1 Peter 5: 1 - 4, Matthew 16: 13 - 19.
“Take me my Lord to Thy heavenly abode. Teach me the ways of Mercy, Charity and Innocence and discipline me in Thy ways to follow the teachings of Thy Church established by Jesus Christ through Thy Pontiff St. Peter and the Apostles. I am willing and eager and wish to humbly live in Thy Words to be an example to those that see me so that they may also praise Thy name”.
The unfathomable mercy of the Heavenly Father, none can comprehend. It was pre-ordained that none shall ever know the mind of God. For none were there when He created everything. Yet, the truth is that, it was by God’s love and mercy that God created. It was the Lord’s abundant love that brought about the creation of the Heavens with His angelic servants; a Spiritual place from where God could pass the ordinance to create the vast universe with all the stars, the galaxies, the planets and all the other cosmological bodies that astrophysicists are yet to discover. Within this cosmos, the Lord created the earth with His ‘Right Hand’ and empowered its physical environment to provide a medium for His most lovable possession; mankind. God created mankind with Love and all the qualities of His own image and likeness. It was the Lord’s mercy that ordained the heavenly angels to serve and protect the nurturing humanity. God created the first humans out of the dust outside Eden and He breathed his Holy Spirit to light up their souls. They lived like shining entities with their spirit providing food for their bodies in the garden of Eden. The flesh nourished by the spirit living in peace with Heaven and God’s Holy laws. But the devil was a jealous entity deriving pleasure out of attempting to corrupt God’s Holy Image. A lowly angel of light, Lucifer wanted to be equal to God and in his pursuit, he lost his glorious countenance and his place in Heaven. Disbanded from heaven, the devil and his evil comrades invaded the earth and began to procure a place to establish their domain. They began by perverting Eve and then Adam, creating a rift between the creator and entity bearing His most beloved image. The moulded dust bearing God’s image and likeness began to corrupt. The flesh that ate the forbidden fruit was blemished and could not house the divinity of the spirit. With the divinity of the spirit fading away in the sin, the flesh needed earthly nourishment. Such earthly nourishment was only available outside Eden, for the food in Eden would destroy the flesh corrupted by sin. It was God’s mercy that sent Adam and Even out of Eden to supplement and nourish the hunger of the flesh, so that it would remain alive to house the soul within.
God, by His Unfathomable Wisdom and Mercy, declared to establish a divinely merciful kingdom on earth through the Messiah, His Son. The sin that brought death into the world had to be nullified with Salvation. The gift of Eternal Life needed the most merciful and divine sacrifice through the Messiah Jesus Christ to absolve humanity from the sinfulness of the original sin and mercifully provide a path for mankind’s redemption.God was always willing to teach us and He willingly gave us Mercy. God never forced us to Honour Him. He never constrained humanity to follow His ways. God gave us free Will. And by this practice God’s Son Jesus Christ initiated the Church. Jesus Christ invited one and all to follow Him and by the Lord’s Authority chose Twelve Apostles. Jesus allowed His Own Apostles to choose their path and He beseeched God to strengthen them. Accepting God’s Love and subjecting himself to God’s mercy, St. Peter the first Pontiff understood God’s plan of Salvation provided direction through his first Epistle to the Church of Jesus Christ. Peter exhorts the presbyters and other members of the Church to tend the flock willingly, eagerly and by example for God Himself is willingly, eagerly being Merciful and through Jesus Christ, God teaches us by example.
In the Gospel of
Matthew 16: 13-19, Simon Peter willingly put all his faith in Jesus of Nazareth. Our Lord did not constrain Simon to believe in the Messiah. Peter willingly and eagerly believed and trusted Jesus to be the Messiah and the Son of God. It is because of Simon’s great faith that God rewarded him with the answers he sought and let him see and understand the greatest of mysteries. Jesus rewarded Simon Peter and made him the first Pontiff of Christ giving him the keys of the gate of heaven. By giving Peter the keys of the gate of heaven, it means that the Church instituted through Peter by Jesus Christ is the authentic Holy Church through which the path of redemption enters Heaven. It is the authentic Church through which God will bind all evil forces on earth so that this Church may have the power to set all those with Faith in Christ free from evil. This is the authority and power that our Catholic Church has to provide us with the Sacrament of Baptism, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, Matrimony and the Last Rights. It is through the same power and authority that our Catholic Church has the power to absolve sins through confession in the sacrament of Reconciliation and provide us with spiritual cleansing and inner healing through the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. It is through this same power and authority that our Pontiff can solemnly ordain a catholic priest to minister the above-mentioned Sacraments to the entire flock. The catholic Church is the True Church of Jesus Christ. And through this Church we will attain Salvation to be worthy of the final reward of Eternal Life.
- By Bro Maryo
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