THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH Her Doctrine and Morals Low Sunday 1 May 2011

The Sunday Sermon

Dear Friends,

“Crave as newborn babes pure spiritual milk.” (Today’s Introit: 1 Peter 2, 2)

We must constantly desire and seek nourishment for our souls. We often think it mature to make ourselves void of all spiritual desires. It is okay for women and children to pant after indulgences and spiritual gifts and pleasures, but we think it inappropriate for those of mature reason and intelligence. Today’s Introit suggests to us just the opposite, the greater our maturity, reason, and intelligence the greater should be our craving for pure spiritual milk.

Let us also note that it is pure spiritual milk – not just any spiritual milk. The religious anarchy that is rampant today gleefully promotes the idea that any spirituality is good. We are told things like: “all religions are good;” “we all believe in the same god;” “as long as you are sincere;” “visit the church of your choice;” etc. These are all lies. This mentality promotes spiritual milk but not a pure one. The spiritual milk that they are promoting is one that is sour and polluted.

The apostles and even Doubting Thomas were seeking pure spiritual milk. It did cause them (especially St. Thomas) some problems, but it was all for their benefit and ours. They had been fed pure spiritual milk from Jesus before His crucifixion, but they were not craving it at that time, so we read that the meaning of these things was “hidden from them.” Now, we see that they are all eager to see and to hear Jesus, but they are concerned that it be real and genuine. They do not wish to be deceived in any way. They did not even trust themselves. That is why St. Thomas desires not only to see and hear but to touch and feel our Lord and His wounds. It is their burning desire for the truth that has given us such certainty today.

Today however we see that most of those who call themselves followers of Christ are much less concerned with the true and pure spiritual milk. They have cast all discernment aside to accept whatever pleases their fancies. A rather cold indifference to Christ and the Word of God has pushed aside the desire for unadulterated truth. All truth has been reduced to theory and is placed into the “scientific” idea of relativity. Now there are no absolute truths but merely relative ones. Therefore, God who is Truth becomes relative also. We see in them that lukewarmness that Our Lord condemns and says He will vomit out of His mouth.

Those craving pure spirituality may make mistakes even as St. Thomas did, but ultimately those who are craving will find that which they are craving just as St. Thomas did. We are told to seek and we shall find, to knock and it will be opened to us, to ask and we shall receive. All of these things imply a craving or a burning desire.

In this cacophony of false and or polluted spirituality, we must be ever persistent in seeking the true Christ and His true Church. It is possible to be misguided or led astray for a time, but if we remain eager and craving we will reach the object of our desires. God cannot refuse one who loves Him with such love.

We must be constantly on our guard lest we become cold or even worse -- indifferent. We must not become satisfied with half-truths (which are whole lies) or pious prattle. The devils are all very good at creating false religions. It does not bother them that so many are Christian or Catholic in name only. They love creating sects and heresies. There is always something for the incautious to be hooked onto and drawn away into the snares of false religion and/or false spirituality.

The Church has always had to fight against many different false or polluted forms of spirituality. In the first days She had to defend Christ’s two natures in one Person. She continued in this same struggle with the Protestant revolt, and more recently with the indifferentism of Modernism. And while we still must resist all these past errors there are new ones that have risen in our own times with the Novus Ordo and the many “Traditionalists” sects who supposedly began with the purpose of holding on to the truth as the Novus Ordo threw it out. There seems to be any flavor of religion that one could want and yet more seem to be started every day. That is why we must truly crave pure spiritual milk and never be content with just the appearance of spiritual milk.