CFA

Reflection 272: The External Manifestation of the Heart

No one can see your heart except you and God. God is aware of every detail of your interior life to a perfect degree; you see the details of your interior life to an imperfect degree. Nonetheless, it is important to become increasingly aware of the reality of your inner life. See your soul as a hidden and secret world in which the Mercy of God resides. Allow the inner chambers of your heart to become consumed with the love of God. This holy and pure love of God must direct all things within you. And although others will not see that which takes place within you, they will see the good fruits that come forth from your life and these good fruits will become an exterior witness to the Mercy of God alive within you. Though the inner life is hidden, it must become manifest so that the secret workings of God will produce Mercy in a visible and radiant way (See Diary #1363).

Are you aware of the powerful work of God within your soul? Are you attentive to His merciful hand, leading you and guiding you within this secret sanctuary of your interior life? Fix your interior gaze upon the pure love of God and allow this hidden place to bring forth an abundance of good fruit. As the good fruit of your life is produced, allow it to be made manifest for the world to see and to be inspired and changed by the Mercy of God coming forth from you. Ponder today this direct connection between your interior and exterior and allow your heart to shine forth.

Lord, I love You with a burning love. Please continually purify my heart so that Your grace may become active and alive within my soul. As You work Your miracles of grace in my life, bring forth the good fruit of Mercy in my exterior actions so that Your works will become a public testimony to the pure love that is alive in my heart. Jesus, I trust in You.

Source of content: mycatholic.life

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ONLY THE INNOCENT MAY CONDEMN

Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Do not think that I have come To set aside the Law and the Prophets; I have not come to set them aside, But to bring them to perfection. Mathew 5:17

Since He said He was God, the Law of Moses must have come from Him. If He disobeyed that Law, He was negating His own Divinity. Hence their questions, “Moses in his Law prescribed that such persons should be stoned to death; what of Thee? What is Thy sentence?”

It would be a hard question for a mere man to solve, but He was God as well as man. He Who had already reconciled justice and mercy in His Incarnation now applied it further as He leaned over and wrote something on the ground—it is the only time in the life of Our Blessed Lord that He ever wrote. What He wrote, no man knows. The Gospel simply says: Jesus bent down and began writing On the ground with His finger. John 8:6

They had invoked the Law of Moses. So would He! When did the Law of Moses come? Who wrote it? Whose finger? The Book of Exodus answers:
With that, Moses came down from the mountain, Carrying in his hand the two tablets of the law, With writing on either side, God’s workmanship; A Divine hand had traced the characters they bore. Exodus 32:15–15

They reminded Him of the Law! He in turn reminded them that He had written the Law! The same finger, in a symbolical sense, that was now writing in the tablets of stone of the temple floor, also wrote on the tablets of stone on Sinai! Had they eyes to see the Giver of the Law of Moses standing before them? But they were so bent on ensnaring Him in His speech that they ignored the writing and kept on hurling questions; so sure were they that they had trapped Him. When He found that they continued to question Him, He looked up and said to them,
Whichever of you is free from sin shall cast the First stone at her. Then He bent down again, And went on writing on the ground. John 8:7, 8

Moses had written on stone his Law of death against unchastity. Our Lord would not destroy the Mosaic Law, but perfect it by enunciating a higher Law: none but the pure may judge! He was summoning a new jury; only the innocent may condemn! He looked from the Law to conscience, and from the judgment of men to the judgment of God. Those who have guilt on their souls must withhold judgment.

A rusty old shield one day prayed, “O sun, illumine me” and the sun answered, “First, polish yourself.” Should, therefore, this woman be judged by men who were guilty? It was a solemn affirmation that only the sinless have a right to judge. If on this earth there is anybody really innocent, it will be found that his mercy is stronger than his justice. True it is that a judge on the bench may very often condemn a criminal for a crime of which he himself is guilty; but in his official capacity he acts in God’s name, not in his own. These self-constituted accusers were no fit subjects to defend or execute the Mosaic Law. Our Blessed Lord was putting in one sentence what He had already said in the Sermon on the Mount.

