The
words of Sulpitius Severus of
Aquitania (ca 363- ca 420) sound to us still today over the depths of
the centuries, “O Timothy! O Priest!
O Expositor! O Doctor! If the
divine gift hath qualified thee by wit, by skill, by learning, be thou
a Bezalel of the spiritual
tabernacle, engrave the precious gems of divine doctrine, fit
them in accurately, adorn them skillfully, add splendor, grace, beauty.
Let that which formerly was believed, though imperfectly apprehended,
as expounded by thee be clearly understood. Let posterity welcome,
understood through thy exposition, what antiquity venerated without
understanding. Yet teach still the same truths which thou hast
learnt, so that though thou speakest after a new fashion, what thou
speakest may not be new.” [1]
Sulpitius Severus lived in times when the Christian Church took new
kind of believers into its fold: the
nominal Christian. In this period of history it began to loose
its pristine beauty or as Bunyan put it into words in his discussion of
the “angels at the gates” of the celestial city below its “glory, splendor,
and purity, as in the
primitive times.” As he says so rightly it was loosing “the doctrine of the
twelve, the apostolic doctrine.” The Didache
or the Doctrine of the Twelve
Apostles,
the first persevered catechism of the Church compiled ca 110-120 A. D.
begins by speaking of the Two Ways, “There are two Ways, one of Life
and one of Death, and there is a great difference between the two Ways
. . . Thou
shalt do no murder; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not
commit sodomy; thou shalt not commit fornication; thou shalt not steal;
thou shalt not use magic; thou shalt not use philtres; thou shalt not
procure abortion, nor commit infanticide . . .” [2]
This is the Golden Scale of all
Value Judgments for the Church to follow on its pilgrimage on
earth: its moral quote and core of its holy apostolic tradition that no
theologians, bishops, priests, ministers or even the pope himself can
ignore rather than divert from. If
someone teaches something else the doctor in question has simply
diverted from the holy apostolic tradition.
The community of the Church changed drastically when
Christianity was
declared the official faith of the Roman Empire in 413 A. D. and people
began to flock into the Church simply of practical reason, but not in
living faith. This development we hear sound in the
writings of the holy fathers. We hear thus John Chrysostom () complain
that “many of the wonders which then [in former times] used to
take place have now ceased” [Med. 28].
When Chrysostom did not think that the prophetic charisms were real
possibility for the life of the local church of his time he
emphasized the charisms explaining the words “He will baptize you in
the Holy Spirit” and mentioned nine graces received in initiation [of
baptism]. In another place of his works he shed light on the sublime
nature of the baptism, saying,
Still, it is not
hard, even know, for a man who has the eyes of faith to understand it.
When we are being baptized, our soul, purified by the Spirit, becomes
brighter than the sun; not only are we then able to look at the glory
of God, but we ourselves take on something of its radiance . . .
Therefore the Apostle says: “But we all, with open face beholding
as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image
from glory to glory (2 Cor 3. 18), that is, from the glory of the
Spirit to our own glory, which fills us and which should be “even as by
the Spirit of the Lord.” [Med. 17]
In their work Christian Initiation
and Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Kilian McDonnel and George T.
Montague have studied the emphasize of the Church in the first
centuries of its existence on the Jordan event and the baptism of Jesus
in the Holy Spirit as a pattern to follow [Med. 5]. By the entrance of nominal
or fleshly Christians into the fold of the Church this mystery of faith
became empty words of outward gestures, just as in Judaism. The Church
became infiltrated by men trying to walk both of the ways at same time,
a Church of compromises! It is this Church, which I call the Black Tabernacle of Death
which is exposed by the Great Harlot or Beast in the Book of Revelation carrying seven
heads, the seven unclean sprits which our Lord mentioned saying,
Then he says, 'I
will return into my house whence I came out,' and when he has come
back, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then he goes, and
takes with himself seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they
enter in and dwell there. The last state of that man becomes worse than
the first. Even so will it be also to this evil generation" (Mt 12. 44,
45).
It is this Black Tabernacle of Death which has existed beside the true
Church through the centuries as it does still today: the church of
Antichrist. As a Protestant Bunyan traces this development to the “Romish beasts having
corrupted this doctrine by treading it down with
their feet, and have muddied this water with their own dirt and
filthiness.“ In a way he was right as the corruption of the Church was
great in medieval times as the words of St. Catherine of Siena sheds
light on,
“Temples of the
devil,” they feed their own children with what “belongs to the poor,”
instead of growing full on others’ salvation at the table of the cross
they make “taverns their table.” They are reduced to “beasts,” and “do
not so much as know what the Divine Offices is . . . oh devils and
worse than devils.”
Church leaders live wedded to luxury and grandeur rather than to the
poor, while bishops ordain persons like themselves, “little boys
instead of mature men,” “idiots who scarcely know how to read and could
never pray the Divine Office,” ignorant of Latin and unable to say even
the words of consecration. Appointed to proclaim God’s word “by their
life and teaching,” these priests shout words that are only “empty
sounds.” They consider it beneath them to visit the poor, refusing to
lift a finger to help, they stand by their sin, they fear punishment,
yet they will not reform their lives; to satisfy their people and to
save themselves from further guilt, they merely pretend to say the
words of consecration.
