The Ekalaka Eagle - Your Community Builder

July 24, 2020 - Life during the COVID-19 is pretty dull around here.

So I have decided to liven matters up a bit. Now they say don’t bring up politics or religion, if you do you may start trouble, both are great for a hot discussion, so how about religion?

I have wanted to do this for a long time. What is that? Defend the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has been kicked around and hated by people all over the world since its very existence and that goes back to its founder, Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, “as the world has hated Me it will hate you also.” John 15:18.

Yes, Jesus founded the Church, a church to last for all time. He chose 12 Apostles to carry his work. He said to them, “As the Father sent Me, I am sending you, go into the whole world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, he who believes and is baptized will be saved, he who believes not will be condemned.” Mark 16-15.

Now, one day he turned to the Apostles and said, “Who do people say that I am?” And they said, some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” “And you?” he said to them, “Who do you say that I am?”

“You are the Messiah,” Simon Peter answered, “the son of the living God!’ Matt 16. Jesus replied, “Blest are you Simon, son of Jonah! No more man has revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. I for my part declare to you, you are ‘Rock’ and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will entrust to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you declare bound on earth will be bound in heaven.” Matt 16:13-20.

Jesus was leaving the world, he was going back to the Father. He had died for us, rose from the dead on Easter Sunday and ascended into heaven on Ascension Thursday.

Now things are going to be different. The Church will have to trust what Jesus said to them. Have no fear “I am with you always till the end of the world.” Jesus sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday, in form of tongues of fire. The Holy Spirit completely changed the Apostles from being, very hard to understand the mystery of mysteries, that Jesus was really the Son of God, the ‘Emmanuel,’ God with us. But once the Holy Spirit came on them, He changed everything. Now they fully believed all Jesus told them. One thing was that the Church Jesus founded would last forever. No doubt about that — how could it be otherwise. If we say the Church after the Apostles fell apart and ended right there, as some Protestants say it did, then Jesus was not God. If so, God made a mistake and I know God can’t make a mistake, to say God made a mistake would be the Sin against the Holy Spirit, the unforgivable Sin. No, the Church Christ founded was there from the day he founded it, there after the Apostles died off and through the Middle Ages and is here today, The Catholic Church.

Today we hear there are almost 40,000 Protestant churches. Shocking isn’t it? Christ at the Last Supper prayed that, “All would be ‘One’ as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, I pray that all may be one in us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” John 17:20-21.

Yes, with one Christian Church, the world would believe that Jesus the Son of God came to save its people. With 40,000 Churches, people are confused, as Jesus knew they would be.

P.S. “Addendum” Why I am Catholic.

Because of the authority Christ gave to His church. Where do we find the authority today? Only in the Catholic Church.

Another wonderful blessing we find only in the Catholic Church is ‘Unity.’ Jesus on the night of the Last Supper prayed for Unity. “That all may be One.”

“I do not pray for them alone, I pray for those who believe in Me, through their word, that all may be One in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.”

But it is hard to believe that in the world today we have about 35,000 Protestant Churches, mostly in the US. That must be very confusing for anyone trying to find the true Christian Church. With one church in the world today, it would be easy to fin the Church Jesus founded, but with 35,000, where do you begin?

If there was the One Church that Jesus founded, as Jesus said, the world would believe that the Father sent Jesus, His Son, into the world, to be its Savior. But it didn’t happen. Too bad.

Scripture tells us again, there is “One Body, One Spirit, One Hope, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, One God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all.” Ephesians IV: 4-6.

And the Lord calls His Church to strive “to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Ephesians IV:3.

Again scripture calls the Church, “The pillar and ground of Truth.”

Another reason I am Catholic is because of the Eucharist — the real Body and Blood soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. Not just bread and wine but the real body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Lots of Protestant Ministers have come into the Catholic Church in the last 25 years, because of their coming to believe in the real presence. Why? When they took a new look at what Jesus taught about in Ch. VI of St. John’s Gospel. In their summary, they only glossed over it and so never gave it much thought. Taking a new look, they saw something new. Jesus was telling His listeners that He meant every bit of what He said. He is not talking in symbols but means what He says. “You must eat My flesh and drink My blood if you will have life in you.” “My flesh is real food and My blood is real drink.”

Now they say, “This is a hard saying. Who can believe this?” So they walked away and would follow Him no more. Jesus didn’t say to them, “Come back, I only mean it figuratively.” No Jesus meant what He said, so He let them go. So He said, “No one comes to Me, unless the Father draw him.” Faith. The grace of God.

The early Church Fathers and the Church believed that Jesus gave us His body and blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist, and believed all down through the years, to our present day.

Jesus loved us so, that He would do such a wondrous thing.

Good reasons for me being a Catholic.

P.S. Do you not believe that the Eternal, Almighty God, who became man, could not change bread and wine into His body and blood?

P.S.S. Why did God make us human beings? To know Him, to love Him, to serve Him and to be happy with Him forever in heaven. What a God!

Does God need man? No way. God is perfectly happy. He doesn’t need anything else. From all eternity God is perfectly happy, has everything, doesn’t need anything from us.

But the wonderful thing about it is, God is so good that He wants to share His glory with us, His creatures. He is so full of love, He wants to share His great love with us. What a great blessing. Jesus touched on this when He tells of the woman in the Gospel, that thin woman lost one of her coins, she swept the whole house till she found it. She was so happy she went and told her neighbors and they all rejoiced with her. She just had to share her joy. So God wants to share His great Glory and Joy within too.