Bozek and the imitation of the life of Jesus

Ignoring an archbishop's warning, about 2,000 people packed St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in St. Louis late Saturday night to celebrate Christmas Eve Mass with an excommunicated priest.

At the Mass, Marek Bozek urged the congregation to imitate the life of Jesus and be God's shepherds. "It's you," he said. "You're called to imitate this life, without money, without power and without authority.... I'm not coming here to be a powerful, strong warrior or hero. All I will do at this beautiful church is to imitate Jesus."

Surely, you remember that Jesus to whom the good reverend refers - that Jesus who ignored His mother, Mary and Joseph, His foster father, that Jesus who disobedient to those in authority.

"I'm coming here to live amidst you, to eat what you eat. I'm coming here to serve you day and night, to be with you in your life and to be one of you," Bozek said in his homily, delivered in both Polish and English and punctuated by applause from the crowd.

Dissent and rebellion, "punctuated by applause from the crowd"...How wonderfully inspiring!

St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke warned last week that it would be a mortal sin for Roman Catholics to receive communion from the excommunicated priest...

But none of those who attended St Stanislaus seemed to care...They seem to say: Sin? What is sin? Truth? What is truth? We care only for our wants and our desires. The Church doesn't understand, The Archbishop only wants our money.

They gave the priest a standing ovation when Bozek in gold and white vestments entered the church holding a figurine of the baby Jesus.

Sadly, the applause was not for our newborn King, but for Bozek - the new 'savior' who has arrived on the scene...The crown cries out, 'We want to show our solidarity with him who defies his superiors and the Church!'... Of course, this arrogant cry is always followed by the words: 'Crucify Him! Crucify Him!'

Among those who came to support Bozek on Christmas Eve were Debbie Thompson and Dane Galloway of Springfield. The two, members of St. Agnes, took communion from Bozek and said they were not worried about Burke's warnings about mortal sin. "That's not God's law," Thompson said. "It's man-made," added Galloway.

Poor misguided people. Perhaps they received special theologial training from the resident expert theologian with 10 years of training? But again, just to be clear, the Church teaches and Archbishop Burke reminds us about the gravity of this sin and its deadly consequences and this 'priest' has told them the opposite - which 'authority' is correct? A faithful Catholic knows the answer.

Asked if he was sending any message to Burke through the homily, Bozek replied: "It's a story about Christmas, about one shedding his power.
. . .
"You are the church," he told the congregation at the end of his Christmas Eve Mass. "... What we're doing is a just cause. What we're doing deserves the God's blessings."

If one keeps telling himself the same old lies often enough, he may eventually come to believe them...However, this spectacle of rebellion is deserving, not of God's blessings, but of His punishment. Some people seem to have forgotten the end for which they were created. It certainly isn't about trying to see how many people one can get to follow them in mortal sin and death.

The Springfield article of Marek Bozek is here.