The Church; no matter what, she endures

>>>Another great web post to remind Catholics who have the chicken little syndrome to wise up. Our Church is not dependent on your wishes but God's will! A SERIOUS WARNING to those who judge the Church and its leadership! .by Fr Scott Brossart Solt Judge not, that you may not be judged, For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. If you are personally or are part of a group that is continually going through the weaknesses and faults of the Church and its leaders, and is not totally focused on God Himself and His Glory and the Light that does shine through Her (the Church) I plead with you to turn away from this way which is NOT OF GOD. This fruit is not of God and does not come from God. You can judge a tree by its fruits... does it bring love, peace, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The fruits that are not of God is a spirit that brings disobedience, harbors wrongs, inspires us with disturbance, impatience, and despair, brings bitter zeal and a self-righteous attitude, makes us focus on negativity and discord. You can recognize his guidance by the disquiet and unrest which it brings. It is the devil who scrutinizes wrongs under a magnifying glass and makes us focus on what is negative. This is not what God does. He is just but also forgives wrongs. He brings us to focus not on the knowledge of the tree of good and evil but rather keeps our gaze on the Tree of Life and only on what is good and holy. I keep my gaze on Christ and on Him alone lest I sink. If I begin to focus and judge and criticize the Church or any of its leaders then I open my soul up for God to do this to me with His magnifying glass... and believe me... it is much larger in can see in the minutest detail our own faults and failings. [1] Judge not, that you may not be judged, [2] For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. [3] And why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye; and seest not the beam that is in thy own eye? [4] Or how sayest thou to thy brother: Let me cast the mote out of thy eye; and behold a beam is in thy own eye? [5] Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam in thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. (Matthew Ch.7) This also applies to our focus on the weaknesses of the Church and its leaders, for when you begin to judge the Church, you are judging God Himself and His works for this IS THE BODY OF CHRIST... weaknesses, warts, and all.... and I love the Church entirely and wholly and I choose not to focus on the darkness but rather on the LIGHT OF GOD. St. Nicholas of Flüe, a famous Swiss saint, father of a family, bluntly told anyone too ready to point out the faults of priests: "And you, how many times have you prayed for the sanctity of priests? Tell me: what have you done to obtain good vocations for the Church?" God the Father spoke to St. Catherine of Siena about his “ministers,” the priests. She recorded it in her Dialogue: …[It] is my intention that they be held in due reverence, not for what they are in themselves, but for my sake, because of the authority I have given them. Therefore the virtuous must not lessen their reverence, even should these ministers fall short in virtue. And, as far as the virtues of my ministers are concerned, I have described them for you by setting them before you as stewards of... my Son’s body and blood and of the other sacraments. This dignity belongs to all who are appointed as such stewards, to the bad as well as to the good. …[Because] of their virtue and because of their sacramental dignity you ought to love them. And you ought to hate the sins of those who live evil lives. But you may not for all that set ourselves up as their judges; this is not my will because they are my Christs, and you ought to love and reverence the authority I have given them. You know well enough that if someone filthy or poorly dressed were to offer you a great treasure that would give you life, you would not disdain the bearer for love of the treasure, and the lord who had sent it, even though the bearer was ragged and filthy... You ought to despise and hate the ministers’ sins and try to dress them in the clothes of charity and holy prayer and wash away their filth with your tears. Indeed, I have appointed them and given them to you to be angels on earth and suns, as I have told you. When they are less than that you ought to pray for them. But you are not to judge them. Leave the judging to me, and I, because of your prayers and my own desire, will be merciful to them. And if you should ask me why I said that this sin of those who persecute holy Church is grave than any other sin, and why it is my will that the sins of the clergy should not lessen your reverence for them, this is how I would answer you: Because the reverence you pay to them is not actually paid to them, but to me, in virtue of the blood I have entrusted to their ministry. So the reverence belongs not to the ministers, but to me … and just as the reverence is done to me, so also is the irreverence, for I have already told you that you must not reverence them for themselves but for the authority I have entrusted to them. For this reason, no one has excuse to say, “I am doing no harm, nor am I rebelling against holy Church. I am simply acting against the sins of evil pastors.” Such persons are deluded, blinded as they are by their own selfishness. To me redounds every assault they make on my ministers: derision, slander, disgrace, abuse. Whatever is done to them I count as done to me. For I have said, and I say it again: No one is to touch my christs. It is my right to punish them, and no one else’s. Therefore, I will tell you, if all the other sins these people have committed were put on one side and the one sin on the other, this one would weigh more in my sight than all the others. I have shown you this so that you would have more reason to grieve that I am offended and these wretched souls damned, so that the bitter sorrow of you and my other servants, by my kind mercy, might dissolve the great darkness that has come over these rotten members who are cut off from the mystic body of holy Church. O dearest daughter, grieve without measure at the sight of such wretched blindness in those who have been washed in the blood, and have been nourished with this blood at the breast of holy Church! Now like rebels they have pulled away from that breast out of fear and under the pretext of correcting the faults of my ministers -- something I have forbidden them to do, for I do not want my anointed ones touched by them. What terror should come over you and my other servants when you hear any mention of that wretched chain of theirs! Your tongue could never describe how hateful it is to me!