Season of Advent time for Penance and Spiritual Conversion

Fatima and the Four Last Things

DEATH, JUDGEMENT - HEAVEN OR HELL 

Season of Advent A Time for

Repentance & Spiritual Conversion

Advent is given to us by the church to remind us of our need for repentance and for spiritual conversion a perfect time to read and meditate on the 4 last things.  Advent is not just to prepare us for the anniversary of the birth of Jesus (Christmas) when God entered the world as man. More importantly Advent is a time for reflection on the coming of the Lord at the end of our lives and his final coming at the end of time! Modern man is frantically running from the reality of his own death. Poor simple man is tempted to believe he is something that he is not before his peers and even before God! Advent is time to stop and take stock of who God is and who we are as we stand before him.

Michelangelo's- The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel

One of the best meditations on Death is the Dies Irae hymn a meditation on the Last Judgment, when Christ will come again in glory, no longer granting mercy, but as the Just Judge who will separate the just from the wicked, casting the latter into eternal fire, and welcoming the former to eternal bliss. The hymn closes with a supplication for mercy before the coming of that terrible day.

The video below is Mozart's Rendition of Dies Irea and it is a powerful piece making one tremble at the coming Judgment. the Day of Wrath.  The Gregorian Chant of Dies Irea   on the other hand, is more somber and reflective giving one hope in God's Mercy at that final hour of our own death or his second coming.  This is chanted during Funeral Masses in the Extraordinary form in the Tridentine Mass! Makes one hope to be buried with that Mass and those prayers to follow you into eternity.

Day of wrath, day that will dissolve the world into burning coals, as David bore witness with the Sibyl. How great a tremor is to be, when the judge is to come briskly shattering every grave. A trumpet sounding an astonishing sound through the tombs of the region drives all men before the throne. Death will be stunned and so will Nature, when arises  man the creature responding to the One judging. The written book will be brought forth, in which the record of evidence is contained whence the world is to be judged. Therefore when the Judge shall sit, whatever lay hidden will appear; nothing unavenged will remain.

 O Thou, God of Majesty, nourishing brilliance of the Trinity,  join us with the Blessed.  What am I the wretch then to say? what patron I to beseech? when scarcely the just man be secure. King of tremendous Majesty, who saves those-to-be-saved free, save me, Fount of piety.

Remember, faithful Jesus, because I am the cause of your journey: do not lose me on that day.

Thou has sat down as one wearied seeking me, Thou has redeemed me having suffered the Cross: so much labor let it not be lost. Just judge of the avenging-punishment, work the gift of the remission of sins before the Day of the Reckoning. I groan, as the accused: my face grows red from my fault: spare this supplicant, O God.O Thou, God of Majesty, nourishing brilliance of the Trinity, join us with the Blessed.Thou who forgave Mary the sinful woman, and favorably heard the good thief, hast also given me hope.  My prayers are not worthy, but do Thou, Good God, deal kindly lest I burn in perennial fire.

Among the sheep offer me a place and from the goats sequester me, placing me at Thy right hand. After the accursed have been silenced, given up to the bitter flames, call me with the blest. Kneeling and bowed down I pray, My heart contrite as ashes: Do Thou  care for my end

That sorrowful day, on which will arise from the burning coals Man accused to be judged therefore, O God, do Thou spare him. Faithful Lord Jesus, grant them rest. Amen. O Thou, God of Majesty, nourishing brilliance of the Trinity, join us with the Blessed. Amen

The Message of Fatima & the 4 last things

A Catechesis of Faith & Reaffirmation of Gospel

Mary is the Model Catechist

Our LAdy of Fatima did not ask the permission of the parents of Jacinta, Francisco and Lucia before showing them the vision of hell. Remember that Jacinta was barely six years old!  This reminds us that children do not belong to their parents they are only entrusted to them by God. God expects parents to instruct and form them in His ways; to know love and serve Him so that they will have the opportunity to be happy with Him forever in Heaven!  Thus the outrage of abortion. Destroying God's creation in your child that was given to you in order to reflect His image in the world.

The reality of Hell should be taught to children using the same methods our Lady used at Fatima the Model Catechist.  Appealing to their generous hearts by teaching them to help save others from going there. Having this knowledge they will be able tomake the right choices to save themselves from going there as well. Our Lady in showing young children a vision of Hell lead us to understand that children can also go there! Children can and do commit grave sins, even murder. They  have the natural law impressed on their souls so they know right from wrong.  However, we should never under estimate a childs capacity to do good and for self sacrifice. Our Lady at Fatima also showed us how great the heart of a child can become when properly formed! Even to heights of heroic sanctity.

