CAREFUL TRAINING OF THE APOSTLES

Christ, though He would constantly be with His Church, took great pains to train His apostles well.  He taught them everything; then commanded them to go to all nations to teach everything they had learned.    

Christ trained them so well that He did not have to intervene in the work.  He could have trained the five thousand whom He fed.  But no, He only trained twelve and decreed that everybody else had to learn from the twelve.    

Christ chose twelve and gave them so many graces to convert the world, which they did.  Christ did not need to train ten thousand.  God's way is clearly to train a few with many graces than to train many.  It is the graces that convert not the number of people.

But, strangely, in the history of the Church, we find God making exceptions to His own rule and actively intervening by teaching humans directly, like in the case of St. Francis of Assisi.  St. Francis preached so effectively during his time and yet the things he preached were not learned from any priest or bishop.  Evidently, like Joseph of Cupertino, he learned it directly from God.  Now, why would God make an exception?  Because there was no one in that era who knew His commands.  Therefore, He had to intervene. But the moment He had taught St. Francis, His decree had to again be observed; everybody else had to learn from St. Francis.

The history of the Church is filled with instances wherein she runs out of people who know the commands of Christ;  in which case, He would intervene by directly teaching a select soul, otherwise, the Church would cease to exist.  No one will ever believe that there were times the Church had nearly ceased to exist; but this is the only explanation why certain saints are raised by God and directly taught by God. . .because the Church could no longer fulfill its only duty-- "to teach all I have commanded and how to observe them."  If the Church were fulfilling her duties, God would find no reason to intervene directly.

 (08-25-10)