True Catholic Faith: Clarion Call of the Church’s Timeless Teaching

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 00:03

The theme of the epistle and gospel today is that God will deal severely with those who reject him after He has chosen them. The way eternal salvation works is that everyone receives the sufficient grace to save his soul. And if you should fall from that grace and lose your soul, it is through your own fault. But it is also true that God loves some more than others. And some, due to this greater love, he will draw back through the infusion of his grace and he will give to them many more chances of salvation.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 01:02

This was the case, of course, with the ancient Hebrews who were the chosen people of God. And in leading them out of Egypt, he gave them many signs of the fact that he was with them, even killing the Egyptians in the Red Sea and protecting them from many other evils. When they got into the desert, these Hebrews began to turn on God. And because they had received such great favor from God, he dealt with them severely and actually would have destroyed them all had not Moses prayed for them. Saint Paul mentions these things.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 02:00

They longed for the flesh pots of Egypt. That is, they complained about the manna. The manna was light food and they wanted to eat meat again. God therefore sent the quail and he sent them in great abundance and they caught these birds and ate them and some of them ate so much that they died. And they were buried right there and it says in Exodus, rather in the book of Numbers, they called those burial places the graves of lust.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 02:47

Then later on they became idolaters when Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the law, they turned to the golden calf and they worshiped it, and they adopted all of the revelry of idolaters. And when Moses descended from Mount Sinai, he threw the tablets at the golden calf and destroyed it, and at the command of God slew all who had adored the golden calf. That is recorded in Exodus chapter 32. Saint Paul goes on to mention the time that they committed fornication, and this is when they took part in the absolutely abominable forms of impurity with the Moabites. The Moabites invited them to take part in their sacrifices which were characterized by indescribable impurities.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 03:51

Some of them did take part and they also were slain. And that is recorded in Exodus chapter 25. St. Paul then mentions the temptation of God, Let us not tempt Christ as they tempted God in the desert. Here the Jews complained of having been brought out of Egypt due to the hardships in the desert.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 04:19

They complained as if God were in some way deceiving them. And to punish them, God sent serpents who bit them and killed them. And the only way that they were saved from the bite of the serpents was by looking upon the brazen serpent of Moses. God told Moses to fashion a serpent out of brass, and by looking upon the brazen serpent, they would be healed of their bites and would not die. This brazen serpent then was a sign of healing or salvation and it is a prefiguration of the sign of the cross.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 05:11

That is recorded in Numbers 21. Finally, St. Paul mentions that they murmured against God. They complained against him when Moses sent out scouts into the land of Canaan to check out what the land was like. They came back and they said it was a terrible land and they regretted ever having left Egypt.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 05:37

And they organized themselves to go back to Egypt and even elected captains to lead themselves back to Egypt and planned the death of Joshua, who wanted to go into the promised land as God commanded. And many of these who planned their return to Egypt died suddenly. And Christ weeping over Jerusalem is in the same vein. He arrives at the city of Jerusalem, he looks upon it and breaks down in tears. Why does he cry?

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 06:13

Why is he so moved simply at the sight of Jerusalem? The reason is that Jerusalem is faithless, that even though God had shown himself in the desert, even though he had given them sign upon sign and prophet upon prophet, and even though he had forgiven them time and time again in the Old Testament after repeated infidelity, and even though now he came and showed his messianic dignity and even his divinity By the many miracles that he had performed, Jerusalem remained faithless. And they were not interested in the kingdom of the next world, but were interested in the kingdom of this world. And although they had an outward profession of the law, inside they were worldly and pagan. And because they were turning on God for the last and ultimate time, because they would reject not only the prophets but also the Son of God himself and even crucify him and commit the sin of the aside.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 07:44

Because of that, Jerusalem would be dealt with severely. And we know that later in seventy AD it was subjected to a most horrible death, the entire city at the hands of the Romans. Our situation situation is is analogous analogous. In this sense that we have been led out of Egypt into a certain hardship. As mysterious as it is, it is an undeniable fact that there remains only a handful of people in the world whose faith can be identified, that is, is the same as, the faith that has always been held and professed by the Roman Catholic Church for two thousand years.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 08:50

It is unbelievable as I say it, but it is true, and that the bulk of those who claim the Catholic name cannot, in their beliefs or in their practices, identify themselves with their Catholic ancestors. This is a sign of the withdrawal of the grace of God. For it is by the grace of God that we adhere to God. It is by the grace of God that people are faithful to God and that the faith has been preserved through the ages. It is not a natural event that the Catholic faith has perdured for twenty centuries, changed less, that is due to the supernatural grace of God.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 09:57

It is a sign of the activity of God in the world. And the fact that so many have fallen away is a sign of the withdrawal of the grace of God from the world. It is conversely a sign therefore that those who have remained faithful have received extraordinary graces to remain faithful, just as those who survive a terrible plane crash are in some way favored. They ask themselves, Why? Why did I survive when all others have died?

