STAYING AFLOAT ON THE BARQUE OF PETER

A SERMON FOR MISSION SUNDAY

Today is Mission Sunday.  In the days before Vatican II, we used to think about taking up collections for the Holy Ghost Fathers, or some of the other missionary orders who spent their time over in third world countries, Africa, Indochina, and so on, building schools and hospitals, teaching the natives the rudimentary truths of the Faith, and baptizing little colored babies.  This rather outmoded colonial way of thinking about the missions is now lost, perhaps forever.  Today it is those little colored babies who have grown up and who now fill the convents and rectories of Europe.  Convents and rectories that would otherwise be empty.  It is now they who are the missionaries, and we who have become the ones in need.

Right now, our concern is not with missions to Africa or the Far East.  As we are now the ones in need, we must concern ourselves with missions closer to home.  Our church is a mission in every sense of the word.  And as members of this church we are all missionaries, apostles, sent by God into this world with a mission.  And the nature of that mission is for us today what it has always been for Catholics through the ages.  It is to know, love and serve God, to save our souls and bring as many other souls as we can to the truth and sanctity of the Catholic Church.

The profession of faith by St. Peter confirmed Our Lord’s selection of this fisherman apostle to lead his Church.  Upon this Rock, said Our Lord, I will build my Church.  After Our Lord’s Ascension and the coming of the Holy Ghost, St. Peter founded the Church of Antioch in Syria, and then continued his travels until he arrived in Rome.  The Church of Rome thus became the seat of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and ever since has been the center of Church authority.  The Church of Rome was not founded by Peter as a rival to the Church of Antioch, or the Church of Jerusalem, or Constantinople, or Alexandria, the other great patriarchates founded by other apostles.  It was not in conflict with these Churches, but the head of these Churches, the deposit of truth, the source of authority, government, and unity.  The Fathers of the Church, eastern as well as western, acknowledged this supremacy of Rome, and it was understood that in any controversy it was Rome that would decide the matter, certainly and infallibly because of the promise of the Holy Ghost made to St. Peter.  It became an axiom that when Rome spoke, the matter was settled—Roma locuta est, causa finita est.  After the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine and the Edict of Milan granting liberty to the Christians to worship openly, many churches were built in Rome.  But it was the Pope’s own personal basilica, that of St. John Lateran, that was given the extraordinary title Omnium Ecclesiarum Urbis et Orbis Mater et Caput—“Mother and Head of all Churches in the City and the World.”

Christ founded no other Churches, only this one Church founded on Peter, the first Bishop of Rome.  This Roman Catholic Church is therefore THE Church.  The true Church.  The Bride of Christ.  His Mystical Body.  The only Church founded directly by the Son of God.  And it is to this Church that we are invited to belong by God himself.  Now, an invitation from God is not something we should have to think about.  History, however, is filled with individuals, groups, and even whole nations, who have rejected God’s invitation to be members of his Church.  First there were the Jews who rejected their calling, then soon after, the early heretics who obstinately refused the teachings of the Popes and Councils.  Later on, the Eastern Orthodox schismatics would refuse the supremacy of Peter and tear the Church asunder.  Another few hundred years later, the Protestants would invent a whole new religion based on their own individual interpretations of Holy Scripture, refusing the guidance of the Church in these matters and thereby rejecting the very Word of God they claim is so important.  Today, the Modernists play around with the teachings of the Church to make them fit in with the culture and topsy-turvy trends of the day.   But God has shown us the way, he has invited all men, Jews and Gentiles, to be members of the true Church.  This Church is the Bride of Christ who IS the way, the truth, and the life.  And if we reject this invitation we will not save our souls.  Outside the Church there is no salvation, it’s very clear.

In the Athanasian Creed, we state our belief that “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith; which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.”  We must keep our faith whole and undefiled.  Our adherence to the Catholic faith does not admit of any exceptions.  We can’t believe most of it.  We can’t disagree with this or that particular teaching.  We can’t adapt what the Church says to our own personal values or opinions.  We can't agree with the Church's teachings on abortion, for example, but disagree with what she teaches on contraception.  Rome has spoken, the matter is settled.  In mathematical terms, it doesn’t matter whether you think two plus two equals five, or five hundred.  Yes, one answer is closer to the truth than the other, but it’s still wrong.  Unless we accept the one and only possible truth that two plus two equals four, then we are wrong.  Unless we believe all the Church teaches, we are outside the Church.  Apply this to Pope Francis who clearly states that other false religions have the means of salvation, a heresy that has been condemned many times by the true Popes of the Church.  Apply it to the Democrat politicians who openly defy Church teaching by saying that abortion is about a woman’s right to choose, or that the denial of same-sex marriage is bigotry.  We can apply it to all the schismatics and heretics.  All of them.  Not just the Bible-thumping snake-handling fundamentalists, but even the Eastern Orthodox with their beautiful ceremonies and valid sacraments.  If you deny one single truth of the Church, you place yourself outside it.  Deny the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament?  You’re not a member of Christ’s Church.  Deny the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome over the universal Church?  You’re outside the Church where there is no salvation.

It’s vitally important we understand the importance of this doctrine.  It’s essential to our own apostolate.  Since Vatican II, the Catholic missions have all but disappeared.  Because now they believe that you don’t need to convert to save your soul.  Pope Francis has even denounced the idea of converting those outside the Church.  He has forbidden Catholics in Eastern Europe to try converting the Orthodox to the Catholic Faith.  What a terrible injustice we do to those in error, if we simply congratulate them on being “sister churches” and leave them in their error.  It doesn’t matter if someone is drowning in a stinking lake of rotting fish, like the Protestants, or if they are drowning in a bucket of perfume like the Orthodox.  We don’t admire them on how nice they smell.  We pull them out.  Give them air.   Poison is poison, no matter how attractive it might smell.  What a perversion of the truth if, in the name of Christian charity we no longer make the effort to draw souls into the fold of St. Peter, the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church.  Let’s be very clear that we must be apostles.  Christ gave this commandment to his disciples, telling them they must teach and baptize, in other words, bring people into his Church.   It’s the first premise of this Mission Sunday.  We’re not trying to convert people so that we have a bigger club than the Muslims, or so we can fill our collection baskets.  Souls are in danger.  They need to be rescued.

One last point—Don’t let anyone tell you that we traditional Catholics are not members of the Church.  We are the faithful remnant of that Church.  But that doesn’t make us The Church.  We do not enjoy infallibility.  We don’t have the luxury of being guided any more by the living teaching authority of the Church.  All we can do is cling on to what always was.  Not out of nostalgia for what was.  But because what was, still is, and always will be.  The revealed truths of God do not change, no matter what the circumstances in which we find ourselves.  We therefore have everything we need to save our own souls. 

But when it comes to saving other people's souls, it's a lot more difficult today than it used to be.  It’s a little bit like trying to sell someone a luxury cruise on a lifeboat.  We don't have too much of the exterior trappings of the Church to offer, and that makes it a lot more difficult to attract souls.  But it's not impossible.  They may point out to us that the ship the rival cruise line is offering is a lot bigger and nicer, and has better choirs, better educated priests and nuns, schools and hospitals and seminaries, we do have a response that works.  It works because it's true.  We need to reply to them that the ship that looks so very attractive is actually called the Titanic, and that it has already hit the iceberg and is going down.  If only we could persuade people of the truth of this comparison, perhaps we stand a chance of enticing them out of the icy waters of perdition and into our little boat.  We might be small and humble, but right now our lifeboat seems to be the only thing afloat.  It's Mission Sunday.  Let's pull as many out of the water as we can.