SO WHO WAS JESUS?
Christmas is over for another year. Now we can take up our lives where we left off, there are the January sales, there are the household chores, there are the people next door to put up with, and there are holidays to plan and the need to have better phones, more luxuries in life, and flirt around with some boy or girl. Christmas came and Christmas went.
Still it is good to have a period of sentiment about babies in the manger and angels singing, messages of peace and goodwill, and forgiveness and being good friends. But these things have nothing to do with the real world, do they? We are back to wars, rape, knife stabbing and poverty. So what is thIs Peace on Earth singing really mean? We seem to have less Peace on Earth that there was at the time of Jesus.
It would seem then that the coming of this baby was a failure. He grew up and died on a Cross and for some time afterwards his followers tried to live his teachings. In the early ages after his life Christians were careful to follow his teachings, you know, what he said to the rich young man when he asked him "What must I do to earn eternal life?" The answer Jesus gave was "Thou shall not kill, thou shall not commit adultery, honour your Father and your Mother" He also went on to denounce Divorce in no uncertain terms. But no, that is not for the Church of today. It was all right for Christians in the early Church but we are mature and have moved on since that time. We know Jesus never intended it to apply to us so in the Christian Church of today we stop teenagers from getting pregnant by handing them out contraceptives so that they can commit adultery in safety, we must not mention divorce within the Church because it is judgemental, and of course the killing of babies by abortion is also too judgemental to speak about. We thank Jesus for his advice of course but such things will not change the world and we know he is an OK guy and will understand our position for he is 'merciful' One of the many things we must not take notice of is that our young people left the Church in droves when this new understanding was brought into our Church. I remember after attending a catechetical course one of the leading Catechists almost stamped her feet in triumph at the new 'learning' and warned that the Church must change its teaching on Divorce, Abortion, and Contraception. She had moved on as she was taught in the sixties and seventies. I had learned by this time to say nothing but by this time as I heard youngsters complaining at 14, and the majority of youngsters, that they did not want to make their Confirmation, I shared just a little sympathy for them and wondered why this utter failure of the new ways and the modern Church was brushed under the carpet.
I even heard the commandments of Jesus being called just 'rules' The real work was ending poverty and giving to Charity. Thee is no doubt that this is an offshoot of loving God, that you then see him in your neighbour. The trouble is that your neighbour has to see God in you in order to be converted and in this the modern Church fails badly. They are just one of thousands of charities the majority of whom would never describe themselves as Christian.
No, to change the world we have to give the world the example that Jesus told us to give. "Go therefore into the world baptising in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit
TEACHING THEM TO OBSERVE ALL I HAVE COMMANDED YOU and behold I am with you until the end of the world. We need to return again to the early Church, the true early Church, and not the one made up by scholars, experts, and modernists.
Still it is good to have a period of sentiment about babies in the manger and angels singing, messages of peace and goodwill, and forgiveness and being good friends. But these things have nothing to do with the real world, do they? We are back to wars, rape, knife stabbing and poverty. So what is thIs Peace on Earth singing really mean? We seem to have less Peace on Earth that there was at the time of Jesus.
It would seem then that the coming of this baby was a failure. He grew up and died on a Cross and for some time afterwards his followers tried to live his teachings. In the early ages after his life Christians were careful to follow his teachings, you know, what he said to the rich young man when he asked him "What must I do to earn eternal life?" The answer Jesus gave was "Thou shall not kill, thou shall not commit adultery, honour your Father and your Mother" He also went on to denounce Divorce in no uncertain terms. But no, that is not for the Church of today. It was all right for Christians in the early Church but we are mature and have moved on since that time. We know Jesus never intended it to apply to us so in the Christian Church of today we stop teenagers from getting pregnant by handing them out contraceptives so that they can commit adultery in safety, we must not mention divorce within the Church because it is judgemental, and of course the killing of babies by abortion is also too judgemental to speak about. We thank Jesus for his advice of course but such things will not change the world and we know he is an OK guy and will understand our position for he is 'merciful' One of the many things we must not take notice of is that our young people left the Church in droves when this new understanding was brought into our Church. I remember after attending a catechetical course one of the leading Catechists almost stamped her feet in triumph at the new 'learning' and warned that the Church must change its teaching on Divorce, Abortion, and Contraception. She had moved on as she was taught in the sixties and seventies. I had learned by this time to say nothing but by this time as I heard youngsters complaining at 14, and the majority of youngsters, that they did not want to make their Confirmation, I shared just a little sympathy for them and wondered why this utter failure of the new ways and the modern Church was brushed under the carpet.
I even heard the commandments of Jesus being called just 'rules' The real work was ending poverty and giving to Charity. Thee is no doubt that this is an offshoot of loving God, that you then see him in your neighbour. The trouble is that your neighbour has to see God in you in order to be converted and in this the modern Church fails badly. They are just one of thousands of charities the majority of whom would never describe themselves as Christian.
No, to change the world we have to give the world the example that Jesus told us to give. "Go therefore into the world baptising in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit
TEACHING THEM TO OBSERVE ALL I HAVE COMMANDED YOU and behold I am with you until the end of the world. We need to return again to the early Church, the true early Church, and not the one made up by scholars, experts, and modernists.
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