No, I'm not kidding. If you continue to follow any of these people, regardless of denomination, you are actively and willingly choosing your own damnation.
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Fifteen months after it unceremoniously slammed its doors on the faces of its congregations worldwide so that it could surrender whatever shred of spiritual authority it may have possessed, System Christianity is thrilled to announce that it is back in business! Yes, churches around the globe closed their doors to subserviently obey the global totalitarian diktat of none are safe until all are safe, but that's all done now - so why not come back?
The following appeal to return to church is brought to you by the Catholic Church's own Jordan Peterson - Bishop Robert Barron (snarky comments in italics added by me):
The past fifteen months have been a time of crisis and deep challenge for our country, and they have been a particular trial for the Catholics. During this terrible COVID period, many of us have been compelled to fast from attendance at Mass and the reception of the Eucharist.
- COVID is not nearly as terrible as everyone paints it out to be. On the other hand, the global totalitarian response to a "pandemic" was terrible, in every sense of the word. And churches eagerly and willingly chose to be a big part of that terrible, evil response by willingly closing their doors and allowing themselves to labeled and treated as non-essential services.
- Compelled to fast from the Eucharist? Churches around the world chose to deny the churchgoers the Eucharist and Mass. Churches could have said no. They could have put up a fuss. They could have . . . but they didn't. Not only did they not put up a fuss, but they actively supported the narrative throughout the birdemic. They still support it now.
To be sure, numerous Masses and Eucharistic para-liturgies have been made available online, and thank God for these. But Catholics know in their bones that such virtual presentations are absolutely no substitute for the real thing. Now that the doors of our churches are commencing to open wide, I would like to urge every Catholic reading these words: Come back to Mass!
- Yeah, thank God for online Mass. And while we're at it, let's thank God for online shopping and online sex.
- What Catholics and all other Christians should know in their bones at this point is that System Christianity is a sham - that what these sycophants offer is no substitute for real Christianity.
- Hey! We declared ourselves to be non-essential! Why not come back and do something non-essential!
Why is the Mass of such central importance? The Second Vatican Council eloquently teaches that the Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life”—which is to say, that from which authentic Christianity comes and toward which it tends. It is the alpha and the omega of the spiritual life, both the path and the goal of Christian discipleship.
- Mass is of such central importance that they canceled it the second they had the chance and did not bring it back for many long months and in some cases, until now. Think about that for a minute or two.
- System Christianity had no problem denying its worshipers the "source and summit of the Christian life" after it closed its doors.
- Let's be clear: System Christianity is more concerned with the gamma and delta variant of the birdemic than it is with the alpha and omega of spiritual life.
The Church Fathers consistently taught that the Eucharist is sustenance for eternal life.
- And your organization denied this sustenance for eternal life in favor of worldly life, Bobby. I'm sure the Church Fathers are pleased.
They meant that in the measure that we internalize the Body and Blood of Jesus, we are readied for life with him in the next world.
- You turned your back on the Body and Blood of Jesus and the next world. And as far as I can tell, you haven't turned back around.
Thomas Aquinas said that all of the other sacraments contain the virtus Christi (the power of Christ) but that the Eucharist contains ipse Christus (Christ himself)—and this would help to explain why St. Thomas could never make it through the Mass without shedding copious tears.
- I get the feeling that St. Thomas is shedding copious tears now, but for entirely different reasons.
It is precisely at the Mass that we are privileged to receive this incomparable gift. It is precisely at the Mass that we take in this indispensable sustenance. Without it, we starve to death spiritually.
- By your actions, you declared the sustenance to be dispensable, and you did dispense with it, without so much as a peep of apology or repentance.
- If there was any spiritual starvation, you are to wholly to blame.
If I might broaden the scope a bit, I would like to suggest that the Mass is, in its totality, the privileged point of encounter with Jesus Christ.
- Well, you shut down that privileged point pretty quickly, didn't ya?
During the Liturgy of the Word, we hear not simply human words crafted by poetic geniuses, but rather the words of the Word. In the readings, and especially in the Gospel, it is Christ who speaks to us. In our responses, we speak back to him, entering into conversation with the second person of the Trinity. Then, in the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the same Jesus who has spoken his heart to us offers his Body and Blood for us to consume. There is simply, this side of heaven, no more intimate communion possible with the risen Lord.
- This may have been true to some extent before the birdemic, but I can't believe that Christ speaks through your organizations any more. I simply can't.
I realize that many Catholics during this COVID period have become accustomed to the ease of attending Mass virtually from the comfort of their own homes and without the inconvenience of busy parking lots, crying children, and crowded pews.
