WHY DO WE NEED THE CHURCH?
Monday, March 23, 2020- During the Coronavirus pandemic, one of our members needed some advice to make a comment on Facebook. Catholic Churches worldwide are closing in order to stop the spread of the virus. Our member encountered someone who made some disturbing comments.
Valerie: How can one answer this?
“We don’t need churches to pray. God is everywhere. You pray anywhere & everywhere, because GOD is all around us, we are his church, we need no building.”
FATHER MICHAEL J. Truongluan NGUYEN, C.Ss.R.: Nope!
We do need a building, not just made up of bricks and stones, but hearts and souls.
Remember as well, Valerie, the Lord God creates
(1) your body to be the Temple of the Holy Spirit,
(2) your soul, His Sanctuary and
(3) you, yourself, His Garden of Paradise for Himself.
Valerie: Forgive me if this is a distraction.
I’ve seen the comment two or three times on Facebook. It bothers me and as a “light” of our Catholic Faith I feel I should give an answer.
I believe we need the church. I do. I enjoy being part of a community. There are so many gifts included.
I believe this girl just wants to do things her way. Pray when she wants. I know of another person that does not like rules made by others for him to follow. He himself is a rule maker.
Again, please pardon me and delete anything that breaks other thoughts while we fight this virus with prayer.
FATHER MICHAEL J.: One major problem about stressing that the physical buildings for Churches are unnecessary, entails the consequence that there will no longer be a need to gather in one Sacred Space for celebrating the Holy Eucharist and all the other Sacraments.
It also implies that since we do not need the physical building for worship any longer, why should we go to Church on Sunday? Why should we have Faith Formation Program? Why should we have CCE? Why should we have RCIA? Why should we have Marriage Encounter? Why should we have Choirs? Why should we have Sacred Arts? Why should we have the Sistine Chapel? Why should we have St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican?
When we decide that there is no need for physical buildings as the "Sacred Space" for worship, we are really destroying our Catholic Religion.
Many of us, Catholics, do not realize that there is a movement to destroy the Catholic Church from within.
It argues for the destruction of organized religions. It is called the New Age movement.
Please be alert and aware of that reality.
The assertion that "I am spiritual, but not religious" comes from these people. Many of them are fallen away Catholics.
The majority of the Italian and Spaniard younger generation thinks this way.
I lived and traveled in Europe for many years. I have heard and seen many Europeans who are cradle-born Catholics (Italians, Germans, Spaniards, French), telling me that the Church's buildings are only their playground.
When we decide to adopt the European apathetic attitude toward the Church, we will be like them.
Here are several consequences:
(1) Our Church's buildings will be turned into museum.
(2) The Masons and the Satanists will buy them and do the Black Mass there. They did this in London.
(3) The Muslims acquired many of our Catholic Churches and converted them into Mosques. I saw this happening in Germany.
(4) The Buddhists would buy our Churches and convert them into Pagoda. This already happened in Long Beach, California. What used to be a Carmelite Convent now has become a Buddhist temple. I visited that monastery and wept. Where the Tabernacle used to be in the Chapel, now they place the statue of the meditating Buddha at the Center. Where there used to be Jesus Christ the Lord with two angels standing beside Him to worship, they put the statue of a laughing Buddha in between the two angels.
Soon, our Catholic religion will be destroyed because we Catholics do not stay alert and keep vigil.
No one destroys our religion, but we do it ourselves.
We do not use our mind to think and question everything.
We DON'T SPEAK UP.
We DON'T STAND UP TOGETHER.
We DON'T FIGHT FOR CHRIST.
It will be like Constantinople, the Capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantine). Now it is Istanbul where we have the Greatest Church of the East: the Church Hagia Sophia, i.e., Holy Wisdom (Jesus Christ Himself) now is the Sultan Ahmed Mosque or the Blue Mosque.
It is only because Catholics no longer have faith in Christ and His Church.
Instead of fighting for Christ and His Body, the Catholic Church, we don't even use our mind to think and QUESTION EVERYTHING WITHOUT MERCY!
We surrender without condition before we even engage in any battle.
Catholics are no longer militants but become more and more socialists.
Let all PAPA missionaries listen to the sound of the trumpet and prepare to fight for our faith and religion.
Let us fight for Christ with the PAPA principle: QUESTION EVERYTHING WITHOUT MERCY.
