Latest / The Uncensored Catholic / Show 128: Gifts of The Holy Spirit

Transcript

Show 128: Gifts of The Holy Spirit · The Uncensored Catholic

0:51
A Hey, y'all, welcome to today's show. Let's just jump right in
1:03
it. You know what we're talking about. We had a couple of questions
1:07
and answers May three four from radio replies, and then we're going to talk
1:10
about the Holy Spirit some more so. The questioner asked the priest a rather
1:19
odd question. Was the diet of spires held under the Catholic or Protestant auspices?
1:26
I had to look this one up, didn't know what it was.
1:30
It explains it though here in the the answers It was under Catholic auspices.
1:36
It was convened by Charles the Fifth, a Catholic sovereign, chiefly to secure
1:41
a temporal peace. In fifteen seventeen, luther had broken into open revolt against
1:47
the Catholic Church, preaching new and heretical doctrines. Charles the Fifth became emperor
1:52
in fifteen twenty. Many German states, anxious to revolt politically against Charles,
1:57
followed the new religious revolt of uh. Protestantism and politics are really tightly bound
2:06
together. Now this is this is Lutheranism. But if you look at the
2:13
Freemasonry, which is essentially a militant wing of Protestantism dedicated to overthrow the Catholic
2:20
Church. I mean they they tried to kill the kid and had the kids
2:23
from Fatima and threaten him with death. I think they tried to kill Padre
2:25
Pio. They I mean, you know, they're behind the French Revolution,
2:31
the American Revolution, either Marxism, the Bolsheviks revolution. Yeah, it's essentially
2:40
Protestant at his court. It begins with Martin Luther, which is a very
2:45
uncomfortable thing to think about, considering you know, my Catholic ancestor is one
2:51
of the signers of the Decoration of Independence. He was the only Catholic and
2:54
the only non Freemason apparently. So yeah, anyway, chaos reigned in Germany.
3:06
The Emperor was anxious for political peace. The Pope was anxious to stop
3:10
the corruption of Catholicism by the preaching of these new doctrines. Charles therefore called
3:15
a diet or general Assembly of all the lesser German princes at Spires in fifteen
3:22
twenty nine. So diet doesn't mean something you eat that, you know.
3:25
I had no idea what that meant. But anyway, Pope Clement the seventh
3:30
urged Charles to take up the cause of the Catholic religion. At the same
3:32
time, and in reference to religion, the diet made three main propositions.
3:38
The celebration of the Mass was to be permitted in those states where Protestants had
3:44
forbidden it. And that's another thing you have to remember. Protestants, you
3:47
know, gosh, I mean, they claim, like the Waldensians here in
3:52
North Carolina, they're a a obscure Protestant sect from the Alps of Italy that
3:58
were centrally Lutheran, and they claimed that Catholics forbid their religious worship and wouldn't
4:02
let them have Bibles. It's not true, of course. The king of
4:08
Italy or that region of Italy at the time it wasn't a unified Italian state
4:12
as we know it now, was Catholic and to be Protestant was to commit
4:16
treason. Essentially, you had to have the religion of the king. But
4:19
Bibles were available, they just had to be legitimate Bibles, not false translations.
4:27
And they were ridiculously expensive. A Bible at the time we're talking,
4:30
you know, sixteen hundreds would have cost because you know, I mean,
4:38
even after they were handwritten, they had to be printed by the Gutenberg press,
4:41
which was a page at a time, type said it a letter at
4:46
a time that cost a good ten thousand dollars apiece. So it wasn't a
4:50
matter if they couldn't have a Bible. The Catholic Church said they had to
4:54
have a real Bible and that a false translation was a heresy. It was
5:00
it was satanic essentially, it was twisting the word of God. But they
5:03
also made the claim that that Catholics forbid Protestant worship. Well, the truth
5:11
is, wherever Protestantism took hold, you know, beginning with Luther, they
5:16
forbade Catholics to worship. There was never a Protestant claim of you know,
5:21
an olive branch, let us do our thing and you do your thing.