As you have judged, so you will be judged,
By the same rule; award shall be made you As you have made award, in the same measure.
How is it that thou canst see the speck of dust Which is in thy brother’s eye, And art not aware of the beam which is in thy own?
By what right wilt thou say to thy brother, Wait, let me rid thy eye of that speck, When there is a beam all the while in thy own?
Thou hypocrite, take the beam out thy own eye first, And so thou shalt have clear sight To rid thy brother’s of the speck. Matthew 7:1–1

As He wrote on the ground, the Scribes and the Pharisees had stones in their hands ready to execute judgment. One would reach to his neighbor’s hand, take out his stone, weigh both in his own hand to see which was the heavier, and give the lighter one back, that he might cast the heavier one at the woman. Some of these men had kept themselves from her vice, because they had other vices. Some are exempt from certain vices simply because of the presence of other vices. Just as one disease is cured by another disease, so one vice often excludes another vice; the alcoholic may not be the thief, though he is often a liar; and the thief, like Judas Iscariot, may not necessarily be the adulterer, though the movies always paint Judas that way. There are many people who sin by pride, by avarice, by the craving for power, and think that they are virtuous simply because these sins in modern society bear the note of respectability. The respectable sins are the more odious, for Our Lord said that they make men like “whitened sepulchres, outside clean, inside full of dead men’s bones.” The baser sins of the poor create public burdens, such as social service and prisons, and are frowned upon; but the respectable sins, such as corruption in high public office, disloyalty to country, teaching of evil in universities, are excused, ignored or even praised as virtues.

Our Lord here implied that He even regarded the respectable sins as more odious than those which society reproved. He never condemned those whom society condemned, for they had already been condemned. But He did condemn those who sinned and who denied that they were sinners.

The Manna from Heaven

HOW LONG DO SOULS REMAIN IN PURGATORY?

Catholics, do not abandon the faithful in Purgatory! I am amazed by how many people don't have Masses offered when a loved one dies. It's the first thing I do when I hear of a death. If you aren't in the habit of obtaining a Mass when someone dies, begin at once! Never stop praying.

St. Louis Bertrand's father was an exemplary Christian, as we should naturally expect, being the father of so great a Saint. He had even wished to become a Carthusian monk until he learned that it was not God's will for him.

When he died, after long years spent in the practice of every Christian virtue, his saintly son, fully aware of the rigors of God's Justice, offered many Masses and poured forth the most fervent supplications for the soul he so dearly loved.

A vision of his father still in Purgatory forced him to intensify a hundredfold his suffrages. He added most severe penances and long fasts to his Masses and prayers. Yet eight whole years passed before he obtained the release of his father.

St. Malachy's sister was detained in Purgatory for a very long time, despite the Masses, prayers and heroic mortifications the Saint offered for her!

It was related to a holy nun in Pampluna, who had succeeded in releasing many Carmelite nuns from Purgatory, that most of these had spent there terms of from 30 to 60 years!

Carmelite nuns in Purgatory for 40, 50 and 60 years! What will it be for those living amidst the temptations of the World and with all their hundreds of weaknesses?

St. Vincent Ferrer, after the death of his sister, prayed with incredible fervor for her soul and offered many Masses for her release. She appeared to him at length and told him that had it not been for his powerful intercession with God, she should have remained an interminable time in Purgatory.

In the Dominican Order it is the rule to pray for the Master Generals by name on their anniversaries. Many of these have been dead several hundred years! They were men especially eminent for piety and learning. This rule would not be approved by the Church were it not necessary and prudent.

Saint Anthony tells the story of a sick person who suffered so atrociously that he considered it beyond human nature and thus continually prayed for death. One day, an angel appeared to him and said, "God sent me here to offer you a choice. You can spend one year of suffering on earth, or one day in Purgatory." Choosing the latter, he died and went to Purgatory.

