It is amazing that people can read the Bible, say they believe in it, and continue to be in schism.
Today’s Reading is a perfect example. A message to Protestants. From Jesus. Incredibly, many will read the clear, obvious “Indirect Command” and think, “That’s not me! I would never disobey Jesus! I love Jesus! I have a close personal relationship with Jesus!”
Luke 11:15-26 When Jesus had driven out a demon, some of the crowd said: “By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he drives out demons.” Others, to test him, asked him for a sign from heaven. But he knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste and house will fall against house.”
Protestants, with near universality, do not apply that message from Jesus to themselves. Even as their 40,000 schisms divide and divide and divide again, battling with each other for congregations and property, they will not apply “Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste and house will fall against house.” to themselves.
Jesus then describes in detail how division destroys. He issues another “Indirect Command”: “And if Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? . . . . But if it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you. . . . Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” The schismatics are blind to the fact that they have left “the Kingdom of God” and have scattered into their 40,000 separate groups. Each one was begun by a vain ego-maniac who would rather “scatter” than stay with Jesus.
That passage is one of Jesus’ “Indirect Commands” for the ages: A message to Protestants. From Jesus. “. . . whoever does not gather with me scatters.”
Why would anyone allow themselves to be “scattered” by some vain desire to separate from The Only Church Jesus Founded. Truly, we are not praying enough for those in schism. Some in The Church, in fact, give the appearance of approving “sincere schismatics” more than condemning such division.
That seeming approval is another test. “God does not want to scare people into being Catholics. If they are blind to the obvious truth that it is wrong to ‘scatter’, they throw themselves onto the burn pile. The garden is weeded more thoroughly. We don’t want to get in their way. The Church only wants souls who are truly striving for salvation to break through to The Church Jesus Founded and be saved by the Sacraments available nowhere else.”
