The faith of our fathers - Carmel Apologetics

"46 THE FAITH OF OUR FATHERSrefuge in the bosom of their true Mother, the Catholic Church, who, like her divine Spouse, claims theafflicted as her most cherished inheritance. Theparables descriptive of this Church which our Lordemployed, also clearly teach us that the good andbad shall be joined together in the Church as longas her earthly mission lasts. The kingdom of Godis like a field in which the cockle is allowed to growup with the good seed until the harvest-time 1it is;like a net which encloses goodfish and bad untilthe hour of separation comes. 2So, too, the Churchis that great house 3 in which there are not onlyvessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and(day.The Fathers repeat the teaching of Scripture.St. Jerome says:The ark of Noah was a type ofthe Church. As every kind of animal was in that,so in this there are men of every race and character.As in that were the leopard and the kids, the wolfand the lambs, so in this there are to be found thejust and the sinful, that is, vessels of gold and silveralong with those of wood and clay."St. Gregory the Great writes "Because in it : (theChurch) the good are mingled with the bad, thereprobate with the elect, it is rightly declared to be5similar to the wise and the foolish virgins."Listen to St. Augustine:4"Let the mind recallthe threshing-floor containing straw and wheat ;the1 Matt. xiii. 2-1-37.2 Ibid. xiii. 47.3 II. Tim. ii. 20.4 Dial, contra Lucif.6Horn. 12, in Evang.