When the angel went to console him, he was greeted with this groan of pain, "Deceitful angel! At least twenty years ago, you said that I would spend only one day in Purgatory . . . My God, how I suffer!"

To this the Angel responded, "Poor deluded soul, your body is not even buried yet."

When Padre Pio was asked how long a particular soul would stay in purgatory he replied “At least one hundred years. We must pray for the Souls in Purgatory. It is unbelievable what they can do for our spiritual good, out of gratitude they have towards those on earth who remember to pray for them. “

We do not mean to imply that all souls are detained equally long periods in the expiatory fires. Many have committed lesser faults and have done more penance. Therefore, their punishment will be much less severe.

Still, the instances we have quoted are very much to the point, for if these souls who enjoyed the intimacy, who saw the example and who shared in the intercession of great Saints during their lives and were aided by their most efficacious suffrages after death were yet detained for such a length of time in Purgatory, what may not happen to us who enjoy none of these wonderful privileges?

WHY SUCH LENGTHY EXPIATION ?

The reasons are not difficult to find:

The malice of sin is very great. What appear to us small faults are in reality serious offenses against the infinite goodness of God. It is enough to see how the Saints wept over their faults. We are weak, it may be urged. That is true, but then God offers us abundant graces to strengthen our weakness, gives us light to see the gravity of our faults, and the necessary force to conquer temptation. If we are still weak, the fault is all our own. We do not use the light and strength God so generously offers us; we do not pray, we do not receive the Sacraments as we should.

An eminent theologian wisely remarks that if souls are condemned to Hell for all eternity because of one mortal sin, it is not to be wondered at that other souls should be detained for long years in Purgatory who have committed countless deliberate venial sins, some of which are so grave that at the time of their commission the sinner scarcely knows if they are mortal or venial. Too, they may have committed many mortal sins for which they have had little sorrow and done little or no penance. The guilt has been remitted by absolution, but the pain due to the sins will have to be paid in Purgatory.

Our Lord tells us that we shall have to render an account for each and every idle word we say and that we may not leave our prison until we shall have paid the last farthing. (Cf. Matt. 5:26.)

The Saints committed few and slight sins, and still they sorrowed much and did severe penances. We commit many and grave sins, and we sorrow little and do little or no penance.

VENIAL SINS

It would be difficult to calculate the immense number of venial sins that any Catholic commits.

There is an infinite number of faults of selflove, selfishness; thoughts, words and acts of sensuality, too, in a hundred forms; faults of charity in thought, word and deed; laziness, vanity, jealousy, tepidity and innumerable other faults.

There are sins of omission which we pay so little heed to. We love God so little, yet He has a thousand claims on our love. We treat Him with coldness, indifference and base ingratitude.

He died for each one of us. Do we ever thank Him as we ought? He remains day and night on the Altar, waiting for our visits, anxious to help us. How seldom we go to Him! He longs to come into our hearts in Holy Communion, and we refuse Him entrance. He offers Himself up for us on the Altar every morning at Mass and gives oceans of graces to those who assist at the Great Sacrifice. Yet many are too lazy to go to this Calvary! What an abuse of grace!

Our hearts are mean and hard, full of selflove. We have happy homes, splendid food, warm clothing, an abundance of all good things. Many around us live in hunger and misery, and we give them so little; whereas, we spend lavishly and needlessly on ourselves.

Life is given us to serve God, to save our souls. Most Christians, however, are satisfied to give God five minutes of prayer in the morning, five minutes at night! The rest of the 24 hours is given to work, rest and pleasure. Ten minutes to God, to our immortal souls, to the great work we have to do, viz., our salvation. Twenty-three hours and 50 minutes to this transitory life! Is it fair to God?
It may be alleged that our work, our rest, our sufferings are done for God!

