Monday, March 18, AD 2024 10:43pm

Christus Vincit! Christus Regnat! Christus Imperat!

 

May God have mercy on the souls of those politicians who pretend to be Catholic in church, but in their public lives, rather like Judas Iscariot, betray Jesus Christ by how they vote and how they willingly cooperate with intrinsic evil.

                                                           Bishop Daniel Jenky

 

 

My bishop, Daniel Jenky, of the Peoria Diocese, speaks truth about Caesar on April 14 of this year:

There is only one basic reason why Christianity exists and that is the fact that Jesus Christ truly rose from the grave.

The disciples never expected the resurrection. The unanimous testimony of all four Gospels is that the terrible death of Jesus on the cross entirely dashed all their hopes about Jesus and about his message. He was dead, and that was the end of it. They looked for nothing more, and they expected nothing more.

So as much as they had loved him, in their eyes Jesus was a failed messiah. His dying seemed to entirely rob both his teaching and even his miracles of any lasting significance.

And they were clearly terrified that his awful fate, at the hands of the Sanhedrin and the Romans, could easily become their awful fate. So they hid, trembling with terror, behind shuttered windows and locked doors.

When the Risen Christ suddenly appeared in their midst, their reaction was shocked incredulity. They simply could not believe their own eyes.

Reality only very slowly began to penetrate their consciousness when Jesus offers proof of his resurrection. He shows them the wounds on his hands, his feet, and his side. Jesus even allowed them to touch him. He breaks bread with them and eats with them. And only then could they admit to themselves what had seemed absolutely impossible – the one who had truly died had truly risen! The Crucified now stood before them as their Risen, glorious, triumphant Lord.

His rising from the grave was every bit as real as his dying on the cross. The resurrection was the manifest proof of the invincible power of Almighty God. The inescapable fact of the resurrection confirmed every word Jesus had ever spoken and every work Jesus had ever done.

The Gospel was the truth. Jesus was the Christ, the promised Messiah of Israel. Jesus was the Savior of the world. Jesus was the very Son of God.

There is no other explanation for Christianity. It should have died out and entirely disappeared when Christ died and was buried, except for the fact that Christ was truly risen, and that during the 40 days before his Ascension, he interacted with his Apostles and disciples, and on one occasion even with hundreds of his followers.

Today’s appointed Gospel reading for this Saturday in the Octave of Easter is taken from the 16th Chapter of Mark. It concludes with a command from the lips of Jesus, given to his disciples, given to the whole Church, given to you and me assembled here today: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”

We heard in today’s Second Reading from the Acts of the Apostles that the same Sanhedrin that had condemned Jesus was amazed at the boldness of Peter and John. Perceiving them to be uneducated, ordinary men, they recognized them as companions of Jesus. They warned them never again to teach, or speak to anyone, in the name of Jesus.

But the elders and the scribes might as well have tried to turn back the tide, or hold back an avalanche. Peter and John had seen the Risen Christ with their own eyes. Peter and John were filled with the Holy Spirit. They asked whether it is right “in the sight of God for us to obey you rather than God. It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.”

And Peter and John and all the Apostles, starting first in Jerusalem in Judea and Galilee and then to the very ends of the earth, announced the Resurrection and the Good News to everyone they encountered.

According to the clear testimony of the Scriptures, these Apostles had once been rather ordinary men – like you and me. Their faith hadn’t always been strong. They made mistakes. They committed sins. They were often afraid and confused.

But meeting the Risen Lord had changed everything about these first disciples, and knowing the Risen Lord should also change everything about us.

You know, it has never been easy to be a Christian and it’s not supposed to be easy! The world, the flesh, and the devil will always love their own, and will always hate us. As Jesus once predicted, they hated me, they will certainly hate you.

But our Faith, when it is fully lived, is a fighting faith and a fearless faith. Grounded in the power of the resurrection, there is nothing in this world, and nothing in hell, that can ultimately defeat God’s one, true, holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

For 2,000 years the enemies of Christ have certainly tried their best. But think about it. The Church survived and even flourished during centuries of terrible persecution, during the days of the Roman Empire.

The Church survived barbarian invasions. The Church survived wave after wave of Jihads. The Church survived the age of revolution. The Church survived Nazism and Communism.

And in the power of the resurrection, the Church will survive the hatred of Hollywood, the malice of the media, and the mendacious wickedness of the abortion industry.

The Church will survive the entrenched corruption and sheer incompetence of our Illinois state government, and even the calculated disdain of the President of the United States, his appointed bureaucrats in HHS, and of the current majority of the federal Senate.

May God have mercy on the souls of those politicians who pretend to be Catholic in church, but in their public lives, rather like Judas Iscariot, betray Jesus Christ by how they vote and how they willingly cooperate with intrinsic evil.

As Christians we must love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, but as Christians we must also stand up for what we believe and always be ready to fight for the Faith. The days in which we live now require heroic Catholicism, not casual Catholicism. We can no longer be Catholics by accident, but instead be Catholics by conviction.

