Top Secret. No Longer

Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,

nor secret that will not be known.

What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;

what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.

Did you read the story about Harvard University?  It seems that this grand old college is about to do something rather unique.  It is about to close their doors to all fraternities and sororities and make Greek life on their campus a thing of the past. This draconian decree is not aimed at all of the groups but rather at the secret societies that the college community is famous for.  These single sex groups instill in the members, a sense of entitlement and it is said that most of the incidents of non-consensual sex, a polite term for rape, comes from male members of the secret clubs. The notion that banning the organizations will change how these self-entitled men handle themselves around women is quaintly naive. The fact is that you would have to go back in time and teach the young hooligans how life should be lived and this is not possible.

The darkness conceals a lot of things but all will be brought to light on the Day of Judgment. We will be surprised on that day when we see some people we assumed were destined for hell be welcomed by Jesus into the Kingdom.  Surprised indeed we will be when we see some who gave all the outward appearances of being saints only to be sent away in eternal disgrace. The Christian should be not afraid to allow the secret thoughts in his/her heart to be revealed to the world.  Our inside self should be a mirror of our outside self and our behavior should be a transparent map to the whole person that we are.    

For us Christians, it is not enough for us to have knowledge of salvation, we are called to shout from the housetops the Good News that Jesus brought into the world.  The Church is NOT a Secret Society.  Like it or not, the Church IS God's Kingdom on Earth.  It has a king, Jesus and the King appointed a Prime Minister, the Pope to take care of the Kindom's earthly business while the King is away.  Protestants, whether they realize it or not, depend on the authority of the Catholic Church for their teachings. For example, it was the Church that defined the Trinity because nowhere in the Bible is the Trinity defined, it is only alluded to. All of the things that the Catholics and Protestants hold in common come from the teaching authority of the Church.  It was the Church that gave the Bible to people and it is the Church that has the authority to determine what is meant by the holy infallible words in that great library of books. Bishop Baron says in an infallible book without an authoritative interpreter is a useless book. The Protestant notion that every man can interpret scripture for himself is absolute nonsense, otherwise, why would we have over thirty-thousand Christian denominations in the United States alone, each with a slightly different interpretation on this or that point of scripture?  The Holy Spirit is said to guide individual readers.  Why does the Spirit guide one person one way and another person a different way when interpreting scripture?  Jesus built His Church as a kingdom on the Rock of St. Peter and gave the Church and by Church I mean not an invisible mystical group somewhere in the ether, but rather flesh and bone human beings, the Pope and the magisterium of the Church the ability to discriminate what is true in scripture from what is false under the protection of the Holy Spirit. 

We Christians must take what we have learned and share it by shouting out to others what was whispered to us in the dark. We are responsible for helping to get the message out and we should do so without delay for the time of God's mercy for those in this world is finite because if we do not accept His mercy we will have to accept his judgment. 

PLEASE REMEMBER THE HOLY SOULS IN PURGATORY IN YOUR PRAYERS TODAY, THEY DEPEND ON US TO HELP THEM AND THEY WILL NOT FORGET THOSE THAT PRAY FOR THEM