They should be, and then our merits would be indeed great. The truth is that many scarcely ever think of God during the day. The one engrossing object of their thoughts is self. They think and labor and rest and sleep to satisfy self. God gets a very little place in their day and in their minds. This is an outrage to His loving Heart, which is ever thinking of us.

NOW TO COME TO MORTAL SINS

Many Christians unfortunately commit mortal sins during their lives, but though they confess them, they make no due satisfaction for them, as we have already said.

The Venerable Bede appears to be of the opinion that those who pass a great part of their lives in the commission of grave sins and confess them on their deathbed may be detained in Purgatory even until the Last Day.

St. Gertrude in her revelations states that those who have committed many grave sins and have not done due penance may not share in the ordinary suffrages of the Church for a very considerable time!

All those sins, mortal and venial, are accumulating for the 20, 30, 40, 60 years of our lives. Each and every one has to be atoned for after death.

Is it, then, any wonder that souls have to remain so long in Purgatory?

SOURCE

https://www.facebook.com/424836537684096/posts/1850693241765078/

THE SOLE RULE OF FAITH?

By John Vennari in Catholic Defenders Public Facebook Group.

The Protestant believes himself to be on solid ground, because he says he believes and accepts the Bible and only the Bible, as the sole rule of Faith.

This is the central Protestant tenet of Sola Scriptura — the Bible alone is the sole rule of Faith. It is the Bible and only the Bible that is the pillar and mainstay of truth.

So the first question we have to ask is: how tenable is this Protestant tenet in the first place? Is the Protestant really on solid ground when he says that the Bible alone is the sole rule of Faith?

There is a well-known convert to Catholicism in the United States named Scott Hahn — a Protestant minister who became Catholic. Part of his conversion story gives helpful answers to this question (I personally wish Dr. Hahn would have become more traditional after his conversion, but that does not diminish the strength of the story).

Dr. Hahn had been a Presbyterian minister who, in his seminary days, was vehemently anti-Catholic. Subsequently, as a minister, he did a tremendous amount of Scripture study, because he wanted his sermons to be permeated in Scripture.

But the more he studied Scripture, the more he came to see that the truths that the Catholic believes, particularly manifested in the teachings of the early Church Fathers — Saint Jerome, Saint Basil, Saint Augustine — are firmly rooted in Sacred Scripture. These Church Fathers were Catholics. Every one of them was celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass!

I’m not going to go through his whole story, but I want to spotlight a crucial event that clinched his conversion. It was something that took place while he was teaching class.

There he was, a Presbyterian Minister — a Presbyterian Professor — teaching young adults.

And one of the brighter students in the class asked him, “Dr. Hahn, you know the way we Protestants believe that the Bible alone is the sole rule of Christian faith, and we follow the Bible and only the Bible — not the Bible and Tradition?”

Hahn said "yes".

The student said, “Well, where in the Bible does it say that?”

Hahn responded, “What a stupid question!”

As soon as Han said that , he said to himself, “You have never said that to a student before. You have never answered a student by insulting him.”

But the reason Hahn responded the way he did was because he knew he really didn’t have an answer.

Hahn said, “Well, there’s II Timothy, 3:16.”

But the student retorted, “No! II Timothy 3:16 says ‘All Scripture, inspired by God, is profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, instruct in justice.’ It says Scripture is profitable! It doesn’t say we must believe in the Bible alone?”

So Hahn then said, “Well, look at what Our Lord says about Tradition in Matthew 15.”

Again, the student responded, “Well, no! Our Lord was not condemning all Tradition, but He was condemning the corrupt tradition of the Pharisees.”

So after a few more failed attempts at Scripture citations, Hahn announced that the class was out of time and they can pick up on this next week.

Now, Dr. Dr. Hahn knew that he had not answered the student’s question. And the student knew that he had not had his question answered.

So Hahn drove home that night in a cold sweat thinking, “What is the answer to that question?”

