The livelihoods of every religious leader in the world were threatened when He Who Fulfilled The Prophecies Spoke One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church Into Being with His Only Church-Creating Word to His First Catholic Pope!
“And I 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.'”
The first to feel threatened were the Pharisees and Sadducees. They came to the obvious conclusion: “Jesus and His followers are a threat to our incomes. They must be destroyed!” That is a “Hidden Prophesy” of what those employed by Temples of Zeus, Apollo, Odin, and hundreds of others would do when their incomes were threatened when Catholic Teaching Appeared and Appealed to more and more of their followers.
Now, 2,000 years later, many in State Religions still hate Catholics! Earth-worshipers in the Environmental Factions, Take-Over-Everything Socialists, and Greed-Worshiping Gluttons still hate for anyone to “Be Catholic!” They despise the examples of Catholic priests and religious who take the Holy Vows of Poverty, Obedience, and Chastity.
Today, more people than ever are blessed to support The Church-Creating Word of Jesus by building their thoughts with Bible Truths: “One person did fulfill over 300 Messianic Prophecies and was born at the one appointed time to one Virgin of the one House of David in one tiny village of Bethlehem, one of nearly a million villages in the whole world!”
How do we, as Catholics, deal with attempts to destroy our Catholic Church in every age from Nero to Diocletian to Arius to Luther to Marx and Lenin?
St. Paul gives us his “Hidden Prophecy” of dealing with Anti-Catholics in every age: “Divide and conquer!” Catholics are blessed to see that in our Daily Reading from Acts 22:30 & 23:6-11.
When he returned to Jerusalem after founding Catholic Churches in Turkey and Greece, Paul was a target! Profiteers in every Catholic-hating group mobilized their paid rioters and caused such disturbances that armed Government Forces had to step in. (Catholics see similar riots paid for by special interests from then until now. We are blessed to know that some things never change!)
The Roman Commander was smart enough to find out who was encouraging and paying the rioters. When his undercover police found out, he “ordered the chief priest and the whole Sanhedrin to convene” and he “made Paul stand before them.”
We see St. Paul’s “Divide and Conquer” at work! There are differences within every group. Pharisees believed they had immortal souls that could go to Heaven.
Sadducees did not believe in “the resurrection of the dead, or angels, or spirits”. Their name, “Sadducee” is both a “Hidden Prophecy” and what may be a “Hidden Pun” of God:
“Every Sadducee / is ‘Sad, you see’, / and has two ‘d‘s’! / One for ‘dumb’ and one for ‘dim’ / rejecting God, a living sin”. / May no one ever want to be / a self-centered Sadducee.”
Back to work:
The two groups had been competing for donors since Moses. They did join forces to get rid of Jesus, Peter, His First Catholic Bishops, and those who supported them. After Jesus had been crucified, they went back to fighting among themselves.
The “Pharisees” were closer to God, so Paul focused on the similarities between them and Catholic Teaching. They were elated to find that the pesky Catholics agreed more with them than with the Sadducees who competed with them for donors, and announced: “We find nothing wrong with this man!”
The “Hidden Prophecy”? Catholics always live among competing groups vying for donations. Some of them agree: “We must love God and our neighbors as ourselves.”
Modern Sadducees support abortion, unnecessary family-hurting taxation, and over-regulation. They refuse to be among the “God and neighbor-loving people of goodwill” to whom Jesus promised possible Salvation!
Many modern see the evil in hurting neighbors. They have reasons to agree with us, rather than the Sadducees, who hate all that does not give them earthly gain.
As Catholics, we encourage our billions of neighbors to move their souls toward Heaven by supporting groups with enough goodwill to not sacrifice unborn children on the altars of convenience.
May we all unite against the “Sadducees” of every age and ask God to let us all: “Be As Catholic As We Can.”
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Today’s Simple Rhyme: “God approves the lives and labors / of all who love Him, and their neighbors.”
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