             A Vision of Hell

The Ultimate Justice of God

For Unrepentant Sinners



The children saw countless numbers of people who were endlessly falling into the fiery flames.  Our Lady sadly looked upon them as she said "You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart.” And then she told them the secrets of Fatima that are connected with this vision. Material for another post someday.

The Vision of Hell

In the third apparition of July the children were given a vision of hell the ultimate Justice of God for unrepentant sinners. Our Lady pointed to the earth and the light from her hands the light from her hands penetrated the earth and opened the ground so that the children could peer into the depths and could see hell. Lucia describes  it for us: "As our Lady spoke she opened Her hands once more, as She had done during the two previous months. The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were an ocean of fire. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. (It must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me.) The demons could be distinguished (from the souls of the damned) by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent.This vision lasted only a moment, thanks to our good Heavenly Mother who,  at the first apparition, had promised to take us to Heaven. Without this promise, I think we would have died of fright.

The reality eternity was already impressed on this young mind and the possibility of some souls spending an eternity in hell! This thought impressed Jacinta the most. She often called Lucia and Francisco she would ask: "Are you praying with me? It is necessary to pray much to save souls from hell! How sorry I am for sinners who go there and burn forever like wood in a fire! If I could only show them hell so they would not go there!"  Even after she was taken sick, she would get out of bed to bow her head to the floor, and pray as the Angel had taught for the glory of God, and in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference by which He is offended in the tabernacles throughout the world and for the conversion of poor sinners.

Photo taken after the Vision of Hell note the anxious expressions

Many years later Lucia said she believed that most people go to Hell because of sins of the flesh. If souls can be condemned to hell because of one unrepentant mortal sin for all eternity is it not to be understood that other souls could be detained for long years in purgatory who have committed countless deliberate venial sins for which they have had little sorrow and had done little or no penance. The guilt that has been remitted by absolution, but the temporal punishment will have to be paid in purgatory.

Modern Man is Frantically 

Running From The Ultimate 

Reality of His Own Death.

Hieronymus Bosch  “Death of a sinner”, angel and devil weigh a mans soul

                

Today we are so busy, so frantically busy trying to control our own personal destiny and good fortune and in the process we unwittingly make today's technological advances our God.  In extreme cases the computer screen has become his tabernacle and window into solving his thirst for knowledge. Knowledge for finite things because that is all the computer can give us. We are deceived into believing from all the information available to us up to the computer. All the images (visions) that can be brought before him, from the outer reaches of the universe and the depths of the ocean that we can finally solve and ultimately control the mysteries of the universe. The mysteries  of life and death without the reality of God!  A deception of the devil for this time the ultimate deception the ultimate lie!  Poor simple man is tempted to believe he is something that he is not before his peers and even before God!

 Someday God Will Send 

A Strong Delusion

I feel it is here in our day!

I wonder if the scriptures of 2Thessalonians2:9-12 is in the beginnings if not already being actualized! 9The coming of the lawless one with all power, signs, and lying wonders, 10 and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this reason God will send them a strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, 12 that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

We are spending  more and more time involved in this technology to do what we think are great things! What was supposed to save time for human relationships has become a time consumer. Often we no longer have time for true prayer.  A prayer that enables an openness of soul to God a readiness and receptivity in order to be always praying, (Luke 18:1) and always listening to hear his voice when he whispers to our souls in the silence.  We have lost this form of prayer because there is no longer silence for modern man our ears are plugged into something all day! 

Another victory of the devil that technology has brought us! We can no longer hear the voice of conscience with all the noise and distractions around us. Without conscience we longer hear the truth about ourselves and the truth about God. I fear if we persist down this slippery slope God will allow us to have faith in whatever it is we put faith in.  If we don't turn back to  God in prayer, he may (if he has not already) send the strong delusion described in, Thessalonians 2:11. And in other words a time may come that God will not permit the deluded to repent. Hence this little catechesis on the 4 last things: Death, Judgment, Heaven or Hell and reality of purgatory as mentioned by the events of Fatima.  

The Message of Fatima confirmed  

the Reality of Purgatory

God’s Mercy vs. God’s Perfect Justice

Why not say the 5 last things 

and include Purgatory?