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 10:49

Special vocation to remain faithful to the Catholic faith in these times. And hence, just like the Jews of old, we will be punished more severely if we are unfaithful. If we to whom special graces have been given become unfaithful either in our faith or in our observance of the commandments, then we will be dealt with severely. If we long for the flesh pots of Egypt and want to turn back to the modern world, then we will be all the more guilty. And as I have said many many times, it is especially disheartening to priests who have held on to the Catholic faith to see the faithful in the pew on the one hand embrace the traditional mass and traditional sacraments, but on the other hand, in very many cases, embrace modern standards of immorality and to imbue themselves with the modern world.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 12:19

And this is exactly analogous to the Jews wanting to go back to Egypt. Do we long for the flesh pots of Egypt? First of all, by impurity. Saint Paul says, Let us not fornicate. And yet, there are many Catholics who have accepted the modern world's obsession with impurity and commit sins of impurity with others or with themselves, or internal sins of impure desires or impure thoughts.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 13:16

And even though they have been warned of these things, and even though they know the law of God clearly from their faith and from what has been taught to them by the Church by hearing sermons of this very kind, they continue to sin through impurity and in the end will go to hell and will end up in the very same place as all of those who have lost the faith. Their end will be the same and yet they will descend into a worse part of hell because they were given the truth and they were given graces by God to know the difference between right and wrong. Whereas the others will have a certain excuse of ignorance. Conduct in courtship among the young people where they accept the modern standards of courtship and do not observe the traditional principles. Young people today in the modern world fornicate as if it were nothing, as if it were merely a sign of friendship.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 14:47

It is disgusting even to have to mention it and think cannot accept those standards. We will be punished. We will be like the idolaters who reveled if we accept those things. Television and movies, concerning which I have spoken many times, yet most persevere, I have the impression in watching impure television and impure movies. The beach is another flesh pot of Egypt, Yet I would suspect that there are many Catholics who think nothing of going to crowded beaches where people are virtually in a state of undress and themselves in the same state of undress.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 16:08

Impure clothing acceptance of these weird, modern ways of wearing your hair, wearing the badge of the devil's perversions. Listening to rock music, as I have mentioned many times. Particularly another point is weddings and wedding receptions. It is a lamentable fact that every traditional priest has to struggle with newlyweds to get them to observe minimal standards of modesty in their weddings. It is an unbelievable thing and that the parish actually owns six or eight shawls that remain waiting at weddings in case, as has happened many times, the bride and the bridesmaids should defy the rules of the priest in the hopes that he will say nothing on the wedding day.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 17:26

Actually, defy him after repeated promises. Defy him, then we have to ask the bride and the bridesmaids to wear shawls in order that the wedding can take place, in order that they can come down the aisle in presence of the Blessed Sacrament. I even heard a case once where a priest, because he didn't have shawls, had to take drapes and drape them over the bridesmaid and the bride in order that the wedding could take place. Is not right. This is wrong.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 18:11

This is longing for the flesh pots of Egypt. Rather, Catholics should listen to the instruction of the priest with humility and even joy, that they are receiving from him the way to heaven, and should not grumble when they are told to cover their flesh in front of God almighty. And it is very often the case that at wedding receptions, as I have said, they will come from the splendor of the traditional mass and often a high mass, and then descend into pagan practices, rock music, and other filthy forms of entertainment and dress, or lack of dress, jokes, double meaning actions where people have one thing on their mind. I personally have had to leave so many wedding receptions because of the immorality and pagan attitude among those attending, and many of them my own parishioners, I have had to leave so many that I no longer attend wedding receptions, because it is so embarrassing for the priest. That is wrong.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 20:01

Your conduct in front of a priest at church should be the same as your conduct without the priest. Liberal attitudes toward the raising of children, which I have mentioned many times, lacks attitudes toward the novus ordo, Ordo, such as going to confession to Novus Ordo priests, and lax attitudes toward divorce, annulment, and remarriage, which I have mentioned many times. I call a special attention to the annulment. I remind you, we do not recognize novus ordo annulments and if your children or other relatives should obtain these annulments, you cannot recognize their new marriages and you must act accordingly. To do otherwise is hypocritical and pharisaical.

Bp. Donald Sanborn: 20:59

So we must heed these warning of St. Paul and even more so look upon the the tearful eyes of our Lord looking upon Jerusalem, that Jerusalem is each of our souls if we are a Catholic in the state of mortal sin. For we have been given more than Jerusalem, we have been given more than the Jews were ever given, we have been given the blood of Christ, and if we persist in loving the flesh pots of Egypt, even though we are washed in the blood of Christ, then we should expect to be punished severely. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.