Several columns have shows how St. Paul pounded Protestants. What of the other Disciples? Do they denigrate those who leave The Church?
Consider this passage from Today’s Reading from St. John:
2 John 4-9 “[Chosen Lady:] I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth just as we were commanded by the Father. But now, Lady, I ask you, not as though I were writing a new commandment but the one we have had from the beginning: let us love one another. For this is love, that we walk according to His commandments; this is the commandment, as you heard from the beginning, in which you should walk.”
Could this be clearer? We are to “walk according to His commandments”. As all of us know, His commandments are sometimes indirect. For instance, when He says “If you do not eat My Body and drink My Blood you do not have life in you.”, He is giving us an “indirect commandment” in which we should walk.
Another “Indirect Command”, in Mt. 16:18-29, instructs us that He is Founding One Church on one man, Peter, the first Pope. The Last Supper reinforces His instructions as He provides all coming generations of Faithful Catholics with what is necessary for eternal life.
The smart thing to do? Curb our vanity and do what is necessary to receive His Body and Blood. St. John continues, warning us about the early non-Catholics who seek to profit from semi-Christian teaching: “Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh; such is the deceitful one and the antichrist.”
Simply believing is not enough. We must remain in the teaching of Christ and the Only Church He Founded. He gives us a warning that is clear to all humble, obedient, Catholic believers “Look to yourselves that you do not lose what we worked for but may receive a full recompense. Anyone who is so ‘progressive’ as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ (The Church built by Peter and the Apostles) does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son.”
In our own age, those who choose to be “progressive” are so proud of it that they choose that name to identify themselves.
St. John warns of all non-Catholic “deceivers”. These poor, lost souls lead not only themselves, but also, others, astray.