Purgatory is only temporary end before the final end in Heaven so it is not considered to be one of the last things. However Purgatory is such an important dogma of the church. Incredibly so many Catholics are ignorant of Purgatory so do nothing to avoid it themselves and little or nothing to help the Poor Souls who are there, suffering intensely, as they wait for Masses and prayers to be offered for them. That is why Our Lady brought up the reality of Heaven and Purgatory in her first appearance to the children. Only after strengthening them with the graces given in both the May and June apparitions did the children experience another reality of a place called hell. 

The painting below of Our Lady of Mt Carmel, the 'Throne of Mercy' and 'Queen of the Angels', who takes great delight in sending her Angels to release those Souls mercifully pardoned by her Son Jesus through the prayers and supplications of the church!

 Lucia recognized that it was Our Lady of Mt. Carmel 
wh appeared during the Miracle of the Sun in October because she recognized her as the same image in her parish church.

During Our Lady's First Visit to Fatima in May Lucia–the oldest of the three, after being reassured by Our Lady that they would all one day go to Heaven. Jacinta and Francisco would go soon and she would go but not right away because it was the will of God that she help promote the devotion to her Immaculate Heart to save poor sinners. Lucia found the courage and asked Our Lady about two of her friends who recently died: "Is Maria das Neves is in Heaven?" "Yes" answered Our Lady, "she is in Heaven."  She also asked about another friend, Amelia. Our Lady answered: "She will be in Purgatory until the end of the world."

Amelia's Fate is a 

Warning for All of Us!

Amelia was eighteen years old when she died. She is in Purgatory and will, on the testimony of Our Blessed Mother, stay there until the end of time.  Let us take to heart and make certain that her fate will not be our own. What could she have done to merit such purgation in those days and what about us and the sins committed in our era?

Why such a lengthy expiation?

The malice of sin is great. What we think are small faults are in reality serious offenses against the infinite goodness of God. Look how the saints wept over their smallest faults. We are weak we say and it is true but God is always there for us offering us graces to strengthen us and giving us lights to see the gravity of our sins. We do not use the lights and graces he so generously offers us, and we do not receive the sacraments as we should.

The saints committed few and slight sins they sorrowed much over them and did severe penances. We commit many and grave sins and we sorrow little and do little or no penance. For the majority of us who do make the positive decision to serve God and are not yet properly prepared (humble enough) to enter Heaven, the only choice is to make the transition to goodness in Purgatory. Our Lord tells us that we shall have to render an account for each and every idle word we say (Matthew12:36 ) and that we may not leave our prison until we shall have paid the last farthing. (Matthew 5:26).

All Venial Sins

Must also be Atoned for!

All sins mortal and venial accumulated for 20, 40, or 60 years of life. Each one has to be atoned for after death. Is it a wonder that souls have to remain so long in purgatory? It cannot be calculated the immense number of venial sins we commit on a daily basis. Faults of self love, selfishness; in thoughts words and deeds.  Acts of sensuality, faults of charity; laziness, vanity, jealousy, tepidity.  Then the sins of omission that we give no credence too. Do we ever thank God as we should for all his blessings given to us?  He waits for our visits day and night in the tabernacle; do we go? He dies for us every morning at Mass and gives innumerable graces to those who participate longing to come into our hearts in Holy Communion. We are too lazy to attend this Calvary. We have luxurious homes, food, clothing while many in the world live in hunger and misery.  Life is given to serve God and save our souls but we are satisfied if we give God five minutes of prayer in the morning and evening and the rest of the 24 hour day is given to work, rest and pleasures.  

And Mortal Sins?

Unfortunately, Most of us have committed mortal sins in our lives and if we confess them we do not make satisfaction for them. Do we return what we have stolen or make charitable contributions to the poor if we cannot. Did we restore the good name of the other who we maligned with our slander or calumny? The tongue can murder another as well as a gun or knife and change the direction of the life of someone for good or ill! St. Gertrude in her revelations indicated that those who have committed many grave sins and have not done due penance, may not share in the ordinary suffrage's of the church for a very considerable time! The venerable Bede also indicated that the justice of God may demand that those who pass a great part of their lives in repeated and unrepentant mortal sins and confess them on their death bed, may be detained in purgatory until even the last day.

We would do well to remember that the best means of lessening our term in Purgatory -- or of avoiding it altogether -- is to have clear ideas of it, to think well and often on it and to adopt the means God offers for avoiding it.   Not to think of it is FATAL. It is nothing else than preparing for ourselves a long and rigorous Purgatory!

