Sermon for the 2ndSunday after Easter, April 18th, 2021

 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen

 

My dearly beloved in Our Lord,

The second Sunday after Easter is called the “good shepherd” Sunday because of the Gospel where Our Lord declares himself to be the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep. St Peter, the first Pope, beautifully comments this Gospel in today’s Epistle.

This passage is very important for us right now because

° the Church is deprived of her rightful pastors, the hierarchy of jurisdiction and therefore the exercice of her teaching function;

° the world is more and more deprived of rightful and competent leaders. The existing leaders make quasi superhuman efforts to show daily that they do not care for those for whom they are politically responsible.

 

The Church is deprived of a Pope, certainly since the closure of Vatican2, most probably since the death of Pope Pius XII (October 1958). Certainly successors have been designated since then – John XXIII, John Paul I&II, Benedict XVI and Francis – but they are not invested with the authority that would make them Popes. They are occupants or pretended popes, not true Popes; popes materially speaking because they should be Popes and thus are taken by many if not most to be Popes – but not Popes formally speaking.

The theological certitude of this fact is based on the ontological nature of authority. Authority consists in that a physical or moral person cares for the common good of their subjects. This is exactly what Our Lord says and explains in the Gospel: “The hireling, and he that is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and flieth… and the hireling flieth because he is a hireling, and he hath no care for the sheep.” (vv 12&13)

Since the Vatican2 popes are false popes, hirelings who do not care about the sheep, but only about their own good – power, money… – the souls of good will, the true sheep called by Our Lord to his eternal pastures, do not follow them “but fly from (them), because they know not the voice of strangers” (Jn 10:5). The “sensus fidei”, the “catholic nose” is a fact, and it is dogmatic in so far as it cannot be that the Church runs out of faithful altogether, not even while she has temporally lost her pastors! This is called the passive infallibility of the Church learning (taught), as opposed to the active infallibility of the Church teaching (the Pope and those who participate in jurisdiction, the magisterium). These two, passive and active infallibility, are, by the way, again and again confused or put on equal foot by modernists and traditionalists/conservatives alike!

 

The civil society is in a state of near disrepair. It has been so for many decades, since the stronghold of the altar (the Church, the papacy…) has been done away with. The Catholic states, mostly monarchies, have allowed themselves to be undermined by the enemies of human salvation, the occult sects of freemasonry and whatever precedes or follows them. Thus they have prepared and contributed to their own demise which has been accomplished by the first worldwide conflagration (1914-1918). Now we witness the end of culture as we knew it altogether (“cancel culture”), which is the necessary consequence of the preceding decades. If Christ is truly, as we believe, the corner stone and the finishing stone of the spiritual temple of the Church, then true and lasting human culture can only be found in societies which respect and build on that foundation and coronation, Christ. The only surprising fact regarding the hygienic dictatorship put in place last year, is our little and slow understanding of what is happening, and that it is very logical and natural indeed! - But then again, most conservatives and even traditionalists do not even really care about correctly understanding the situation of the Church.

The fact that the greater number of people let themselves be managed by lunatics – experts and politicians alike – has a lot to do with what we have already stated. The souls of good will and the minds in as far as there is an unspoiled morsel of natural integrity or goodness left in them, naturally aspire and demand to be led and governed. As true Catholics we deplore and hate the fact that we have no true Pope. As good and reasonable citizens we deplore and hate the fact that we have no true political leaders, and all that goes together with this reality. St Peter, in the verses preceding today’s Epistle, tells us coming Sunday: “Be ye subject therefore to every human creature for God's sake: whether it be to the king as excelling; Or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of the good: For so is the will of God, that by doing well you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: As free, and not as making liberty a cloak for malice, but as the servants of God. Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.” (1Petr 2:13-17) These words are self-explanatory: St Peter – in whose day there were no Catholic princes or states – indicates clearly why Catholics respect civil authority: because and only in so far as it assures and upholds its end, punishing evildoers and helping the good. He also explains the true and false sense of freedom. In as far as the actions of the de facto leaders do not assume this fundamental task of ensuring and fostering the objective common good, they have no authority. Let us briefly apply this to the present calamities.