When he got home, he telephoned whom he said to be the top Protestant Scripture scholars in the United States. And he asked them, “Maybe I slept through this part of my seminary training, but you know the way we Protestants believe in the Bible alone and only the Bible, and not in Scripture and Tradition — where in the Bible does it say that?”

And to a man, each one of these Protestant scholars said, “What a stupid question!”

Then each of these professors invoked the same verse that Hahn had invoked: “Well, there’s II Timothy 3:16.” And Hahn responded as the student did, “No, this verse only says that Scripture is profitable, not that it must be the sole rule of Faith.”

Each of the professors also said, “Well, there’s Our Lord’s words in Matthew 15.”

And Hahn retorted, “No, Our Lord was not condemning all Tradition, but only the corrupt tradition of the Pharisees.” And further, Hahn said, Saint Paul instructs us in II Thessalonians 2:14 to stand fast and “hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle.”

And these tip-top scholars, these most eminent of Protestant theologians, had no answer.

It was then that Scott Hahn came to realize that the central, foundational principle of Protestantism — the Bible alone and only the Bible — is not Biblical!

This is a tremendous contradiction, it’s one of the reasons why I could never be a Protestant. Protestantism claims to base its entire belief system in the Bible alone, but the principle of “The Bible alone” is a non-Biblical principle; it is a principle that is nowhere found in the Bible.

No Basis in History

Secondly, the principle of “the Bible alone as the sole rule of Faith”, cannot be a true principle of Christianity, because it has no basis in the history of Christianity.

How did the early Christians learn their Faith?

How was the Faith communicated to them?

How did Our Lord tell the Apostles to communicate the Faith, the truths which must be believed for salvation?

He commanded them, “go forth and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost”. He said to Peter, “Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build My Church” (Matt. 16:18). And Saint Paul taught clearly that it is the Church that is the pillar and mainstay of truth (I Tim. 3:16).

Our Lord gave to Peter authority, and He commissioned the Apostles to preach in His name. “As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21).

Our Lord wrote no books. Nor did He say to His Apostles: “Sit down and write Bibles and scatter them over the earth, and let every man read his Bible and judge for himself”, which is the essence of Protestantism — each individual reads the Bible and decides for himself what are the truths of Christianity. No! As I said, Our Lord established a Church to teach in His Name: “He that heareth you heareth Me, he that despiseth you, despiseth Me”(Luke 10:16). “And if he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican”(Matt. 18:17).

The Church and the Faith existed before the New Testament. Only five out of the twelve Apostles wrote anything down at all! The Church was teaching and administering the Sacraments, the Apostles were forgiving sins, the Church was making martyrs for seven to ten years before one jot of the New Testament was set down on parchment.

The Church was spread throughout the entire Roman Empire before a single word of the New Testament was written. We had Catholic saints and martyrs before we had Gospels and Epistles.

The first Gospel was written by Saint Matthew, about 7 years after Our Lord left the earth. The next was the Gospel of Mark, written 10 years after Christ ascended into Heaven. The Gospel of Saint Luke was written 25 years after Our Lord’s Ascension, and the Gospel of John was written 63 years after Our Lord left the earth. The Apocalypse was written a good 65 years after the Ascension of Our Lord. Andall of this was written, as Pope Leo XIII reiterates, under Divine inspiration.

So then, how did the early Christians become Christians and save their souls? By reading the Bible? No, because there was no New Testament.

We saw that the New Testament was not even completed until 65 years after Our Lord ascended into Heaven.

But this is not all.

For over three hundred years, the Church did not have all the books of the Bible compiled into one book.

And this brings us right to the question of Authority.

Because if you give me a book — call it The Bible — and you tell me that everything in that book is the infallible Word of God, the first thing I’m going to ask is, “Who says?”

Books don’t write themselves. Books by multiple authors don’t just compile themselves into one big book, and then proclaim itself to be the written Word of God.

