In 1647, the Seven Books of The Apocrypha began to be removed from Protestant Bibles. Chapter 4:5-12 and verses 27-29 from The Book of Baruch in Today’s Catholic Reading show some of what they lose by not having The Catholic Bible:
“Fear not, my people! Remember, Israel, You were sold to the nations not for your destruction; It was because you angered God that you were handed over to your foes.” Early Protestants of the time had angered God: “For you provoked your Maker with sacrifices to demons, to no-gods; You forsook the Eternal God who nourished you, and you grieved Jerusalem who fostered you. She indeed saw coming upon you the anger of God; and she (the Believers in Jerusalem) said:
“Hear, you neighbors of Zion! God has brought great mourning upon me, for I have seen the (Babylonian) captivity that the Eternal God has brought upon my sons and daughters.
With joy I fostered them (That ‘joy’ was The Faith of Jerusalem with which God had ‘fostered’ His ‘children’.); but with mourning and lament I let them go.
Then, God described His anguish at what His beloved ‘children’ had chosen to believe: “Let no one gloat over me, a widow, bereft of many. For the sins of my children, I am left desolate, because they turned from the law of God.”
Then, God told Baruch how the lost souls of every generation may be saved! “Fear not, my children; call out to God! He who brought this upon you will remember you. As your hearts have been disposed to stray from God, turn now ten times the more to seek Him; For He who has brought disaster upon you will, in saving you, bring you back enduring joy.”
The Biblical Foundation of the Catholic Church includes Seven Books of The Apocrypha that reminds Catholics to “try ten times harder” to obey The Only Church-Creating Word of He Who Fulfilled over 300 Messianic Prophecies to His First Catholic Pope: “And say unto you thou art Peter and on this rock I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it I give you the keys to The Kingdom of Heaven.”
May all be blessed with “the keys to The Kingdom of Heaven”! They include Seven Catholic Sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Confession/Absolution, Anointing of the Sick, Matrimony, and Holy Orders that provide priests ordained in “The Order of Melchizedek” since the day he gave “bread and wine” to Abraham in what God’s Power would provide in Catholic Communion at The Last Supper and every Catholic Mass that followed.
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Today’s Simple Rhyme: “May all be blessed to repent / Before our time on earth is spent.”
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