I reflect on what the short Catholic Epistle of St Jude the Apostle teaches us. Considering in particular the path dominated by sensuality and that dominated by the spirit. With a digression, courtesy of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, on the subject of the right use of Scripture as opposed to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura
Because I have a short attention span I’ve always had a soft spot for the Very Small Books in the Bible. I’m especially fond of the Old Testament books of Ruth and of Jonah. They are good stories and, apart from their religious content are full of little vignettes of human emotion from tender love to extreme crabbiness. The Very Small Books of the New Testament are more ‘difficult’ since they lack narrative and touch on deep spiritual and theological themes which you can’t really get to grips with unless you have a good working knowledge of the ideas contained in the rest of the NT. Nonetheless the Catholic Epistle of St Jude the Apostle has several things going for it, its only 25 verses long, it illustrates the wheat and tares parable of our Lord and it is attributed to the patron saint of lost causes who is an appropriate patron for this little cottage blog that dreams of international stardom.
Essentially the letter concerns the presence within the body of Christ of those who do not truly belong to it….