No! Someone, or some social unit, which God Himself gave the authority to teach: to teach in His Name, to teach infallibly, must tell me this. Only an authority like that can tell me that this book is the written, infallible Word of God.

And it was the Catholic Church, at the Council of Carthage in 397 A.D., through the guidance of the Holy Ghost, that settled once and for all what was the Canon of the New Testament; that decided which books were divinely inspired and which were not.

You remember there were a number of other “Gospels” and “Epistles” circulating; some written by good and holy men but were not the inspired word of God (for example, the Epistles of St. Clement). Others were just plain fabrications, such as the so-called Gospel of Pilate or the Gospel of Nicodemus.

And it was the Catholic Church that decided which books were divinely inspired and which were not. It was the Catholic Church that put the New Testament together, joined it to the Old Testament, and gave the Bible to the world. It was the Catholic Church that produced the Bible, it was not the Bible that produced the Church.

Thus, as I said, the Protestant principle of the “Bible Alone” has no basis in history. The Catholic religion is the only religion that can answer the question: “Who Says?” — that is, “who says the Bible is the written word of God?”

Let there be Gutenberg!

But the problems don’t stop there. Because if it is necessary to read the Bible for me to be saved, if faith cometh only by reading the Bible, then faith cometh only by the invention of the printing press, which was not invented until the middle of the 15th Century by Johannes Gutenberg.

Before that, all books were hand-copied. It was a laborious, time-consuming and expensive venture. It was not possible to get a copy of the Bible into the hands of every Catholic, or even one to every Catholic family.

We have only had Bibles widely distributed for a little more than 400 years. So what about the millions of Christians who lived before that, who would go through their entire lives and never even see a Bible or a printed text of the New Testament?

Now, the theory of “The Bible Alone” — that is, following the Bible alone as the path to salvation — presupposes that the Bible should have been available to all men from the foundation of Christianity. Well, we already saw that this is not the case. We saw that the books of the New Testament were not written until 65 years after Our Lord left the earth. And we saw that the Christian World did not even have a complete, compiled Bible until the year 397 A.D.; and were not even available for mass distribution until the middle of the 15th Century. So the principle of the “Bible Alone” has no basis in history.

Conflicts with Reason

Finally, the principle of the “Bible Alone” is contrary to reason. Because if you give me a book, and you tell me that everything in that book is the written Word of God, and that I have to read it and believe the Bible Alone for salvation, then the first thing I say to you is, “Fine, then you leave me alone. You just give me that Bible, and I’ll decide what is the true meaning of Scriptures.”

This essentially is the Protestant system. If you go to a Lutheran congregation, you are only buying into Martin Luther’s private interpretation of the Bible.

And if you go to a Methodist congregation, you are only subscribing to another man’s private interpretation of the Bible — a character named John Wesley.

And if you go to a Presbyterian congregation, you’ve only bought into the private interpretation of John Knox, the founder of that group.

And if you are a member of a Protestant denomination, there is no reason why you could not stand up and say to the preacher: “Brother, I believeth you walketh not in truth. Your interpretation is wrong! I have found the correct meaning.”

And if you are zealous enough, and eloquent enough, and determined enough, you could start to preach, and you could start your own Protestant congregation — because that is how they all started.

And we see that this is the consequence of private interpretation of the Bible. Because, according to the Protestant system — every man reading the Bible and coming to his own interpretation — the logical conclusion of this is that there could be as many Protestant religions as there are individuals. There is no church for them established by Christ to teach in His name! There is no authority established by God to tell me that I might have made a mistake!

So this is one of the many reasons I could never be a Protestant. We see that the “Bible Alone” principle is contrary to Scripture, the “Bible Alone” principle is not supported by history, and the “Bible Alone” principle is contrary to reason; for it ends up in thousands of conflicting interpretations of Scripture, and is contrary to what Our Lord established His Church to be.

The Bible Made a Catholic Out of Me!

