Catholics have a sacred duty to help the neighbors we love to avoid The Protestant Trap. Today’s Reading, from John 5: 17-30, shows how The Protestant Trap works:
“Nor does the Father judge anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son,. . “ So, it is Jesus Who will judge each soul. Catholics and Protestants agree on that.
The passage continues, “. . . so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.” We have free will. We “may honor the Son”. We cannot meaningfully “honor” without obeying.
Then, we see The Protestant Trap. Protestants use the next sentence to find justification to not fully “honor” the Son by obeying. “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation, but has passed from death to life.”
Protestantism unites in focusing on “believes”. That is The Protestant Trap. All of Protestantism unites in “I believe so I am saved!” Their vanity separates “belief” from “honor” and the “obedience” that true “honor” requires.
Obedient Catholics are blessed to escape The Protestant Trap. We do not replace obedience with mere “belief”. Catholics know that Jesus and the Catholic Bishops who wrote the New Testament reinforce, at least twenty four times, His clear call to Catholic Communion: “If you do not eat My Body and drink My Blood you do not have life in you.”
“Wow!”, we say. “If Jesus and The Bible repeat that twenty four times, it must be important! So, Catholics “honor” both The Father and The Son by obeying His clear call to Communion and receive His Actual Body and Blood at every Catholic Mass since The Last Supper in The Only Church Jesus Founded.
Grateful Catholics escape The Protestant Trap of thinking that our own, vain notion of “belief” is sufficient for Salvation. We believe. We honor. We obey.
Catholics strive to be forever blessed to be among those of whom He said: “You are My friends if you obey My commands.”
Protestants, sadly, do not respect Jesus enough to obey Him.