- "The inconvenience of busy parking lots, crying children, and crowded pews"? On which planet did this guy attend church before the birdemic?
But a key feature of the Mass is precisely our coming together as a community.
- This rhetoric would have been golden pre-birdemic. Even better the second the birdemic broke out in the world. Post-birdemic, it's just sad and disingenuous.
As we speak, pray, sing, and respond together, we realize our identity as the Mystical Body of Jesus. During the liturgy, the priest functions in persona Christi (in the very person of Christ), and the baptized in attendance join themselves symbolically to Christ the head and together offer worship to the Father.
- You suspended that symbolism at behest of your worldly masters.
There is an exchange between priest and people at Mass that is crucially important though often overlooked. Just before the prayer over the gifts, the priest says, “Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father,” and the people respond, “May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands for the praise and glory of his name, for our good and the good of all his holy Church.” At that moment, head and members consciously join together to make the perfect sacrifice to the Father. The point is that this cannot happen when we are scattered in our homes and sitting in front of computer screens.
- No, but it can happen - has to happen - outside the confines of the church walls you so readily closed the second you had the chance.
If I might signal the importance of the Mass in a more negative manner, the Church has consistently taught that baptized Catholics are morally obligated to attend Mass on Sunday and that the conscious missing of Mass, in the absence of a valid excuse, is mortally sinful.
- Now that's rich! Can we speak a little about the Catholic Church's moral obligation to hold Mass on Sunday? I guess a global coup based on a engineered non-pandemic is a valid excuse to abandon your flock. Your spiritual authority is gone.
I understand that this language makes many people today uncomfortable, but it shouldn’t, for it is perfectly congruent with everything we have said about the Mass to this point.
- What makes me uncomfortable about this language is its sheer hypocrisy and unrepentant sinfulness.
If the Eucharistic liturgy is, in fact, the source and summit of the Christian life, the privileged encounter with Jesus Christ, the moment when the Mystical Body most fully expresses itself, the setting for the reception of the bread of heaven—then we are indeed putting ourselves, spiritually speaking, in mortal danger when we actively stay away from it.
- I'm sorry, but how does this guy sleep at night?
Just as a physician might observe that you are endangering your life by eating fatty foods, smoking, and refraining from exercise, so a doctor of the soul will tell you that abstaining from the Mass is compromising your spiritual health.
- You chose physical health over spiritual health. You compromised the spiritual health of millions when you did so.
Of course, as I suggested above, it has always been the law of the Church that an individual may decide to miss Mass for legitimate prudential reasons—and this certainly obtains during these waning days of the pandemic.
- Okay, good. Here's my legitimate prudential reason - you guys are aligned against God and Creation and you no longer follow Christ.
But come back to Mass! And might I suggest that you bring someone with you, someone who has been away too long or has perhaps been lulled into complacency during COVID?
- You should start offering vaccines after the service. That'll bring 'em in!
Let your own Eucharistic hunger awaken an evangelical impulse in you. Bring in people from the highways and byways; invite your co-workers and family members; wake up the kids on Sunday morning; turn off your computers. Come back to Mass!
- Better yet, embark on a different and unprecedented form of Christianity. Everything that happened in the past fifteen months happened for a reason. Real, serious Christianity has transcended all churches. There are now two choices: go back to church and subordinate yourself to the secular, globalist, leftist ideology to which churches have fully surrendered, or be a serious Christian outwith church.
- Church can be helpful, I suppose, but it can also be harmful - and I firmly believe that church is now far more harmful than it is helpful. I would have preferred that churches remain an authentic and essential part of Christianity, but they are clearly not anymore.
- One thing is beyond doubt - churches certainly aren't essential.
So, I still attend Mass, but I do not consider it essential to my Christianity. Put another way, I do not believe attending Mass is essential to my salvation or communication with God. My attendance is not an endorsement of the Church's hierarchy, actions, or decisions, but rather a form of support for and involvement in the small community in which I live.
In this sense, Mass in my village transcends church's hierarchy, agenda, and idiot priests. For example, the priest who manages the village church has never uttered a word about the closures or his long months of inaccessibility, but he routinely chides people for not returning to church and happily instructs everyone of their moral and spiritual responsibility to get vaccinated. At the same time, people in my village helped and supported each other throughout the church closures and continue to do so today without any input or aid from the priest.
The overall point is not whether you attend Mass or any church service, but whether or not you are able to discern that organized, institutional Christianity is on the wrong path and has willingly chosen to subjugate itself to the global totalitarian agenda. Blindly following and obeying any church in the present time will surely lead one further away from rather than closer to God.