THE FEAST OF ST ALBERT THE GREAT. BISHOP AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH.
ST Albert the Great, Bishop and Doctor of the Church.
"[Chosen Lady:] I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth just as we were commanded by the Father.
"But now, Lady, I ask you, not as though I were writing a new commandment but the one we have had from the beginning: let us love one another. For this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, as you heard from the beginning, in which you should walk.
"Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the antichrist.
"Look to yourselves that you do not lose what we worked for but may receive a full recompense. Anyone who is so “progressive” as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son." (2 John 4 - 9).
Friday 15th November 2024 in the 32nd week in Ordinary Time is the feast of St Albert the Great OP, Bishop and Doctor of the Church.
(1206 - 1280) St Albert the Great was German. St Albert belongs to the Order of Preachers (Dominicans). He was an eminent theologian and scientist and Doctor of the Church.
Albert the Great combined his human wisdom and divine faith to advance knowledge and science.
St Albert wrote a great deal on Divine Providence. One of the most comforting is this quote below:
“The greater and more persistent your confidence in God, the more abundantly you will receive all that you ask.”
Another precious quote from St Albert:
“Banish, therefore, from thy heart the distractions of earth and turn thine eyes to spiritual joys, that thou mayest learn at last to repose in the light of the contemplation of God."
St Albert the Great is the patron saint of scientists.
Our first Reading from 2 John 4 - 9 contains strong language condemning false teachers. We read:
"Anyone who is so “progressive” as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son." (Cf 2 John 4 - 9).
The great teachers of the Christian faith are unsparing in their total condemnation of peddlars of falsehood and doctrines. Who are our teachers? Jesus, Peter and Paul, James and John, etc. There successors like Saints Augustine and Anthony of Padua are called Hammers of Heretics.
Why does it seem that there is this deadly and embarrassing silence today in confronting false teachers inside and outside the Church?
The first Reading also talks of the Anti Christ:
"Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the antichrist."
What does Sacred Scriptures say about the Anti Christ?
The Holy Spirit "will declare to you the things that are coming." (John 16: 13). What constitutes this revelation?
One thing that comes to mind is the appearance of the Man of Lawlessness, sometimes called the Anti-Christ. He is a prince in the Kingdom of the Father of lies. (Cf 2 Thessalonians 2: 1 - 12). Through the spirit of discernment, the Church will be able to grasp the Signs of the Times and expose him.
"Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming, so now many antichrists have appeared.
"Thus we know this is the last hour.
They went out from us, but they were not really of our number;
if they had been, they would have remained with us.
"Their desertion shows that none of them was of our number.
"But you have the anointing that comes from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.
"I write to you not because you do not know the truth but because you do, and because every lie is alien to the truth." (1 John 2: 18 - 21).
This is the last hour. The Apostle John warned.
The "Antichrists have appeared." Have you seen any? These are some of the characteristics of the Man of lawlessness from the Christian Scriptures :
Deceit
Temporary success
Mass seduction
Adversary
Son of perdition
Opposed Christ.
Rival of Christ
(Cf 2 Thessalonians 2: 3 - 12; Matthew 24: 23 - 26).
Before he became Pontiff, Pope St John Paul II warned in 1976 at the Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia that we are now facing the final confrontation between the Antichrist and the Church.
Remember how King Henry VIII caught over 300 English Bishops napping in 1535? Only Bishop St John Fisher earned the crown of Martyrdom. Below is a prophetic teaching of the Church on the Antichrist from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
"Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh." (CCC 675).
St Thomas Aquinas writes on the Anti Christ:
"As in Christ dwells the fullness of the Godhead so in Antichrist the fullness of all wickedness. Not indeed in the sense that his humanity is to be assumed by the devil into unity of person...but that the devil by suggestion infuses his wickedness more copiously into him than into all others. In this way all the wicked that have gone before are signs of Antichrist." (St Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church).
Is the current instabilities in the world the beginning of the Last Hour?
Do not be asleep. Be vigilant and pray at all times so that you may not fall into severe temptation. Do not become an Anti-Witness. This may be the beginning of the Last Hour.
November is the Month we pray for the Souls in PURGATORY.
“O Jesus, my love extends beyond the world, to the souls suffering in PURGATORY, and I want to exercise mercy toward them by means of indulgenced prayers. God's mercy is unfathomable and inexhaustible, just as God Himself is unfathomable." (St Maria Faustina Kowalski).
For Catholic Church teaching on the Souls in PURGATORY and how to help them, click the link below:
No comments:
Post a Comment
23-Psalm1to2