Our Lady of Guadalupe
“The greatest among you must be your servant.” Mt 23:11
In today’s Gospel,
Jesus instructs His followers to observe all that the scribes and Pharisees
teach, because they have been given the authority of the “chair of Moses” even
though many of these religious leaders do not practice what they preach.
In the Catholic
Church, the pope and the Magisterium hold the “seat” of authority, and even at
the darkest times in history - even when popes may not have practiced what they
preached - that divine gift of authority has never been revoked by the Lord. Those
in authority who have been unfaithful will have to answer to God, but we can
trust that the teachings of Jesus have been preserved in the Church from the very
beginning of Christianity.
This past week,
Protestant Christians celebrated Martin Luther’s break from the Catholic Church
500 years ago. Yet Luther’s path of protest and separation led to the division
of Christianity, and the eventual shattering of Protestants into countless
denominations, all dictating their own conflicting versions of scriptural
authority. At the same time, the Catholic Church was working to reform herself,
while remaining under the authority of the pope. New religious orders like the
Jesuits sprang up, while the Franciscans, the Carmelites and many others
launched reforms, all evangelizing in Europe and beyond with new fervor,
drawing converts and reinvigorating Catholicism. While the Protestant Church
quickly began to divide and fragment, the Catholic Church grew, reaching across
the ocean to the millions of native people in the Americas who became fervent
Catholics within that same century.
Praise God for
His gift of authority, given to the Church and the Holy Father! As Paul says in
today’s second reading, “… For this reason we too give thanks to God
unceasingly, that, in receiving the word of God from hearing us, you received
not a human word but, as it truly is, the word of God, which is now at work in
you who believe” (1 Thes 2:13).
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