1. The feast of the Immaculate Conception.
The Immaculate Conception is the mystery by which Catholics believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without original sin. Without original sin, the sin man inherited from Adam and Eve, and without actual sin, the sin man actually commit after baptism, Mary was the only person that was sinless.
As such the Blessed Virgin Mary becomes the type of the Catholic Church. The members of the Catholic Church must be sinless, not because they were born that way like Mary, but because through the life of repentance, their past sins are forgiven.
If a Catholic makes a perfect act of repentance by combining the repentance of St. John the Baptist and the repentance of Jesus Christ, then his past sins will be forgiven and by the grace of faith which he receives after his perfect repentance, his past sins will not return. Thus he becomes sinless, just like Mary.
Being sinless like the Immaculate Conception he becomes a member of the Catholic Church of which the Blessed Virgin is a type.
The Blessed Virgin Mary, aside from being the Mother of God, is the personification or the type of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is a prophetic Church just as Mary is the Queen of all prophets because she, herself, was a prophet. Since the Catholic Church is a prophetic Church and Mary is a prophet that is a type of the Catholic Church, then every Catholic must, also, be a prophet.
In the early Catholic Church, to be a Catholic was identical to being a prophet. When the early Christians went to the desert and mountains to live the monastic life, they went there, precisely to be Catholics. At that time the monasteries were, also, referred to as schools of prophets.
The process of being a prophet and the process of evangelizing oneself and others is identical. To be a prophet and to be a saint is identical. Prophets are saints who preach to others to become saints.
2. God’s punishment and God’s rewards.
Whenever God was pleased with His people He would send them prophets. Prophets were a sign of God’s pleasure. On the other hand when God wants to chastise a nation He deprives them of prophets. To have no prophets, therefore, is one of God’s greatest punishment for a people or nation.
3. What is a prophet.
St. Paul wrote that among the many gifts of the Holy Spirit, prophecy is one gift that we must desire to possess. It is superior to performing miracles. Miracles are spectacular that can make us famous. With prophesy we can have our heads chopped off. So miracles are more desired than the more important gift of prophesy. But miracles cannot save souls. It is prophesy that saves souls. So we have Mary Queen of Prophets but we do not have Mary Queen of Miracles.
A common false notion of prophesy is telling the future. Well, in some limited sense it contains the element of telling the future but not the kind of future most people expect. An example of foretelling the future through prophecy is this; if Pope Francis continue to encourage remarried people to go to Holy Communion he will go to hell. That will surely happen based on the teaching of Scriptures. And that is foretelling the future.
New Testament prophecy, according to St. Thomas of Aquinas, consist of two activities. Firstly, the prophet practices the commands of Christ and teaches others the commands of Christ. And secondly, the prophet reminds people what are those commands of Christ if they forget the commands.
The first easy because what is to be taught by the prophets is already written down in Scriptures and interpreted by the Fathers of the Church. A prophet must only do the second role, to remind people of their duties to God.
So the role of the prophet is to teach and to remind. The Liturgical Cycle is the prophetic role of Holy Mother the Church because the Church teaches the people during the Liturgical year the commands of Christ three times during the three cycles. And then the Church continues to remind the Church what are those commands as she goes on repeating the three Liturgical Cycles. The Church have many other ways of reminding the people, like through the writings of the Fathers, catechism classes, radio and TV programs, etc…
The Blessed Virgin performs her prophetic role by teaching the whole world to repent. And then she repeatedly appears to remind people to repent.
4. A true Catholic is a prophet.
A true Catholic must be a prophet. Why? Because he must know and must have practiced the commands of Christ. Then he must constantly remind himself of those commands because man tend to forget so there is a need for reminders. But if a person has perfect Faith, he will automatically be reminded by the workings of the grace of God. There is no need for anyone to remind him; especially if he has reached the theological virtue of Charity. But if he has not reach Charity and only have the beginnings of Faith, he will tend to forget and will need reminding.