So disfigured by sin the Church appear to Catherine
that its very heart, charity, seemed cut from it. [3]
Catherine saw the truth which the Russian religious philosopher Nikolyi
Berdjavev (1874-1948) said, “The Church of Christ cannot exist without
its bishops and priests, independent of their personal holiness. But it
can only live and breath because of the holy, prophets, monks and
martyrs.” [Med. 79]
Catherine realized what this life and breath of Christ’s body conceals
in itself despite any human obstacle,
In 1376,
Catherine gained in prayer a deep understanding of the Church’s
brokeness. Jesus seemed to place the cross on Catherine’s shoulder and
an olive branch in her hand, inviting her to proclaim to the Church, “I
bring you tidings of great joy.” This message caused her such gladness
that all of her previous sufferings, labor, and prayer seemed nothing
to her. For in the ashes of the Church the Lord showed her the power of
His resurrection infusing His own life into the Church’s crippled body
and restoring its pristine purity as the bride for whom He died.
Even as she saw the Church going “from bad to
worse,” with clergy lusting after honor, wealth and power the words of
the Exultet resounded in Catherine’s ears: “Oh happy fault that merited
such a Redeemer.” In the very sin of the Church she recognized the
occasion for the priceless gift of reform. As the world’s guilt brought
down the Savior of the human race to its need, so the Church’s sin
draws to its poverty this same Redeemer whose power alone can heal and
restore it as His poor and humble community. Catherine began to
understand that, just as the rose is born only in the midst of
thorns, so too the Church’s healing’s healing and purity are gained
only through tribulations. [4]
Still today in our own times the Great Harlot rides on her horse among
the faithful in Christ’s Church. Catherine was a Dominican and it is
sad, really sad, to read an account given by two Dominican sisters of
our own times living in the center of New York facing the sexual abuse
of children in their congregation. For whole six years they have tried
without result to have a meeting with their local bishop. In all this
time they have only been able to discuss the issue with two lawyers
with their suitcases as the bishop refuses to face them „protecting”
his subjects. This situation has once more „brought down the Savior of
the human race to its need by the VOTF revival movement, the Voice of the Faithful spreading all
over the United States and abroad, a grassroots organization that
emerged because of the Catholic clergy sex scandal involving hundreds
of priests and thousands of victims.
I ask all Roman Catholics to bear this in mind reading following
account of this saintly man. John Bunyan, when he knelt down in prayer
in his prison cell asking “God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
glory, to give him a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is
revealed, to bring to him full knowledge of Him, by enlightening the
eyes of his mind, so that I can see what hope His call holds for me,
how rich is the glory of the heritage He offers among His holy people
(see Ep 1. 17-19). I ask also all Protestant ministers facing adultery, sodomy,
fornication, magic and abortion in their local congregation to do this
also. It is by such prayer that the holy city, the New Jerusalem, the
Celestial City and God’s heavenly Tabernacle appears in a repentant
human heart. It took place in John’s Bunyan life in the darkness of his
prison cell and as Meister Eckhart said water runs always downhill
and fills what is below. We have just to open our hearts. In this
manner a human soul becomes “a Bezalel of the
spiritual
tabernacle, engraving the precious gems of divine doctrine” in its own
heart and will „fit
them in accurately, adorn them skilfully,” and „add splendor, grace and
beauty” to it.
As to the Great Harlot, the Pseudo Church, it exist in an authentic
manner too. There are other Bezalels that build their own spiritual
tabernacles, their black tabernacles of death. These black tabernacles
are based on human presumptuousness but not on God’s revelation.
Sometimes this Pseudo Church becomes dominant in history, but foremost
it exist in the hearts of each generation on earth, just as the fall
repeats itself in every human heart. The other Church, the true Church,
exists too as we see by our Lord’s parable of the good and bad harvest,
Let both grow together until the
harvest, and in the harvest time I will tell the reapers, First, gather
up the darnel, and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the
wheat into my barn (Mt. 13. 30). Its member I have called the
Siblings of the Sacred Heart because
they love Jesus and obey His
commandments and thus we can rightly call this Church the Church of the
Heart as its member live in the heart of the Church in love. It exist
everywhere when a Christian heart open itself for Him who is the Way,
Truth and Life, Where I go, you
know, and you know the way (Jn 14. 4 ). The descending of the
Celestial City takes place every time when a human being receives the
Eucharist in the purity of the heart. This is the apostolic tradition
and reason why St. Cyril of Jerusalem reminded his catechumens not to
approach the Eucharist “with thy wrist extended, or thy fingers open;
but make thy left hand as if a throne for thy right, which is on the
eve of receiving the King.” [5]
It is thus how we lay the foundation of our spiritual tabernacle in our own hearts by receiving its precious jewels from the hands of our King Jesus Christ and
the words of Saint John are effectuated, “and we shall come to him and
make a home in him” (Jn 14. 23).
[1]. Sacred
History, XXII.
[2]. Didache or the
Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, I.
1, 2.
[3]. Catherine of Siena’s Way, pp.
189-190.
[4]. Ibid, 191.
[5]. Mystagogical Catecheses, 5. 14.
