Friday 21 May 2010

How should we follow the Passion of the Catholic Churc

The Crusader publishes the following article by Professor Plinio Correa de Oliveira who, in times of Lent, makes us reflect on the attitude we should have against a serious tragedy that the Church is living today and their similarity with the story of the Passion of Our Lord.


Nothing in history has been so similar to the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ as the situation in which the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is happening today. Therefore, we feel compassion with regard to the Passion of the God-man should also intertwined with the current situation of the Church. The two passions are one thing.

The crime of Deicide - Cardinal Bea wants to use the term or not - that inspired the Catholics in all ages to solidarity with the Lord, is recurrent today. Only today the enemies of Christ are trying to kill the Catholic Church - a crime that could perhaps be described as Eclesiocidio, if possible kill the Church. These two passions are intertwined so that it can be said that the Passion of Christ is repeated today.



"Oh, all ye that pass by, attend and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow"

This should remind us to take a position similar to the soul of the faithful people who knew the Lord and served him in his earthly life. The obligation of loyalty, sadness, adoration, reparation and thanksgiving for the passion were much more serious for people who for the faithful of today. But these duties incumbent upon us today, as the Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Christ. Therefore, we must take a position similar to that assumed soul by the faithful of his time.

This is an invitation to spend the Lent and Easter meditation on the Passion of Our Lord, asking Our Lady to grant us the grace to be faithful disciples in this second passion.

What should be lived this supreme duty of fidelity to the Passion of the Catholic Church in this day?

The Easter liturgy sings one of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, saying: "Oh, all ye that pass by the way, attend and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow" (1:12). We must stop and ponder the depths of the sufferings of the Church of today and compare them with their suffering in times past. We should feel sorrow for this situation and intend to do what we can to prevent more suffering to come. We must be motivated to a more enthusiastic love for the Church, complete fidelity, more unconditional dedication, an incessant activity and most acute combativeness. These are the components of the state of mind that we have to follow the Passion of Jesus Christ as if developed today.

The faithful souls of our time involved in a mysterious way, in the comfort of our Lord in His Passion received 2,000 years ago. This should inspire us to do more acts of reparation for the offenses against His Mystical Body we are witnessing. These acts must be made before God, the Virgin, and all the Heavenly Court of Angels and Saints in order to repair the damage to the Glory of God, who is deeply offended by the steps of the second Passion. It is a way to express our loyalty.

Such prayers of reparation are of great value before God, because they express the understanding of all the evil that was committed, along with our complete abhorrence of this and we intend to do everything possible to prevent and repair.

Since it is proper to the human mind to understand things by comparison, one might ask: What is the opposite of this spirit of compassion? The opposite of this compassion is indifference. It does not consider the seriousness of the Passion of the Church. It is not considering the great sights of the Catholic cause. You think first about the personal life and concerns. The typical expression of indifference to the Passion of the Church is to put your own personal interests and problems over it.

If you want to know if we thought about the church or ourselves during the day, when bedtime comes, try to remember our emotions of the day. "We were moved by the sufferings of the Church or were driven only by our own selfishness and interests? Thermometer is useful to know the temperature of our compassion for the passion of the Holy Mother Church.

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