One of the many Protestants who finally discovered this truth was a man named Paul Whitcomb.

Paul Whitcomb was a Protestant minister whose intense study of Sacred Scripture led him to accept the Catholic Church as the only true Church established in the Bible. This is all laid out in an out-of-print booklet The Bible Made a Catholic Out of Me*.

Mr. Whitcomb studied Scripture through the “interpretation by correlation” method.

Here’s how the method works: He would focus on a given phrase in Scripture, such as “Son of God”, and he would search throughout the Scriptures and find every instance where that phrase was used, in order to come to the Biblical truth about what a given phrase means.

When Mr. Whitcomb used this interpretation by correlation method for the word “Church”, it led him to a discovery he did not expect (summarized here in four points).

1) His first discovery, he said, was that the “Church” defined in the Bible was to be “one body” — and not only a human body, but a Divine Body — the Mystical Body of Christ Himself.

“Again, He is the head of His body, the Church.”

(Colossians 1:18)

“Now you are the body of Christ, member for member.”

(I Corinthians 12:27)

“We are members of His body, made from His flesh and His bones.”

(Ephesians 5:30)

2) Mr. Whitcomb also discovered that this Church was not to be a disjointed body, but a unified body.

“There shall be one fold and one shepherd.”

(John 10:16)

“And the glory that thou, Father, hast given Me, I have given to them, that they may be one even as We are one.”

(John 17:22)

“You were called in one body ... one spirit ... one hope ... One Lord, one faith, one Baptism.”

(Ephesians 4:4-5)

Mr. Whitcomb saw clearly that this body — the Church — was to be constituted as one: one in membership, one in belief, one in worship, one in government.

3) Next, he saw that this Church is to be a teaching Church. And not only that, but an infallible teaching Church:

“All power in Heaven and on earth has been given to Me.

“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

(Matthew 28:18-20)

4) He saw that Our Lord pledged a divine protection to that teaching authority:

“These things I have spoken to you while yet dwelling with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your mind whatever I have said to you. When the Advocate has come, whom I will send you from the Father, He will bear witness concerning Me, because from the beginning you are with Me.”

(John 14:25-26 and 15:26-27)

He read further in I Timothy 3:15:

“I write these things to thee ... that thou mayest know how to conduct thyself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and mainstay of truth.”

Now after reading all this, he noted, “I was disturbed by the discovery of this Biblical truth…because [as a Protestant] I was not a member of a teaching Church, much less an infallible teaching Church.”

This is because no such “church” even exists in the Protestant system.

Mr. Whitcomb continues:

“The church I was a member of, like all other Protestant churches, held instead that the Bible is the only divinely authorized dispenser and guarantor of truth, that if anyone would be saved he must learn from the Bible what is required of him to be saved.

“The sole responsibility of the Church, according to Protestant belief, is to make known and to provide the ‘saved’, those who profess Christ as Lord and Savior, with a place they can join together in the ‘fellowship of prayer’.

“This despite the fact that for the first four hundred years there was no published Christian Bible;

“This despite the fact that for the next one thousand years until the invention of the printing press, there were scant few Bibles;

“This despite the fact that those who have made the Bible their sole rule of Faith have come up with hundreds of conflicting rules of faith;

“This despite the fact that the Bible itself states that many who interpret it privately (II Peter 3:16) will interpret it wrongly.”

To make a long story short, Mr. Whitcomb explained that the only “Church” that fit the description of “Church” found in the Bible was the Catholic Church. (He also noted that the Bible does not say it all, since John 21:25 tells us, “there are also many other things which Jesus did; which, if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written.”)

It was the Catholic Church, vested with the infallible authority given it by Our Lord that gave us the Bible, and it is only through the authority of the Catholic Church that we know for certain that the Bible is truly the Word of God. This is why the great Saint Augustine, in the Fourth Century, said: “I would not believe the Gospel itself, if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.”