In our own families, in our parishes, where we live and where we work – like that very first apostolic generation – we must be bold witnesses to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We must be a fearless army of Catholic men, ready to give everything we have for the Lord, who gave everything for our salvation.

Remember that in past history other governments have tried to force Christians to huddle and hide only within the confines of their churches like the first disciples locked up in the Upper Room.

In the late 19th century, Bismark waged his “Kultur Kamp,” a Culture War, against the Roman Catholic Church, closing down every Catholic school and hospital, convent and monastery in Imperial Germany.

Clemenceau, nicknamed “the priest eater,” tried the same thing in France in the first decade of the 20th Century.

Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health care.

In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama – with his radical, pro abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path.

Now things have come to such a pass in America that this is a battle that we could lose, but before the awesome judgement seat of Almighty God this is not a war where any believing Catholic may remain neutral.

This fall, every practicing Catholic must vote, and must vote their Catholic consciences, or by the following fall our Catholic schools, our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic Newman Centers, all our public ministries — only excepting our church buildings – could easily be shut down. Because no Catholic institution, under any circumstance, can ever cooperate with the instrinsic evil of killing innocent human life in the womb.

No Catholic ministry – and yes, Mr. President, for Catholics our schools and hospitals are ministries – can remain faithful to the Lordship of the Risen Christ and to his glorious Gospel of Life if they are forced to pay for abortions.

Now remember what was the life-changing experience that utterly transformed those fearful and quaking disciples into fearless, heroic apostles. They encountered the Risen Christ. They reverenced his sacred wounds. They ate and drank with him.

Is that not what we do here together, this morning at this annual men’s march Mass?

This is the Saturday of the Octave of Easter, a solemnity so great and central to our Catholic faith that Easter Day is celebrated for eight full days, and the Easter season is joyously observed as the Great 50 Days of Easter. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ – risen from the grave – is in our midst. His Holy Word teaches us the truth. His Sacred Body and Blood becomes our food and drink.

The Risen Christ is our Eternal Lord; the Head of his Body, the Church; our High Priest; our Teacher; our Captain in the well-fought fight.

We have nothing to fear, but we have a world to win for him. We have nothing to fear, for we have an eternal destiny in heaven. We have nothing to fear, though the earth may quake, kingdoms may rise and fall, demons may rage, but St. Michael the Archangel, and all the hosts of heaven, fight on our behalf.

No matter what happens in this passing moment, at the end of time and history, our God is God and Jesus is Lord, forever and ever.

Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat!

Christ wins! Christ reigns! Christ commands!

Bishop Jenky gets it.  This is not a mere election year in 2012 for American Catholics.  As I have noted before, here, this is an Elijah on Mount Carmel year.  A time of choosing is upon us.

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T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Wednesday, April 18, AD 2012 5:55am

Amen!

” . . . for the country folk to be up and to arm, . . . ” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

This night in 1775, Paul Revere . . .

Paul Primavera
Wednesday, April 18, AD 2012 5:58am

Amen.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, April 18, AD 2012 7:55am

Incompetence in the exercise of charity or malicious evildoing?
Peaceably assembly in every public place owned, in joint and common tenancy by every person ever created, those persons who now are alive, our ancestors and those being aborted today, and all future generations, our constitutional posterity, is being redefined by the HHS mandate to usurp all public property to those in government and impose moratoriums on freedom, speech, assembly and our unalienable rights. Our unalienable rights are being proscribed by an incompetent and malicious evildoer. The TRUTH returned to the public square will announce that freedom of religion is man’s response to the gift of Faith from God and if God tells us that charity is man’s vision for a better world, government may not redefine charity as something with a price tag to be extorted from the people. If those people in public service do not like religious freedom, they are very, very, free to leave their office, their citizenship and their country to find what suits them. Remember that when Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the woman atheist who removed prayer from the public place came to the atheistic nation of the USSR, The United Soviet Socialist Republic, the USSR refuse to admit her. So, Obama and his HHS can go wherever anybody will admit them but not in my country. FREEDOM and one rosary in Latin, maybe two.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, April 18, AD 2012 8:05am

“the USSR refused to admit her.(the atheist)” I see my Russian, Jewish ancestor is at work again. Mary De Voe

Paul W Primavera
Wednesday, April 18, AD 2012 8:08am

“…one rosary in Latin, maybe two.”

One in Latin during my lunch time walk and one tonight after Bible Study.

😉

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Wednesday, April 18, AD 2012 8:09am

– those people who bravely came here for religious freedom continued coming all through our history…. puritans, French, Irish also came looking for life and religious freedom, Germans who came during the years of Bismarck, the Czech, defectors from communism in Asia and the soviet bloc, Jews from Europe… no wonder we are an Exceptional country, we are populated by people who take their religion seriously

c matt
c matt
Wednesday, April 18, AD 2012 8:31am

Makes you want to move to Peoria just to be under his excellency. Any chance he might get transferred to DC?

