The Family Of God

In any human family, you sometimes see siblings fighting against each other.  Even husbands and wives sometimes quarrel with each other. These are normal everyday things that happen in family life.  Although arguments and conflicts are common and normal in the human family, reconciliation keeps the family strong. This is also true with God's family.  

Since the beginning of Church history, we find that even the Apostles have arguments.  For example, St. Paul and St. Barnabus had a very serious argument over a trivial thing that they went their separate ways (Acts 15:36-40).  However, they later reconciled.  God always favors reconciliation that he even instituted the Sacrament of Reconciliation. 

Therefore, division within the Catholic Church is not new.  There have been divisions since the beginning, but reconciliation is what God favors. It is the devil, the father of lies, who sows division within the Church.   

In the jungle, Glaucon Jr. stated that a second way a nation came into being was through "experience."  According to Glaucon Jr.: 

The second way is by common experience of an event that permanently makes the group what it is. When the Patriarch Jacob and his family of 70 or so went down to Egypt, they went to make a life; 400 years later, that life was one of slavery. We all know the story: God sent Moses to lead them out, and they were brought out into the desert, and with them came others—some Egyptians, some Midianites, and some from other tribes and races.

But those who were brought out of Egypt weren’t the same as those who emerged from the desert 40 years later. That original generation grumbled against the Lord and complained that the manna he gave them wasn’t good enough. It didn’t meet their expectations. So in that 40 years of purification, they died and were replaced by those born in the wilderness, raised in the wilderness, dependent on God and His lawgiver-prophet at every turn. And when they came out of the desert, they were no longer a bunch of random tribes.

They were Israelites. They were the people of God.

It was by their shared experience of the Exodus Event that made them Israelites, and that’s why Jews even today celebrate Passover as they do: based on memory and not on blood, it remembers who they are based on the Exodus Event that made them who they are.

Christians are Christians in the same way. We share that common experience of the real, actual event of the Incarnation: the conception, birth, life, passion, death, and resurrection of Christ our God. That is what makes us Christians.  Life in Christ is the full incorporation into Christ in this world and in Eternity.

Actually, they were Israelites because of the covenant God made to Abraham. The ones who came out of Egypt and the ones who came into the promised land were all descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (whom God named Israel). God had already claimed the descendants of Abraham through Isaac's and Jacob's line "His people" because of the covenant He made with Abraham.  As a matter of fact, when God spoke to Moses, He said, I have seen the affliction of MY PEOPLE in Egypt and have heard their cry (Exodus 3:7).  He called them "my people" even before He brought them out of slavery from Egypt. 

The Israelites who went into the promised land (Canaan) were the children of the old generation who sinned and grumbled against God. These children were still the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  The promised land is a prefigurement of God's kingdom.  The ones who did not enter the promised land (Canaan) were those who sinned and grumbled against God. This same rule will apply to God's kingdom in Heaven.  The covenant that God made with Abraham was circumcision (Genesis 17:10-19).  

It was through the covenant of circumcision that the Lord God became the God of Israel and the Israelites "His people".  Circumcision was the Old Covenant, and was made in blood.  Those who were circumcised belonged to the family of God. Those who were not circumcised did not belong to the family of God. 

In the same way, Christians belong to the family of God through a covenant that Christ made with us.  Like the Old Covenant, the New Covenant was also made in blood.....the blood of Jesus Christ. Baptism replaced circumcision. According to the Catholic Education Resource Center:

St Paul also confirms that baptism now replaces circumcision as entry into the New Covenant.  For example, he says, "In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not administered by hand, by stripping off the carnal body, with the circumcision of Christ.  You were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him" (Col 2:11-12).

And according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (the bold is mine): 

CCC 1267   Baptism makes us members of the Body of Christ: "Therefore . . . we are members one of another."⁷² Baptism incorporates us into the Church. From the baptismal fonts is born the one People of God of the New Covenant, which transcends all the natural or human limits of nations, cultures, races, and sexes: "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body."⁷³

CCC 1268  The baptized have become "living stones" to be "built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood."⁷⁴ By Baptism they share in the priesthood of Christ, in his prophetic and royal mission. They are "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that [they] may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called [them] out of darkness into his marvelous light."⁷⁵ Baptism gives a share in the common priesthood of all believers. 

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that through our baptism, we become a HOLY NATION..... God's own people.  Our baptism brought us into God's own family.  

However, it is true that we are sinners.  We are not perfect.  We are not holy. We are not better than anyone else.  We are sinners and no better than the inmates at the Department of Correction.  Nevertheless, through our baptism.... God is our Father.  Mary is our Mother.  Jesus Christ is our Brother. Through our baptism, we are the sons and daughters of God.  

Do not listen to false prophets who tell you that God's people are born from "experience."  This teaching is heresy.  We became part of God's famiy through our baptism, and we certainly did not give birth to any Junglewatch nation.  The Junglewatch Nation came into existence through their own "experience" exactly as Glaucon Jr. claimed.   

As for natural religiousity, here is what Pope Francis has to say about it.  The rosary is good and the NCW members pray the rosary.  What they say about Kiko or the catechists telling us when to pray the rosary is false.  The NCW teaches its members HOW to pray.  They teach us that Christ is the center and focus of our prayer, not than the devotion.