Michael Bolerjack Israel Ate Manna

Israel ate manna in the desert. The bread from heaven tasted like what each person desired. The infinite God can do this. The world today is like the story of the manna in the wilderness. God tests each one of us individually, uniquely, according to His own design. The infinite God can do this. As Thomas said, it has not yet been demonstrated that God cannot do an infinite number of things simultaneously. The world is what it is for each of us. Each lives in a separate reality. For Israel, the manna was taken away when the people of God entered the Promised Land. In our time, the sacrifice is being suspended, as Daniel prophesied. The manna will be no more. If the ranks of Catholics knew this already, they would be dismayed. But if they knew further, their grief would turn to joy, for unless the manna is taken away, the people of God cannot enter the Promised Land. Daniel said, 12:7, that God will scatter the power of the holy people. This is what is happening to the Roman Catholic Church today. At the heart of the Church, its source and summit, as Vatican II said, is the Eucharist and the sacrifice of the mass, the transubstantiation on the altar of the bread and wine. The way to scatter the power of the holy people is to make void the sacrifice, to de-substantiate the bread and wine. Rather than the bread and wine becoming Christ, the Lord and His Spirit will be driven out of the institutional Church, though God is free, and the Spirit blows where He will. It may be impossible; it may be impossible for the infallible Church to be in error, yet as one priest I know often says, God does the impossible. It is not impossible, then, that God created the Catholic Church only to see it destroyed, to see it abandon Him, as Israel always does its Lord. Salvation is the history of just this trespass, betrayal, adultery. God has promised a remnant, though. Who these people are and where they are is known only to God and that is good enough for me. Just as the Jewish people, as True Israel, forfeited, according to the Romans, so too that later True Israel of Catholicism is forfeiting, and just as the latter benefitted from the former, so I hope the world will gain life from the destruction of the Church. God has mercy on those He chooses. Many are called, but few are chosen. Many will say Lord, Lord. Yet the mercy of God is His alone to dispense, and cannot be bought, sold, appropriated, controlled, manipulated by anyone. So-called indulgences are well-named, but God does not think as people do, as is said in Isaiah. He does not indulge us, nor can He be indulged. Jesus said what you bind on earth is bound in Heaven, so grace is bought and sold, Gods hands seemingly tied. But his mercy and justice are one.