In fact, each single measure taken supposedly to keep us safe, to keep us healthy, to protect the civil institutions like hospitals (as if they were a goal to themselves…) are objectively harmful to the human being and/or to human society.

The prolonged wearing of face masks deprives us of oxygen (probably because they do not yet dare to put a tax on it…), it weakens the immune system, the God-given repellent against dirt, dust and all kinds of viruses. It disfigures that which is the most proper expression of the human soul, the human face.

Social distancing equally dehumanizes us because – as experience teaches – we are dependent on social interaction; it is similarly counter productive for the immune system, as scientific studies have proven over the decades.

Lock-downs interfere with the need of regular work and income, trade and exchange of goods etc. Through their huge toll on the human soul, they are again totally counter productive, and there is no objective need for them since they have always been implemented too late…

Vaccines are tampering with the immune system, to the point of causing serious, sometimes lethal harm. They are an aggression and intrusion into the human body which is not justified by their negligible advantages which are only postulated for now, not proven. (It usually takes a decade-and-a-half for vaccines to be tested.) Add to this that some of the now rolled-out inoculations (interacting directly with the human genes) have nothing whatsoever to do with vaccines in the accepted sense of the term, and you know that what is being done here, is simply experimentation on human beings on a world-wide scale. This is not even being denied by the leaders! … just as the rules and regulations imposed since last year have clearly been called a world-wide psychological experiment.

Only most people do not want to see; they do not want to hear the truth. That problem is an old one. The Prophets have faced it, and most of them have fallen victim tohaving assumed the divine call to announce the truth in time and out of time. Our Lord clearly addresses the same problem.

As for the situation in the Church, also the situation in civil society is too blatant and too scary for most to admit: “Such an imposture of fake popes; such an imposture of orders, laws, rules and regulations that work against us… it just cannot be.” People lose the ground under their feet – or so they believe – if they look at the truth which stands in front of them in broad daylight; as tall as a tree or even a mountain. Therefore they prefer to look the other way or to put their head into the sand. The fact that the present civil society is entirely decrepit, that only a wrinkly facade is still standing, leads them to believe that if they poke the facade and bring it down, it is all their fault. The mostly occult leaders know this, and they build on it by repeating: If you don’t wear your face covering, you are a mass murderer; if you do not get inoculated, you are putting the entire society and the world at large into danger… If you visit your parents or grandparents, you are an assassin.

The taller a lie, the more difficult it becomes to see it! But it remains true, on the contrary, that only the truth will set us free (Jn 8:32)!

“Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain: and after the error of Balaam they have for reward poured out themselves, and have perished in the contradiction of Core.” (Jude 1:11) This harsh threath is followed by an expression which I have already quoted, and which rounds up this sermon: “semetipsos pascentes… feeding themselves” (v. 12).

While the good shepherd cares about feeding the sheep – the priests caring for the souls, the civil leaders caring for the bodies – the false pastors only care about feeding themselves: “and the wolf catcheth, and scattereth the sheep: And the hireling flieth, because he is a hireling: and he hath no care for the sheep.” (Jn 10:12-13).

“Surrexit pastor bonus… The Good Shepherd is risen, who laid down his life for his sheep, and vouchsafed to die for his flock : * Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.” Thus the Church prays as of Easter Monday. We know whom to follow, and we know the price – see St Peter’s teachings in his Epistles. We also know that it is well worth it. The reward for those who persevere is great, and everlasting!

Let us not wonder or mourn over the world falling to pieces! It has been that way ever since the sin of Adam… Let us care about the matter at hand: to get our minds straight in the pursuit of the unchangeable doctrine; and to set our lives straight by implementing whatever we know to be true and good.

May Our Blessed Lady, the Mother of the Good Shepherd, be our guide and help; may her great joy about the Resurrection of her Son be also our joy and our unfailing hope.

 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

P. Arnold Trauner (paterarnold@hotmail.com), njemački i engleski