The Few-er - Part Four

Is Our Lord Jesus Christ  purifying His Church and streamlining it to a faithful, holy Remnant?  
If this is true, then each of us must become personally pure and increasingly holy if we are to be admitted to and remain in that holy Remnant.  Let’s continue examining the required qualifications …

An admonition is a mild but earnest rebuke, and advice for or against doing something.

The Lord Jesus' proclamation of God’s Kingdom, if we desire to enter it, requires our obedience to two simple and direct admonitions:

(1) "REFORM" — face up to the evil tendencies in our lives and to do something about purifying ourselves of them. 

(2) "BELIEVE IN THE GOSPEL” — Believe in the good news that God Our Father sent Jesus,  who is God’s only-begotten Son, to SAVE YOU, me, ALL of us from our habitual, destructive evils. 

To reform for Jesus Christ and to believe in Jesus Christ mean:

• Seeking Him out personally in the Sacrament Of Penance;  
• Confessing our failures, to receive healing and forgiveness  from Him, and 
• To be absolved and reconciled to Our Lord Jesus and His People, the Church. 

In that healing Sacrament of confession and reconciliation, we admit that we have failed to both reform and believe; we admit that we have chosen to disregard our Baptismal vows to turn away from selfishness and evil.  Confession and reconciliation is how we, who are already Baptized, may re-commit ourselves: may AGAIN personally accept Jesus as our Savior,  the ONLY Savior.

Father Kilian McDonnell, OSB, President of the Collegeville Ecumenical Institute in Minnesota, once commented on a phenomenon that puzzled many Catholic theologians. 
Some Evangelical preachers are highly successful in producing conversions –- including converts from Catholicism. Why? Father Kilian McDonnell says it is because Evangelicals get people to ADMIT that they ARE sinners who need to turn to Jesus Christ for salvation.  People do not recognize Christ if they do not recognize themselves as sinners. If you are not a sinner, then you have no need of Christ.  One cannot celebrate the mystery of the joy of redemption in Jesus Christ if one will not first recognize that he or she IS a sinner.

Our Lord Jesus emerged from forty days of fasting and praying in the desert as THE EXPERT on uprooting evil in human hearts:  “This is the time of fulfillment.  The reign of God is at hand!  Reform your lives and believe in the Gospel!"

To Be Continued...