5:26
No, they forbid the mass. They often killed priests and nuns, burned
5:31
churches down, destroyed religious artifacts. The iconoclass movement, I mean there were
5:41
Protestantism was always a protest and not a peaceful one in any way, shape
5:46
or form. In fact, a lot of the fringe Protestant groups, the
5:50
ones that even now like the ones the Baptists actually claim their heritage from,
6:00
forbade contracts, and that included this buying, selling, of land, contracts
6:05
for employment, you know, because Jesus said don't swear, well, they
6:10
said you couldn't. Marriages were invalid because they were contracts. A person couldn't
6:16
serve a military because that was a contract for service in the military. The
6:24
political forces, far outside of the political church side of the Catholic Church saw
6:29
this is undermining the stability of society. And absolutely these people were nutballs and
6:39
they wanted them out. They didn't have a thing to do with the Church.
6:42
But you know, Catholic Church gets blamed for it because it's easy to
6:46
be a patriotic you know, German or Italian and blame the Church. It's
6:49
much easier to do that than to blame your government, your sovereign as they
6:55
used to call it, which actually meant the king had all authority, which
7:00
meant they were in treason for following a false religion, an unapproved religion.
7:06
Whether I had nothing to do with the Church whatsoever, I mean, just
7:12
because the king was Catholic. Actually, yeah, by law his subjects had
7:15
to be Catholic. That wasn't the Catholic Church's ruling. That was the king
7:19
of that nation's ruling. And yes, Protestants were disrupting and you know,
7:25
the twin tenets of Freemasonry or overthrow the Catholic Church and all monarchies. So
7:30
you can see why in the fifteen sixteen, seventeen hundreds many of these Protestant
7:39
groups, especially if they were associated with Freemasonry, were considered threat to civil
7:44
order. They were actually, you know, like the Bolsheviks of their day,
7:48
and really they did a lot to sow the seeds of what would become
7:54
Marxism and socialism and Nazism and fascism. Let's still do to stay. I
8:00
mean the United Nations. Look at how many Masonic symbols they use. They
8:05
are essentially a Masonic organization. Gosh, so I mean the banking organizations.
8:13
You can go down the list. It's hiding in plain sight essentially. So
8:20
anyway, we're back to this so called diet, which is a very odd
8:24
thing to say, but the essentially the German government under this you know,
8:31
ruler said that Protestants had to let Catholic celebrate the Mass and the so called
8:37
reformers. The Protestants were free to practice their new religion in those states where
8:41
had it been accepted, but it was not to be propagated beyond those states,
8:46
no sect which denied the real presence of Christ and the Eucharist could be
8:50
tolerated. The vast majority of Protestants that the diet approved of these laws,
8:56
but the EVA evangelical minority, whilst accepting the third Law, refused to permit
9:01
mass and to refrain from preaching Protestantism to steal Catholic peoples. In other words,
9:05
they wouldn't be content just to be left on their own, as the
9:09
Waldensians and other groups say. Note, they were actively attacking the Catholic Church,
9:16
trying through local laws to forbid the mass. That's actually what led to
9:22
prohibition in the United States. You know, you take away the wine.
9:26
You can't have wine at mass. That was actually a huge motivational force,
9:31
one which was openly spoken of by the leaders of the movement. Actually,
9:35
they formally promoted that the religion of the people in a given place must be
9:39
the religion of the temporal ruler of the country. And it is from this
9:43
protest that the Diet of Spires in fifteen twenty nine that the word Protestant is
9:48
derived. It was a protest against freedom of conscience and against spiritual authority at
9:54
the Catholic Church, as well as against temporal authority of Charles fifth. In
9:58
other words, Protestants did not believe in freedom of conscience. They wanted to
10:03
outlaw Catholicism, and in America, Catholicism in most states was illegal. In
10:09
North Carolina, it was in Massachusetts even it was at one point this this
10:13
country was not founded on religious freedom. Had Charles Carroll, my ancestor,
10:18
not been the wealthiest man in America, I don't know that Catholicism would have
10:24
even been allowed in the United States personas did not. The Diet aspires profoundly
10:31
affect the history of human thought and the answer it did, but rather for
10:35
evil than for good, it led to dire results in the wrecking of the
10:39
Catholic faith in many unthinking people. I am speaking, of course, that
10:43
those delegates at the Diet who protested against its decision and am dealing with religious
10:48
thought, scientific thought would have gone on. In any case. It is
10:52
not Protestantism. It is not too Protestanism that we owe scientific and mechanical progress
10:56
of modern times that would have come just to say, and in fact,
11:00
you know there are many, many, many Catholic scientists believe it or not.
