Today after praying prior to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, having a Bible in the pew book rack before me, I prayed the Lord to guide my fingers to a good place in that Bible in order to instruct me on what His Will is today. Of course, I was seeking His guidance for me personally, not for anyone else.
I sat back in the pew, grabbed the Bible, sort of let my thumb grab a random spot on the pages, opened, and looked down at this, the first heading I saw:
Obedience to Authority
Here is what St. Paul had to say in his Letter to the Romans on Obedience to Authority:
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority[a] does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience. For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing. Pay to all what is due them—taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due. [Romans 13:1-7 NRSVCE]
Oh yes! It’s About the Impeachment of Pres. Donald Trump!
The first thing which came to mind was the Impeachment of President Trump, that the good Lord is *with* President Trump, his appointed authority, and not with the politicians who do injustice by twisting contexts and implying what is not true because their real intention is simply to dismiss the 2016 Presidential Elections by Act of Congress and to interfere in the 2020 Presidential Elections…because they would rather have won. We could say that many of the opponents of President Donald Trump work for their spiritual father, Satan, the “Father of Lies.”
Is President Trump hard to like? Well, yes, he can be coarse and misunderstood by the unforgiving and proud soul. Is President Trump easy to like? Yes, he can certainly be liked when one agrees to his truly good intentions and deeds. The Scripture says, “Then do what is good and you will receive its approval…do what is wrong and you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain!” His opponents have almost never done what is good and just toward President Trump; they have egged him on – provoked him – set his own people against him, and so on. They have been unrelenting in what appears to me to be criminal bullying to a high degree.
I fully expect Pres. Trump to be exonerated and for some Members of Congress to be investigated and maybe even politically punished for their outrageous conduct toward President Trump. If he is convicted, then I expect God to make Pres. Trump into the Great Swamp Plug which, when pulled, exposes many, many improprieties leading to many more investigations of Elected Members, past and present.
Ah, But Maybe It’s About Me and My Parish Leadership?
Now, in this sitting, I have also considered another context: my own. If the reader will go back a few posts, there is a post I made about the slothful servant. I have been very angry about the conduct of some of my parish leadership and staff over a period of several years for various valid reasons. When the straw finally broke under constant strain of serial disappointments (which I have tried to explain tactfully to leadership but with sometimes uncaring, arrogant and rude responses – except for responses from one good priest), I and my wife have simply decided to dramatically reduce our annual giving (aside from our promise for the Capital Campaign, all of which we paid fully and in advance for the good of those after us who will benefit from better facilities), resign from parish ministries, and begin attending another parish. Recently, we even halved our lowered monthly donation to our assigned parish and began giving half to the other parish which we are routinely attending now.
For me, it is a sincere act of justice. Am I being disobedient? I don’t think so. I feel like I am serving the Lord in helping to wake up a slothful staff to their condition which really needs improvement. Is this hard on us? Yes, we are disconnected now while we wait to move to another State in the next year or two – that will be like The Promised Land for us. I will continue to think it over and pray about it, but my conscience is clear.
And The Last Pastor Resigned for Cause
Something which has caused me to lose confidence in our clerical leadership is that the previous pastor before the current one, after my wife and I had developed a years-long good relationship of trust with him, resigned because of an unreported and uninvestigated sexual impropriety he had years earlier. OF his own volition, he admitted his mistake and then just up and quit, and no one saw it coming. We had a great relationship with him and both my and my wife’s ministry involvement slowly increased under his good stewardship.
So What Is It? Trump or Me?
It could be both because there is a Principle here. But, Trump’s destiny is being decided right now while the world watches, and mark my word: God is watching, too!
Theo-Logis 