by Br. Alexis Bugnolo
If you ever wondered if your local bishop was a man of faith, or a faker, you will soon have — if not already — a clear and undeniable testimony: whether he closes the churches of your Diocese and suspends the celebration of the Sacraments.
Because if you have no faith, then religion of any kind is to your merely a superstition of the sentiment, which must be dispensed with for higher things: physical life.
But if you have the Catholic Faith, then the Catholic religion is something you recognize AS MORE IMPORTANT TO LIFE than even physical life or the risk of infection.
It is just that simple.
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Hi Br. Bugnolo,
Greeting from US, saw on your interview the other day that you’re originally from Morristown, we’re right around the corner in Berkeley Heights. Our Cardinal just cancelled all Masses in our diocese as well as my parents’ Bishop in PA did the same. Our schools (Catholic and public) will be closed next week. As you said in another post, I too immediately thought of the message of Our Lady of Akita. I also remembered the online news last October that Sister Sasagawa after years/decades? of silence said an Angel had a new message of “Put on ashes and pray for a repentant rosary every day.”
David
Small world! She was right, we need to pray, to as to be delivered from the plague of faithless bishops.
Social separation is one of ways we have of fighting this pandemic. If the State issued an order to cancel any meeting of say, 250 or more, I believe the Bishop must obey and close down Mass in his diocese.
Michael,
Temporal authorities have no authority over the Church. If God the Creator is the author of the Sacraments, stop and think that He just might have made Sacraments which are not the cause of infection?
I don’t buy your position on this Br. Alexis. God expects us to be prudent and do what we can to fight a pandemic. I don’t see where the Sacraments have anything to do with this situation. If a Catholic wished to receive Communion he/she could arrange this with the priest who could hold a private service for less that 250. Most Catholics would agree that in this emergency the State has a right to restrict large meetings and the Church has a duty to follow.
Its not MY position, that Jesus is God and the author of the Sacraments and is infinitely more an expert at medicine than any human doctor.
Its the teaching of our Divine Faith, without which NO ONE CAN BE SAVED.
Wonder if the Imans closed the Mosques as well? I have not heard anything from the Islamic front. I won’t be surprised if the Moslems would first respect Sharia and ask all civil laws to go fly kites.
Yes, Brother Bugnolo, and the sweat and tears of blood that Jesus wept in the Garden of Gethsemane, and are now, again, being shed through the statue of the weeping Christ of San Pedro in Cochabamba, Bolivia; these tears should be Our Lord’s desperate plea for the many shepherds and priests who have lost the Faith and their Sight in Him. Here is a link to the article with a picture of the beautiful statue.
https://es.aleteia.org/2020/03/11/este-cristo-volvio-a-llorar-sangre-en-bolivia-un-fenomeno-lleno-de-devocion/
Everything in our faith is under direct frontal attack and most Catholics including “conservative” Catholics can apparently see no further than the end of their noses on the matter! That so many could claim a deceitful heretic, a destroyer of the faith, who illegally usurped his place in the Church IS ACTUALLY THE TRUE HEAD OF THE CHURCH is utterly stunning! And to do so with evidence that another is the reigning pope is unforgivable. This makes a lie of the promise of Christ that the foundation of the Church would be the Rock of Peter, who would then hold the Keys of the Kingdom with the binding and loosing authority of Christ Himself, in place of His visible absence and reign on earth. But we also have an accelerating attack on yet another Promise of Christ with many of us coming up quite short in our faith. This is that Our Lord would literally be available to us in Body, Soul and Divinity under the mere APPEARANCE OF BREAD. Nothing seems to be showing us how very short we are in a proper faith concerning this miracle of all miracles than the present circumstance –even if its only in silently putting up with this crime by the mandating prelates who are deliberately denying this miracle to those God has entrusted to them!
I prefer the faith of the Bishop of Tyler ,Texas. Rather than close his churches he brought the Blessed Sacrament outside and led a procession around the Cathedral praying for an end to the pestilence!