Speak Love through Truth
by Fr. David M. Knight

Monday, October 7, 2024
Twenty-Seventh Week of the Year
Our Lady of the Rosary
Lectionary 461
Gal 1:6-12/Lk 10:25-37
Galatians 1:6-12: Paul says “there are some who are disturbing you and wish to pervert the gospel of Christ.... If anyone preaches to you a gospel other than the one that you received, let that one be accursed!” We think of innovators with new and “liberal” ideas. But no. The New American Bible notes say these
interlopers insisted on the necessity of following certain precepts of the Mosaic law.... They were undermining Paul's authority, asserting that he had not been trained by Jesus himself, that his gospel did not agree with that of the original and true apostles in Jerusalem.... and was thus not the full and authentic one held by "those of repute" in Jerusalem.
These were the “arch conservatives” of the “judaizing” party who rejected the New Law of Christ that Paul preached and that the true leaders of the Church in Jerusalem had accepted.
In the Church today, surprisingly. it is still those considered “conservatives” who are disturbing the peace and unity of the Church—and for the same reason: they do not accept the authentic teaching of the Church if it disagrees with what they learned in catechism as children. Often what they want to “conserve” is something that was an innovative departure from Catholic doctrine that crept in centuries ago and was never noticed or addressed: for example, the teaching that to miss Mass on one single Sunday was “grave matter” and therefore “mortal sin.” Almost everyone still believes that people married “out of the Church” are forbidden by Church law to receive Communion. The excommunication that did this was abolished in the new Code of Canon Law, but no one seems to know that; and anyone who makes this truth known is liable to be attacked exactly as Paul was. The real “innovators” are the “restorationists” who want to restore, not the original vision reaffirmed at Vatican II, but the resurging attitudes of legalism, clericalism and triumphalism that the world’s bishops rejected in their first session—and the old power-laden top-down government against which the bishops affirmed the initial Christian principles of collaborative ministry and subsidiarity. Same game; same players.
Vatican II was not a break with the past, but a return to ancient and original principles that had gradually been replaced by innovators while no “Paul” was around to challenge them. But as stewards of God’s reign, we must. (The Council affirms this: Constitution on the Church, nos. 48, 51.)
In Luke 10:25-37 Jesus cuts through it all with one simple principle: love God and show your love for people by having compassion. This is the rule that settles all disputes about rules.
Initiative: Speaking truth is usually the loving thing to do.
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry

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