The envious man is not satisfied with his own blessings. In fact, if he cannot possess what he covets he wants to at least control it. His dissatisfaction reveals a critique of God’s justice: “God gave to my neighbor something that belongs to me.” That is a long way of saying “God is unjust!” but we know God is just. What happens when that man tries to control something that never belonged to him? Then he wants to snatch something from God’s hands. The little covetous cretin wants to be God.
The Good Shepherd is constantly minding the needs of His flock. In every age He will raise good men to attend to those needs. The best example of that is Christ Jesus. Moses himself when announcing the coming Messiah mentioned specifically how that prophet would be raised from “among his brothers” and Israel had to listen to him.
“Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you from your own people a prophet like me. You must listen to whatever he tells you. And it will be that everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be utterly rooted out from the people.’” (Acts 3:22-23)
Of course, every good prophet has been a prefiguration of the Messiah in presenting to us different qualities of Christ: Moses, Samuel, Daniel, Elijah, Ezequiel, Zechariah … all of them are types of Christ and must be respected. The enemies of God do not like them and try to stop them from fulfilling their mission to alert and teach the people of God.
“Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop.’ He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.’ […] Every day he was teaching in the Temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him; but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were spellbound by what they heard.” (Luke 19: 39-40; 47-48)
I listened and learned with pleasure to many of Fr. Ripperger’s conferences. If we were living in ordinary times I would probably caution about an exorcist becoming a teacher. But we are not living in ordinary times. In our days the institutions of the Catholic Church are held by a band of marauders daring to teach error after error even from the captured seat of St Peter. There is no need to despair —we were warned centuries in advance— this is the spiritual war the people of God have been fighting since the days of Eden. We’re getting to the climax of that spiritual battle. Years ago we all had to concentrate in using the gifts God gave to each individual but now that is not the case. St Paul made this observation in his day:
“We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.” (Romans 12:6-8)
Now that those charged to teach the faith teach error; now that the evangelizing voice of the Church has gone shamefully silent; now anyone who can put a morsel of truth on the servant’s plate must do it. It is time for the stones to shout out.
Fr Ripperger was moved to teach because the silence was unbearable. I watched many of his sermons and lessons, they were all food for the Catholic soul. He did not hesitate to go and declare the faith in places where few others dare to go. I believe these words of Jesus will apply to him one day:
“His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’” (Matthew 25:21)
For “the others” —you know who I am talking about— Jesus will have some choice words:
“As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 25:30)
Let us lift our hearts in prayer for Fr Ripperger. May God continue to bless him with much wisdom and protect him from all harm.
