Reply #15: They won't get off as easy as the Pharisees. That's for sure. [View All]

[Joe Chi Minh]

If we thought the deepest pits of Hell were reserved for the Pharisees, it would be to overlook the fact that these Simoniac devils have had Christ's vehement denunciations of the spiritually superficial indeed blasphemous culture that the Pharisees had built up over many years, at their disposal, and yet are too wilfully spiritually blind to have heeded his words. "If your righteousness does not exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the "eternal sin for which there is no forgiveness", was considered by the Fathers of the Church to refer to "invincible ignorance" - the deliberate conscious refusal to acknowledge the truth, specifically Jesus' teachings as they relate to the purpose of our existence on this earth, and his authority to pronounce on it. Obedience to his law of Love is what God wants, not religiosity; particularly religiosity used as a cover for wickedness.

We cannot serve God and money. We either serve one or the other. We cannot do both; if we serve one, we must despise the other. The accumulation of wealth was one topic above all others, upon which Christ spoke most plainly and forcefully, because it is clear from his teachings that even as he spoke about compassion, he was implicitly denouncing the love of money and worldly power. So true is this, indeed, that even in the Old Testament, the wicked man is referred to in apposition to the rich man; the virtuous man, the true Israel, to the poor man. What fiercer, more insulting (to their eyes) denunciation of the rich man could Christ have uttered than that the very street-dogs licked Lazarus' sores; the dumb beasts in their stumbling compassion putting them to shame.

When Mary sang God's praises in her Magnificat, she spoke of "God" scattering "the proud in the imagination of their hearts" and putting down "the mighty from their thrones and exalting the lowly", filling "the hungry" with good things", and sending "the rich away empty", she was prophesying; speaking of an insight she was given of the eventual triumph of Christ and his lowly, suffering people in the future. Sure not every poor man is a saint, and not every rich man a sinner, but, like the race not always going to the swift nor the battle to the strong.... that's the way to bet - particularly when your eternal destiny is in the balance. And I've got news for Mr Getty: the poor will not only inherit the earth, but also the mineral rights.

"Do not set your heart on riches, even when they increase, for God has only said one thing; only two do I know: that you Lord belongs love, and that you repay each man according to his deeds."