God's governance precedes man's. God's will precedes man's. God's truth precedes man's. If anyone disagrees I'm willing to turn the other cheek.
First, Jesus doesn't say to "turn the other cheek
away," but rather "turn the other cheek
toward" (Matt. 5:39). What He's saying is, "
Have you been struck? Love and offer the other cheek to him who smacked you, considering that it is better that he gives vent to his wrath on you who can put up with it, rather than on somebody else who would take vengeance for the insult."
Second, God is Spirit but also
man, and as a man on earth He established the ecclesiastical hierarchy of His earthly Church, and He chose
men to succeed Him as shepherds on the earth, whilst remaining the Head, and others to succeed them and so on for over two thousand years, under His guidance.
Jesus's Mother is second to Peter, he being the Head and Her a believer, but first as Mother of the Church having given birth to Jesus, Who is the Head of this mystical Body. Mary's role on earth was not to reject the many Judases, but assist and teach Peter and the other apostles not to reject, but to assist. To defend Jesus in His followers, and defend Him from those who want to disperse and dismember the dawning Church. And in future centuries, always be She Who pleads for and protects, defends and helps His Church, His Priests, His believers, from Evil and Punishment, from themselves. The current Pope and every Pope going all the way back to Peter was/is his successor. Jesus's cousin and apostle James of Alphaeus, for example, became the first bishop of Jerusalem, and he was succeeded by his brother, Simon, and so on. Since the Christian (Catholic) Church's inception over two thousand years ago, the apostles have had successors.
The sacrifice of each of its members is required. Starting with Jesus, the Founder. He is, in fact, its mystical Head, for Peter, for all the disciples, for all those who will be called Christians and will belong to the universal Church. And really in the great classification of the hierarchy the most humble people, who seem to be simple "numbers ", will be the ones who will make the Church truly vital.
Remember that
in an organism a hierarchy is required, so that it may be really active and wholesome, that is, someone who commands, someone who transmits orders, and those who obey. That is what happens in the courts of kings, as well as in religions. From the Hebrew religion to the others, even if they are so impure, there is always a chief, his ministers, the servants of the ministers, and lastly the believers. A pontiff cannot act by himself. A king cannot act by himself. And their dispositions concern only human contingencies, or the formalism of rites... Yes.
Unfortunately, now, also in the Mosaic religion, there is nothing left but the formalism of rites, the continuation of the movements of a device that goes on making the same gestures, even now that the spirit of the gestures is dead.
Dead forever. Their Divine Enlivener, He Who gave import to the rites, has withdrawn from them. And the rites are gestures, nothing else. Gestures that any histrion could mime on the stage of an amphitheatre.
Woe, when a religion dies, and from a real living power becomes a clamorous exterior pantomime, an empty thing behind a painted scenery, behind pompous garments, the movements of devices performing certain actions,
just as a key activates a spring, but neither key nor spring is conscious of what they do. Woe! Ponder! The apostles were told to remember this truth and tell their successors about it, so that it may be known throughout ages. The fall of a planet is less frightening than the fall of religion. If the sky should be depopulated of its stars and planets, it would not be for peoples as bad a misfortune as if they remained without religion.
God would provide with provident power for the needs of men, because God can do everything for those who, in a wise way, or in the way that their ignorance knows,
seek and love the Divinity in a right spirit. But if the day should come when men no longer loved God, because the priests of every religion had made only an empty pantomime of it, as they were the first not to believe in their religion, woe betide the Earth!
Now, if I say so for those religions that are impure, as some have come through partial revelation to a wise person, some derive from the instinctive need of man to create a faith for himself to nourish his soul to love a god —
as this need is the strongest incentive of man, the permanent state of research for Him Who is, and Who is wanted by the spirit even if the proud intellect refuses to pay homage to any god, even if man, unaware of the soul, is unable to give a name to such need that stirs within him — what shall I say for this religion that Jesus has given us, for this one that bears His Name, for this one of which He has created the apostles pontiffs and priests, for this one that He ordered them to propagate all over the world? For this religion Unique, True, Perfect, Immutable in the Doctrine taught by Me, the Master, completed by the continuous teaching of Him Who will come, the Holy Spirit, the Most Holy Guide for My Pontiffs and for those who will help them, second chiefs in the various Churches created in the various regions where My Word will be asserted. These Churches, although various in number, will not be different in thought, but will be one thing only with the Church, as with their individual parts they will form the great building, greater and greater, the great new Temple, that with its pavilions will reach all the corners of the earth. Not different in thought, nor contrasting with one another, but united, brotherly to one another, all subjected to the Head of the Church, to Peter, and to his successors until the end of time.
And those that for any reason should separate from the Mother Church, would be members cut off, no longer nourished with the mystic blood that is Grace coming from Jesus, the divine Head of the Church. Like prodigal sons, separated through their own will from the paternal house, in their short-lived wealth and constant and graver and graver misery, they would be blunting their spiritual intellects by means of too heavy foods and wines, and then they would languish eating the bitter acorns of unclean animals until they returned to the paternal house, saying with contrite hearts: "We have sinned. Father, forgive us and open the doors of your abode to us." Then, whether it is a member of a separated Church, or an entire Church - oh! if it were so, but where, when will so many imitators of Jesus arise, capable of redeeming these entire separated Churches, at the cost of their lives, to make, to remake only one Fold under only one shepherd, as He ardently wishes? —
then whether it is only one person or an assembly that comes back, open the doors to them.
The apostles were instructed to
be fatherly. They were told to consider that all of them, for one hour or for many, perhaps for years, were, individually, prodigal sons enveloped in concupiscence. They were instructed to
not be hard on those who repent and remember! remember! that many of them ran away at Jesus's arrest. And was their running away perhaps not an abjuration of their love for Him?
Therefore, as He received them as soon as they, repentant, came to Him, they were to do the same themselves.
To do everything He did. That was His command. They lived with Him for three years. They knew His deeds and His thoughts. When, in future, they would find themselves in front of a case to be decided, they were to look back to the time when they were with Him and behave as He behaved. They would never go wrong.
Jesus is the living perfect example of what they had to do.
And the apostles were told to remember also that Jesus did not refuse Himself even to Judas of Kerioth... that a priest must try to save, by all possible means. And let love always prevail, among the means used to save. They were told to consider that He was not unaware of Judas' horror... But, overcoming all disgust, He treated the wretch as He treated John. The apostles....they were often to be spared the bitterness of knowing that nothing is of any use to save a beloved disciple... And they were therefore able to work without the tiredness that affects one, when one knows that everything is useless... One must work even then...always...until everything is accomplished...