11:05
They teach you the opposite in school. But scientists and mathematicians were predominantly
11:09
Catholic and well into the fifteen hundreds, and even then. I mean,
11:13
we can look at the curies, you know, and so many others.
11:16
But in religious Protestantism has given us only chaos, dreary contradictions, and several
11:24
millions of would be infallible individual authorities on religious and questions. It was a
11:31
regression from the authority of God to that of a erratic man. And where
11:37
Protestantism began by pretending to defend the rights of the Bible, it has ended
11:41
by practically declaring the Bible to be worthless. True. Okay, you can
11:46
go even to a certain Southern Baptist university and you will be told, we
11:52
believe in the Bible is the sole authority. And then you would take classes
11:54
by professors who kind of looked down at all their evangelical brothers and sisters,
12:00
and they start saying, how well the Bible has to be interpreted through this
12:03
view of politics, or this view of social justice, or this view of
12:07
historical relevance, and you end up with the true words, the plain words
12:13
of the Bible, even the most simple sentence means absolutely nothing. It's only
12:18
twisted to fit what they're gonna say. At the time, person says,
12:22
did the Anglican Church have anything to do with the diet of spires and the
12:28
presanswer, The Anglican Church did not exist at that point, but when it
12:33
was later established, it gradually adopted Protestant principles and is a Protestant church.
12:39
So we'll get more into Anglicanism tomorrow. Essentially, Anglicanism is the English version
12:45
of Lutheranism, which essentially still pretends to be Catholic in some regards. So
12:50
we'll talk a great deal more about Anglicanism tomorrow. But let's talk about the
12:54
Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost and the extraordinary Graces from Father Spiago's book Point
13:01
one. The Holy Ghost gives to all who have sanctifying grace, the seven
13:05
gifts of the Holy Spirit, that is, the seven virtues of the soul
13:09
by which it easily responds to His light and inspiration. The light of the
13:15
sun is split up into seven distinct colors, and the seven branch candlestick in
13:20
the temple was a type of the seven gifts. That's the old manora,
13:26
you know, Jewish manora. Seven branch candlestick. The seven gifts embrace the
13:30
four cardinal virtues. I think Manora has seven branches. I'm just saying,
13:35
you know, that's what's based on, and I think that's right anyway.
13:39
They remove entirely the barriers which divide us from God, especially by subjecting our
13:45
concupiscence to the dictates of reason. The seven gifts give us a definite movement
13:50
toward God. They perfect the powers of our soul so that the Holy ghosts
13:54
can easily move them. Just as teaching in the elementary school prepares for the
14:00
higher forms of instruction, so the seven gifts prepare the soul for a higher
14:03
influence of the Holy Ghost. The three theological virtues are higher than the seven
14:09
gifts because the latter only give us movement towards God, while the former unite
14:13
us intimately with Him. These gifts are lost by mortal sin, but are
14:18
increased as one advances in perfection. Confirmation also increases these gifts. The seven
14:24
gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude,
14:31
piety, and the fear of God. The first four enlighten the understanding,
14:35
the other strengthen the will. These gifts are enumerated by Isaiah as belonging
14:41
to the redeemer of mankind. One. The gift of wisdom enables us to
14:45
recognize the emptiness of earthly things and regard God as the highest good. Saint
14:50
Paul counts all that the world loves and admires for loss. In Philippians,
14:56
Solomon, after tasting the joys of this world, cause him vanity and Ecclesiastes.
