under the patronage of St Joseph and St Dominic
By the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept, remembering Zion;
on the poplars that grew there we hung up our harps. . . Ps 136
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under the patronage of St Joseph and St Dominic By the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept, remembering Zion; |
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SUPER FLUMINA BABYLONIS…What Catholic, bemused by the devastation that has taken place in his Church over the last forty years, could fail to be moved at the expression of the psalmist in this song of sorrow from the Babylonian captivity? We are like the Jewish exiles on alien soil. We remember the glory that was the Catholic Church, the adherence of its members in ages past to its principles of faith and morals and we lament its current state. Babylon is the world. And the world wants us to trivialise our religion for its amusement. * * There are, perhaps, 40,000 different religions on the face of the earth. All of them, save one, were founded by men. One, and one only, was founded by God. That is the only religion worth belonging to because its promises of salvation are guaranteed, not by men, but by God himself. That religion is the Catholic religion; its repository, the Catholic Church. True, before He established His Church, Almighty God chose the Jews as His own people, revealed to them the secrets of His heart and entered into successive covenants with them. But all this came to an end with the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, His Son. In many and various ways in times past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets. But now, in these our days He has spoken to us through His Son. (Hebrews 1:1) The head of this Church is not, as many think, the Pope. Its head is Jesus Christ, that is, Almighty God become man. He is not a dead Christ but a living Christ for he rose from the dead, glorious and immortal. As St Paul says: death no more has dominion over him. (Romans 6:9) Paul goes on to explain the reality more fully in his letter to the Hebrews: Then, there used to be a great number of those other priests, because death put an end to each one; but this one, because he remains for ever, can never lose his priesthood. (Hebrews 7:23-24) As Christ is the head of the Catholic Church, God the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, is its Soul. God is its reason for existence. The salvation of its members, that is, their union with God here on earth, and, ultimately, in heaven is its end. God’s Holy Church does not fail, but its ministers fail—every day! The Holy Spirit, the Soul of the Church can use whatever means He chooses to achieve His ends. He may choose to use this web site. It is our prayer and our hope that what is written here will serve His ends, and that those who write and edit the material found here, and those who generate it for transmission throughout the world wide web, will be moved only by His inspirations and so serve the Kingdom of God. Michael Baker
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