Still not caring about saving people's souls. So right now I'm churchless and probably will remain so until God points me somewhere, if anywhere.
I know Jesus' Church will prevail, and it will always be until the end, but I have no clue what that Church will be or look like in the future. I just know it can't be chaotic, money-grubbing, hypocritical and full of liars and caring nothing for people's eternal souls.
Napoleon, after my writing to you yesterday, your words hung in my mind, and brought to me today a 'morning thought', so at 4:30, sitting on the top of the back stairs, I called down to my husband in the kitchen (he rises about 4 a.m.) to posit this thought: that the current Pope is probably a diversity hire, and perhaps he will make the very position of Papa irrelevant. For serious Catholics this would be dreadful. My corollary "thinkery" (as we term my musings) was that the Internet --perhaps largely through Substack and Gab--is allowing the creation of a kind of house church--certainly on Coffee and Covid I see and feel a decided Christian presence. As if, through these Substacks, we can be as our forebears, drawing a fish in the sand beneath our feet to say tacitly, " I am a follower of the Way, are you one also?" What then would remain is to make a suggestion for a gathering place--a first time meet-up (which some Coffee+Covidites have already done). Yes, I am a Protestant, from an ancestry (1620, Plymouth) which prefers simplicity in the church building; you are a Catholic from an ancestry which prefers the ethereal (the 'beauty of holiness'?) in art in the church building. New thought just now to posit: that that "Ecumenism" of my late childhood--late 50's, 60's was a creation of politics. Not of the longing human heart. Perhaps now begins the time.
Very interesting VVV. You are right about the Ecumenism in the 60's. In the Catholic Church this brought the Novus Ordo (New Order) of the Mass. This is when the Church essentially destroyed itself, like the secular world is doing with the Great Reset (New World Order). What will the new Christian Church look like? First it must bring together all true believers in Jesus who live by the Ten Commandments and the Gospel. The ONLY goal of the Church should be to save souls for eternity and fight against satan whose only goal is to damn souls for eternity. It would be wonderful if Protestants, Catholics and all other Christians (that includes Messianic Jews) would finally come together as Jesus wanted. Dreams....
Okay, here's another musing:the very words"Novus Ordo (Seclorum) suggests hubris. IMH(Protestant)O.
Re Novus Ordo, because I sang while in college, had opportunity to sing a number of masses, in Latin, of course, and so do greatly appreciate the beauty of the words of the mass. Quite apart from being a Latin teacher!
Your anger is justified.
When these events occur, I read "the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church" more literally. On Holy Saturday, Christ harrowed hell, but hell should not be read as the place of the damned. It refers to the place of (all) the dead. Those who have died the first death. So, we must go forward in time, taking as our marching orders to rescue men's souls from the second death. To cooperate with God, and not with Satan as was done at St. Patrick's.
"taking as our marching orders to rescue men's souls from the second death. "
This is what it should be. This should be the ONLY job of the modern Christian Church. We don't need to save the planet, or someone's right to abortion or transgenderism, or any of that woke "jazz hands." That's for the secular world. Jesus' House of Prayer is for PRAYER. He said it and it is true. There are so, so many other places to thumb your nose at God. Why couldn't they "perform" in a broadway theater or slimy Times Square "theater"? Because satan wants their souls and yours. The modern Christian church has opened its arms wide for satan in the guise of "inclusivity", which means no more places of prayer.
I think you are right to remove yourself from the Catholic church as it does seem to be terribly corrupt. I recently photo of the interior of the Vatican and was blown away by all the satanic symbolism. When did this happen? When we weren't looking?
Right before covid, the Poop in the Vatican put an idol of the Pachamama (pagan God) on the altar to worship. He broke the First Commandment openly and gleefully. No priests complained at all. It took a lay person to say "no more!" That lay person stole the Pachamama statute and threw it in the Tiber River. Then the covid freak-out hit. God is not pleased at all. The Poop has also decreed that traditional masses are not to be said in the Vatican anymore. Only "woke" masses. The thing is, if the Catholic Church dies, all other Christian Churches will die as well. We are all connected - to Jesus. Modern Christianity is killing itself from within.
I have to agree with you. This Woke nonsense has infected every sector of our society. I hear mention of it too much. It's like we are in the pit of hell on earth. May God hp us to stay on the straight and narrow path!!
Oh, Napoleon! The path down which you have led me! First I checked into that YouTube of the Cecilia (ironic that she had the name of the musical saint) funeral, but didn't go too far, as it was all just too much show. Then back to your words. From there I was led to consider the earlier anti-Church movements, Albigensians, Cathars, Waldensians, Lollards--and stopped with them. I had not realized that Lollards were an English growth sprouting from Wycliffe.....Read their 12 Conclusions pinned, ~ 1395, to the doors of St. Paul's and Westminster--and Martin Luther gets all the credit for posting his theses two hundred years later in 1519? Reading through those 12 Conclusions, and finding nothing in them with which to take issue, I realized, by golly, I actually AM a Lollard. Then I realized that Chaucer's The Nun's Tale may be a fleshing-out of the contentions in the 11th conclusion. Now I will have to read that tale again, as I read it in 1969. Thank you for setting me off on this journey.
Thank you VVV for giving me things to read as well. I learn so much from people's comments. I know I'm a Luddite, but could I also be a Lollard? I love reading history and especially religious history.