15:01
Ecclesiastes, Saint Ignatius of Loyola used to often exclaim, Oh, how
15:07
poor are the things of the earth when I look at the heavens compared to
15:09
the prepare of prayer of Saint Francis ASSISI my God and my alle Two.
15:16
The gift of understanding enables us to distinguish Catholic teaching from all other doctrine and
15:20
to rest in it. You may notice that these gifts of the spirit are
15:26
very Catholic, and you know it says they're lost by mortal sin. Okay,
15:31
there's not a single human being on the face of this earth through after
15:35
their baptism and will not commit a mortal sin. Uh. The Catholic Church,
15:41
through reconciliation through the confession, gives you the ability to be cleansed of
15:46
that mortal sin and maintain the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes back into
15:50
you. Unfortunately, Protestants have so much confusion in terms of doctrine because they
15:58
do lose a great deal the gifts of the Holy Spirit during the natural course
16:07
of life following baptism. If they're even baptized and cannot get it back because
16:11
they don't have confession. Now they would say, well, we have true
16:17
contrition, we can pray directly God. Yeah, you can't. But if
16:19
you deny the teachings of the Church, you deny what's right and wrong.
16:27
For instance, well, I mean, here's an obvious point in all four
16:30
Gospels, Jesus forbade divorce. Protestants say the divorce is okay. Whether if
16:37
they say it's okay, well, they contradict God. They make themselves their
16:40
own idol. They say they have a higher authority than God. That's a
16:44
mortal sin. That's violating doubt. Should have no gods before me one of
16:47
the ten commandments or two. If they actually you know, marry and get
16:49
divorce, they commit a mortal sin, and they lose one way or the
16:56
other. These gifts of the Holy Spirit. And therefore when you have a
17:00
Protestant minister, you know that may have the most amazing inspirational words, and
17:06
may be a very charismaic speaker, and he may be very learned, he
17:10
does not have the gifts of the Holy Spirit that enable him to distinguish,
17:15
as it says here in point two, Catholic teaching from all other doctrine,
17:19
and to rest in it. He has no authority, only one in union
17:25
with the Catholic Church. In communion with the Catholic Church, has that gift
17:29
of the Holy Spirit. Blessed Clement Hofbauer, an apostle, the Apostle of
17:37
Vienna in eighteen twenty. Though he began his studies very late in life,
17:41
had only just enough knowledge of theology to be ordained, and was often consulted
17:47
by the dignitaries of the church on the accuracy of the doctrines taught in books
17:51
passing through the press. A very short examination enabled him to detect at once
17:56
what was unsound. Catholic Thren of Alexandra eighty three oh eight reduced some fifty
18:03
pagan doctors to silence and made them into Christians. Our Lord's own promise,
18:08
I will give you a mouth with wisdom which all your adversary series shall not
18:14
be able to resist and gainsay Luke twenty one point fifteen point number three.
18:19
The gift of knowledge enables us to obtain a clear grasp of the teaching of
18:23
the Catholic Church without special study. The curate to ours had done but little
18:30
study at His sermons were so remarkable that even bishops were eager to hear them
18:37
and marveled at his knowledge. Saint Thomas Aquinas used to say that he learned
18:41
more at the foot of the altar than out of books, and Saint Ignatius
18:44
of Loyola declared that he had learned more in the cave at Manreesa than all
18:49
the doctors in the world could teach him. How did the old man Simeon
18:53
know that the child of the Temple was the Messiah? In Luke III,
18:56
were not the apostles after coming after the coming of the Holy Ghost endowed with
19:02
the power from on high Luca twenty four to forty nine. Was not Saint
19:07
Paul wrapped into paradise to hear words such as no man had heard Second Corinthians,
19:12
point number four. The gift of council enables us to know under difficult
19:18
circumstances what the will of God is. We might well recall the answer made
19:22
by Christ to the question whether the tribute should be paid to Caesar Matthew two
19:27
to twenty one, and the judgment of Solomon and three Kings. Our Lord,
19:32
when warning the apostles of the persecutions awaiting them, had said, be
19:37
not solicitous how you shall answer what you shall say, for the Holy Ghost
19:40
shall teach you in the same hour what you must say Luca twelve eleven and
19:45
twelve. The fifth is a gift of forty two that enables us to bear
19:48
courageously whatever is necessary in carrying out God's will. Saint John nepomucine I guess
19:57
in thirteen ninety three chose rather to be imprisoned, tortured with hot irons,
20:03
and finally cast into the mauldaw I guess it's a river, rather than betray
20:07
the secret of the confessional. Job was patient. In spite of the loss
20:11
of his property, his children, his health, and in spite of the
20:15
mockery of his wife and friends. Abraham was ready to sacrifice his only son.