A true Catholic, by knowing and obeying the commands of Christ, will know that he is obliged to teach the same commands to others and to remind them of those commands occasionally. Thus Catholics will always be a prophet to their neighbors. Thus the characteristic of the Catholic Church as being a prophetic religion.
5. How to become a prophet.
Notice in last Sundays Gospel; that the school house for Catholicism is the desert. And the teacher must be a prophet, as shown in the person of St John the Baptist. And the subject taught is about the Kingdom of God. Note that the school house, the teacher and the subject are identical…..it is the Catholic Church. The school house is the Catholic Church, the teacher is the Catholic Church and the subject taught is about the Catholic Church.
In short, to be a Catholic you have to be inside the Catholic Church. The Jewish people who wanted to be Christians were told to go to the desert, the Church; to listen to a prophet, the Church; and to study the Kingdom, which is the Church.
Here we must realize the importance of living in community. Unless a soul lives in community, he cannot learn the commands of Christ that is taught by the prophetic community. Unless he lives in community he cannot be reminded if he forgets some commands of Christ. Unless he lives in community he will not know whether he is entering the Kingdom of God in the right way.
6. Advent.
During Advent Holy Mother the Church is teaching us how to enter the Church, through the repentance of John the Baptist and the repentance of Christ. Having done both, we receive Faith. Faith is what forgives our past sins and what makes us enter the Catholic Church. When we enter the Church we become prophets and can help others become prophets thus showing an indelible sign of true Catholicity, the spirit of prophecy.
This is the reason we celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception during Advent. The message is this; you will have to repent John’s way and Christ’s way before you can become like Mary, Immaculate, a true member of the Catholic Church of which Mary is a type.
7. Pope Francis and most bishops and priests do not have the spirit of prophecy.
None of them is teaching the complete commands of Christ. Since the retirement of Pope Benedict, we have not read anyone teach the commands of Christ as written down in the New Testament. In fact, what we hear are disobediences to the Old and New Testament. ‘Amoris and Laetia’ had been declared by many as down right disobedience to the 10 commandments of God in the Old Testament. And the false ecumenism going on is disobedience to the commands of Christ in the new Testament. ‘Vultum Dei quaerere’ is disobedience to the entire course of ascetical theology. And ‘Laudato si.’ is not even good science. The open borders is very bad sociology. Though contributions from George Soros and other left wing groups is very good economics.
Pope Francis and most of his cardinals, bishops and priests have not taught the repentance of St. John the Baptist. They have even taught disobedience to the repentance of St. John during the last three Bishop’s Synod by tolerating adultery. This is clear in Pope Francis’ ‘Amoris Laetitia’ that had been adapted by most Bishop’s conferences.
Unable to understand and teach the repentance of St. John the Baptist it was impossible for them to teach the repentance of Jesus Christ. How did that happen when the lessons of the four Sundays of Advent are clearly about the repentance of John and Christ? They did not understand the Liturgy of Advent? How can they understand the Liturgy of the next following Sundays when the more difficult truths of Christ are taught?
The problem is clear. Almost the entire hierarchy do not know the teachings of the Catholic Religion as clearly shown by Pope Francis.
Just like Good Friday, mentions St Bonaventure and commented on by Pope Benedict. When the entire Jewish priesthood, from the high priest down to all the Pharisees and Sadducees, were completely ignorant of God’s teachings; except for a handful in the person of Nicodemus, Joseph and the apostles.
The Liturgy is telling us that Advent and Good Friday is being repeated today; the people were still eating and drinking while the water was rising and the door of the Ark had been shut by God. The Jews were still murdering their God while the Church was being shut down on them.
From the beginning of his papacy up to the present, Pope Francis have never taught us any command of Christ nor reminded the world of the commands of Christ that we have forgotten. He even forgot it was the feast of Our Lady of Fatima because he was too busy praising and accepting a statue of the heresiarch Martin Luther. We should not blame Pope Francis. No bishop or priest had shown they are prophets.
God have sent us the greatest punishment; there is no longer any prophet in the land. Without a prophet like John the Baptist, no one can go to Christ.
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