Paul W Primavera
Wednesday, April 18, AD 2012 9:02am

SSPX (whose reconciliation with the Vatican seems likely) has a very different take on the topic of religious liberty:

http://www.sspx.org/news/our_first_cherished.htm

Basically, SSPX says no one has the right to choose the wrong and choosing faiths other than the Catholic one is wrong. Maybe I oversimplify. My view (for whatever it’s worth, which may not be much) is that we do have freedom of choice and religious liberty, and then we have to bear the consequences of our choices, whether right or wrong. It’s called responsibility and accountability.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Wednesday, April 18, AD 2012 9:07am

in Peoria? maybe Fulton Sheen has inspired him

WK Aiken
WK Aiken
Wednesday, April 18, AD 2012 10:47am

“Basically, SSPX says no one has the right to choose the wrong and choosing faiths other than the Catholic one is wrong. Maybe I oversimplify.

Nope. This screed is as much a condemnation of all things non-Catholic, including the Constitution, as the HHS mandate is a declaration of war on all things non-secular.

Does SSPX believe or desire that such a redefinition should be enforced by law? To say that “Americanist religious liberty” is an error is to condemn a keystone of The Constitution. There’s scant other conclusion to be had, so the question is begged, “If the Constitution itself is wrong, by what then shall it be replaced?”

This?

trackback
Wednesday, April 18, AD 2012 6:00pm

[…] Christus Vincit! Christus Regnat! Christus Imperat! – Donald R. McClarey, The Amrcn Cth […]

Walter
Admin
Wednesday, April 18, AD 2012 11:45pm

““If the Constitution itself is wrong, by what then shall it be replaced?”

Ummmm, It is to be replaced by a Catholic monarchy.

Walter
Admin
Thursday, April 19, AD 2012 8:55am

“I might note that this discussion is far afield from the topic of this post and everyone from here on in will stay on topic on this thread.”

How is that so if we are discussing political leadership? If we are to chose correctly and within the traditions of the Catholic faith, then no, there is no right, in the true sense of the word, to chose any other faith than Christianity in in fullness (i.e. Catholicism). This gets at the heart of what Bishop Jenky and all the bishops should be about, choosing, or am i wrong? Are we such “American” Catholics that we place the Constitution above the Magisterium? The right to religious liberty in the Constitution, which must and should be upheld by all citizens, is a compromise because so many abandoned the True Faith. They basically had to say “We agree to disagree” in order to stop killing one another, but that does not change the fact that Christ is very precise in where his Church is. And if we are to follow him truly, then how do we have a “right” to choose differently. That is still the teaching of the Church and not just the SSPX.

Paul W Primavera
Thursday, April 19, AD 2012 9:01am

Dignitas Humanae from the Magisterium of the Church supports and provides the foundation for Bishop Jenky’s position.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651207_dignitatis-humanae_en.html

One can’t claim to be more Catholic than the Pope while dissenting from what the Magisterium and the Pope teach.

That’s what SSPX does.

Paul W Primavera
Thursday, April 19, AD 2012 10:02am

Well, this is perhaps my fault for having posted the link to SSPX’s thoughts on the religious liberty matter. The irony truly struck me as weird: claiming to be Catholic but denying the truth thereof. Personally, I think that the attitude of absolutism with respect to the Roman Catholic Church is as dangerous and wrong as the attitude of absolutism with respect to secular atheism that the Government is trying to force down our throats. Many religious denominations – Southern Baptist, Assemblies of God Pentecostal, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran Missouri Synod, etc. – are uniting with us against Obamania. If we can’t get along with our separated brethren here on Earth, then how shall we in an eternity in Heaven? And yes, I fully expect that my Pentecostal Mom and Dad are going to Heaven (if only because they put up with me for 18 long years of purgation).

😉

If they don’t make it in, then there is scant chance for me. Indeed, being a member of the Church that has the fulness of grace and truth (as we oft hear proclaimed) isn’t a cause for pride and self-satisfaction. It’s rather a cause for humility – I have received what I don’t deserve (which is grace) and I am not receiving what I truly do deserve (which is mercy). This “ain’t no cause” for insufferable pride.

David J Seelie
David J Seelie
Friday, April 20, AD 2012 3:36pm

BRAVO Bishop Jenky

Ike
Ike
Sunday, April 22, AD 2012 12:48am

I love how the media is spinning this as some kind of unfair comparison to Hitler. The bishop isn’t comparing Obama to Hitler, but to every fanatically anti-Catholic statesman who ever tried to destroy the Church only to fail miserably. Silly liberals.

Dr. Joseph A. Mayercheck
Dr. Joseph A. Mayercheck
Tuesday, April 24, AD 2012 4:32pm

This issue is NOT about Catholics but every Christian. This is NOT about the Constitution. If one is a TRUE Christian, their faith will not let them enjoy the right to vote for anyone that believes, and promotes, abortion; the killing of unborn children. And if our government refuses to address the unborn, then why did they when Scott Peterson was charged with 2 murders. That of his wife AND unborn child. Our government wants to pick and choose but a TRUE Christian has only one response/belief….no killing of unborn and no voting for those that believe and promote that killing.

trackback
Wednesday, April 25, AD 2012 6:12am

[…] a prior post, which may be read here, I detailed a speech by Bishop Daniel Jenky of the Peoria Diocese, my Bishop,  in which he […]

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