20:19
The gift of fortitude is especially prominent in the Holy martyrs, and most
20:22
of all in our lady, the Queen of Martyrs. She herself, says
20:26
Saint Alfonsis, would have nailed her son to the cross had such been God's
20:30
will, for she was possessed with the gift of fortitude and a higher degree
20:33
than Abraham well. Number six. A gift of piety enables us to make
20:41
continual efforts to honor God more and more in our hearts, and to carry
20:45
out His will more perfectly. Saint Teresa took a vow always to choose which
20:51
was most perfect, and Saint Alphonsis never to waste time. Saint Aloysius would
20:56
spend hours in the presence of the blessed sacrament, till his confessor had to
21:00
command him to shorten his devotions. Many of the saints shows to Melany to
21:04
tears during their prayer or in meditating on heavenly subjects. Number seven. The
21:10
gift of the fear of God. It enables us to fear, giving offense
21:12
to God more than the evils in this world, more than all the evils
21:15
of this world. Such was the gift, for instance, of the three
21:18
children in the furnace and of the martyrs. It enables us to overcome the
21:22
fear of man and human respect. Point two. The Holy Ghost gives to
21:29
many graces of a rarer kind, for instance, the gift of tongues,
21:32
miracles and prophecy, of discernment, of spirits, of visions and ecstasies,
21:36
expirit etc. The apostles received on the feasts of Pentegos the gift of tongues.
21:41
That's very important. They receive the gift of being able to understand speak
21:45
in all languages known to man. Pentecostal Holiness and certain other denominations believe that
21:52
when they get really excited and they start babbling incoherently, that's the gift of
21:56
tongues. It's not. It can actually be demonic possession. There is.
22:00
The tongues were given specifically to preach the truth of Christ, the Gospel to
22:06
people in the language they can understand. Confusion comes from the devil. Always
22:11
remember that when you go to a charismatic church, if people start wigging out
22:15
and acting weird, that's probably not the Holy Spirit. Okay, I'm sorry.
22:22
I know that it will offend people. I have great respect for many
22:25
Pentecostals, but that is either that is confusion, and confusion is not of
22:30
God. It's either innocent confusion or demonic confusion, and it's very hard to
22:34
know which is which. See, and we find the gift of tongues recorded
22:42
in the life of Saint Francis Savior as having been possessed by him. The
22:47
prophets of the Old Law were told future events events. Saint Peter knew the
22:51
thoughts of Anius and Anonius, you know, the one that said he they'd
22:55
given money to him, and they held some back, and Saint Peter said,
22:57
you've sent against the Holy Spirit, and he dropped dead. You know.
23:02
So, yeah, you think that Saint Peter had a little authority,
23:04
Yeah, he did. Saint Catherine of Sienna after communion used to be raised
23:08
in the air and wrapped out of her senses. Several several saints have actually
23:12
levitated, Okay, that was one, Saint Francis of ASSISI and I don't
23:18
mean like the transcendental mesitation people, the tmors that bounce around in their butts.
