What can we say is the primary duty of the Church?

Pastor’s Pen
St. Augustine Catholic Church
Sunday, January 31, 2021
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Question: What can we say is the primary duty of the Church?

1.To proclaim the message of salvation which is spirit and life.

2.To celebrate the Holy Sacraments of the Church, especially, the Eucharist through which we are saved through the Cross of Christ.

Let us take the first one. The Responsorial Psalm for this Mass says: “if today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” The God who created man out of love, did not want him to remain in ignorance about Him; rather He wants him to have knowledge of Him to appreciate Him as a loving Father, to know Him, love and serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next life.

Man needs only to accept and believe Him for him to have salvation. As we use to read at every Christmas time, it says, “In times past, God spoke to our ancestors in partial and various ways but today He speaks to us through His Son, Jesus Christ, who also taught man about God, who saved man through Him and saved him from sin and damnation to be citizens of heaven. Therefore, each time we hear His voice, we must not harden our hearts but only believe and be saved.  In the same way, we are to accept the teaching of the Church called the Sacred Tradition or the Magisterium.  Until today, these means of proclamation of God’s divine message are placed in the hands of bishops, priests, and deacons in the name of the Church.

Christ teaches in the gospel of Matthew 7:24 that those who hear the Word of God and put it into practice will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. Rains came and poured down. The rivers over flowed and winds blew hard against that house but it did not fall because it was built on rock. But that foolish man who builds his home on sand, when the rains pour down and the rivers overflow, and the winds blow hard against that house, it will fall and what a terrible fall it will be! He, therefore, concluded that those who have ears would hear His Word.

Praise God, Amen.

Fr. Chris