Today’s Reading, from the Book of Acts, tells of: St. Paul’s warning about schismatics.
At Miletus, Paul spoke to the presbyters of the Church of Ephesus. Acts 20:28-38: “Keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock of which the Holy Spirit has appointed you overseers,in which you tend the Church of God that He acquired with His own Blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock. And from your own group, men will come forward perverting the truth to draw the disciples away after them.”
We have to be willfully blind not to see the warning: “after my departure savage wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock” We may think of modern schismatics and their toleration of abortion-causing birth control chemicals and abortion, itself.
Who are these “savage wolves”? They are self-willed schismatics, often the vainest of lapsed Catholics. “And from your own group men will come forward perverting the truth to draw the disciples away after them.” We may think of Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII and the others who viciously turned on their own Mother Church. They drew, and forced, many disciples away after them.
What are we to do? “So be vigilant and remember that for three years, night and day, I unceasingly admonished each of you with tears. And now I commend you to God and to that gracious word of His that can build you up and give you the inheritance among all who are consecrated.”
If we allow ourselves to be led astray by the “savage wolves”, we will lose “the inheritance among all who are consecrated”.
Hidden in: St. Paul’s warning about schismatics: a warning to the “savage wolves”, themselves. They are too blinded by pride to see what they have become.