23:22
They just start bouncing up and down and they call it leviantation. That's
23:26
not levitation. Trust me, I've been. I had a friend who was
23:30
actually cook at a tm resort, and I used to kind of hang out
23:33
around there along. That's a long story. These people are looney, I
23:37
mean looney, and I'm sorry. You know if you're a Beatles fan and
23:41
you know, uh yeah, the Beatles kind of got into TM or at
23:45
least George Harrison did. But those people are looney and usually have a lot
23:49
more money than since nice people, though, for the most part, make
23:55
excellent cookies. Got it meant delicious peanut or cookies. Saint Francis of ASSISI
24:00
receive the stigmata or the impression on his body of the sacred wounds of our
24:04
Lord, as you know Saint Potter Pio. More recently, instances of all
24:10
these gifts occur again and again in the lives of the saints, and are
24:14
after all only the fulfillment of the promises of our Lord. In Mark sixteen
24:19
seventeen eighteen, these graces are conferred by the Holy Ghost on whom he will.
24:25
As the reference to the First Corinthians twelve eleven, Saint Louis of Granada
24:30
beautifully expresses us expresses it as the sun shines of the flowers and brings out
24:36
their various perfumes, So does the light of the Holy Spirit fall on the
24:40
pious souls according to their peculiarities, and develops in them his gifts and graces.
24:47
These extraordinary graces are conferred by the holy ghosts generally for the benefit of
24:51
others, and an aid of His church. There Again, like speaking in
24:53
tongues and such, the time of the Apostles was conspicuous for its extraordinary gifts
25:00
First Corinthians. Reference there. God is like a gardener, says Saint Gregory
25:04
the Great, who waters the flowers only while they are young. Extraordinary graces
25:08
ought to be used with the due discretion for the benefit of others. First
25:11
Corinthians, fourteen twelve. In the words of Saint Irenaeus, a merchant does
25:17
not leave his money idle in his chest, but he makes the best use
25:19
of it that he can and business. So is God's will that his graces
25:25
should not be left unemployed, but that men should make good use of them.
25:29
These extraordinary gifts of themselves do not make men better. They are indeed
25:33
great grace is available to for great good, and are the free gift of
25:37
God, like riches, health, etc. Hence the words of Saint Teresa,
25:41
not for all the goods and joys of this world would I give up
25:44
a single one of the graces given me. I esteem them always as a
25:48
singular gift of God and a very great treasure. It is the right use
25:52
of these gifts, and not the gifts themselves, which make them of service
25:56
to man, saint fulgentious rights. One may have the gift of miracles and
26:00
yet lose his soul. Miracles give no certainty of one's salvation. A very
26:06
important point. Nor are these extraordinary grace as a sign of holiness and the
26:10
possessor of them. Our Lord's own words convey this in Matthew seven twenty two.
26:15
Yet there is no saint of the Church who has not had these gifts.
26:19
Benedict the fourteen says they are as a rule, given not to sinners,
26:25
but to the justs. When they are found in union with the heroic
26:27
virtue and a man, they are a strong proof of his sanctity. These
26:30
gifts are usually accompanied with great sufferings, such as desolation of spirit, struggles
26:37
with the devil, sickness, persecutions, etc. Point number three. The
26:41
gifts of the Holy Spirit were conspicuous in a special degree in Jesus Christ,
26:45
his Holy Mother, the apostles, the patriarchs, and the prophets of the
26:48
Old Law and the saints of the Catholic Church. And that's going to wrap
26:52
it up for today, y'ah. I think the very important points. I
26:56
mean, so much of this is misunderstood today, especially the charismatic churches.
27:03
You know where I come from, We actually have signs churches where people don't
27:07
just speak in tongues, but they pick up rattlesnakes that says in the Bible
27:11
that you know, a Christian can be bitten by a serpent and not suffer
27:15
from the poison, and a lot of crazy, crazy stuff, and it's
27:19
from people reading the Bible with no authority to guide them in understanding. And
27:25
just remember, these gifts of the Holy Spirit are for the Kingdom of God.
27:32
They're not for confusion. And anything that is teaching a doctrine other than
27:38
that held by the Catholic Church is confusion and it's not of God. Y'all
27:45
have a going remember the words of Saint Padre Pio, Pray, hope and
27:48
don't worry, and I'll talk to you mar