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33 Humility is the very foundation of trust in God and it forces us to recognize our radical dependence on Him for all things. The expression of our confidence in God is our life of prayer. In St. Mark 4:35-40, Jesus said to His disciples, let us cross over to the farther shore. Leaving the crowd, He left in the boat in which He was sitting and other boats accompanied Him. It happened that a bad storm blew up. Waves were breaking over the boat and it began to fill with water. Jesus was in the stern through it all, sound asleep on a cushion. Finally, the disciples woke him up and said to Him, “Master, doesn’t it matter to you that we are going to drown?” Jesus awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!” The wind fell off and everything grew calm. Then, He turned to the disciples and said, “Why are you so terrified? Why are you lacking in faith?” A great awe overcame them at this, and they remarked, “Who can this be that the wind and the sea obey Him?” These are the questions that I ask the students when I am invited to visit classrooms and talk to them. I am always amazed at how many of our young people, even in the parochial schools, are essentially not catechized. They know so little about their Faith and the Church in particular. I asked these questions and most of them do not know the answers. In the world today, at the last count, there are 33,000 churches that profess to be Christian, yet only one Church can be traced historically back to Jesus Christ and the Apostles. What is the One Church founded immediately and directly by Jesus Christ in the days of His public Life? The Catholic Church! What is the only Church that has existed uninterruptedly for the last 2000 years? The Catholic Church! What is the only international Church, worldwide, united in Faith, worship and government? The Catholic Church! The Mystical Body of Christ and the Catholic Church are one and the same. Why is the Catholic Church so hated and reviled; Her dogma, doctrine and devotion scorned and denied, attacked, distorted and misrepresented? Cardinal Newman said, it is for the same reason that the enemies of Christ called Our Lord, Beelzebub. The normal state of the Mystical Body of Christ is struggle and conflict. The Mystical Body of Christ will always follow Her Divine Spouse on the way of the Cross. In a mystical way, the Church in the latter days is destined to suffer all the things that Our Lord suffered at the time of His Passion. The Church, like Her Divine Spouse, is destined to be abandoned, betrayed, demised, scourged, mocked and crucified!


20331CP
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