The servant of God Fr. John Anthony Hardon, S.J. said many times: “Only the very chaste and very humble shall enter Heaven; No one else! No one else! No one else!”

    Jesus Meek and Humble of Heart
    Make Our Hearts Like Unto Thine!

Fr. Hardon and the Catholic Dogma of Purgatory                     

                 

 Miracle of Holy Mass 
and Purgatory in 1657    

Shrine of Our Lady of Montserrat

Montserrat - the site of a Marian shrine - is a Benedictine monastery with nearly 1000 years of history. The shrine is set on the ledge of the mountains where a Basilica and Benedictine monastery are also built. The Basilica was constructed in the neo-Gothic and Renaissance style and was consecrated in 1592, 100 years after the discovery of America.  According to legend, the statue of Our Lady of Montserrat was discovered by young shepherds who had been attracted by lights that came from a cave where the statute was hidden. Our Lady of Montserrat is the Patroness of Catalonia, and because of the color of her skin, she is known as "La Moreneta" ("The Little Black Madonna").

The Most Reverend Father Bernardo de Ontevieros, General of the Benedictine Order in Spain, along with the Abbot Father Millán de Mirando, were present at the monstery of Our Lady of Montserrat to take part in several conferences when a woman with her young daughter came to the monastery, and the little girl began to implore Abbot Millán to celebrate three Masses in memory of her deceased father, deeply convinced that by the merits of these Masses, the soul of her father would be freed from the pains of Purgatory. The good Abbot, moved by the tears of the young girl, began to celebrate the first of these Masses for the dead on the following day, and the little girl, who was present at the Mass with her mother, during the consecration began to declare that she saw her father kneeling at the foot of the main altar, surrounded by dreadful flames. The Father General, who was skeptical, wishing to determine whether the little girl’s account was true, told her to bring a handkerchief close to the flames that surrounded her father. The little girl, following his directive, placed the handkerchief in that mysterious fire which only she was able to see, and at once all the monks saw the handkerchief catch fire with a living flame. .....Read More

Further Meditations on the Four Last things

 Divine Providence brought a little booklet titled READ ME or RUE IT  by Fr. Paul O'Sullivn,O.P.  The cover promised that the pamphlet would be a Revelation for many who would read it and it was for me.  I paraphrased portions from this booklet within this post. I also want to mention the Classic Meditations on the Four Last things: DEATH, JUDGMENT, HELL and HEAVEN by Fr. Martin Von Cochem O.S.F.C.  whose quote is one of the titles of this post and will be an valuable source for further meditations. Links for both booklets can be found at the end of this post.

READ ME or RUE IT  by Fr. Paul O'Sullivn,O.P.

Classic Meditations on the Four Last things:

DEATH, JUDGMENT, HELL and HEAVEN by Fr. Martin Von Cochem O.S.F.C.

This post registered on Catholic Blogger linkup for Decemberr, 2013

An act of HONORABLE AMMENDS in Reparation for the sin of blasphemy and other Impious Crimes against God and His Church!

The Church is suffering with great wounds because Catholics are not living up to the faith they profess. We must live for God alone and for eternal life! Nothing else matters! Nothing else! Where will you spend eternity? If we are insincere about that we are fools. There is no reward in pretending to be Christian a good Catholic but living like others in the world. Catholics must stand out by their actions, their words and their dress. If we look like pagans we will act like pagans! This is matter for another separate post God willing!

Many of us are talking the talk but in our actions we do not walk the walk with the suffering Christ,  who came to show us how to get to Heaven by His example. If we do not follow His example we will not go to Heaven! Many Catholics consider themselves learned on matters of faith, but they contradict the faith by their deeds. Hiding hidden motives for power, esteem or even with aims to destroy the Church founded by Jesus Christ. 

The sin of apostasy is a sin against the Holy Spirit and is becoming ruination of the church. There are many bad things in the Church and society today, the sins of the clerics play a major role in this, but we cannot excuse ourselves from this tragedy just because our sins are not public knowledge! We too play a role for the times we practiced a half-hearted  Catholicism. We are also sinners and must answer to God for our own sins one day! 

It is true that we should take down the unrepentant, guilty predators but let us remember our own sinfulness before we cast the stones at the guilty. Let us pray and do penance for our fallen comrades. While we point the finger at the public sinners let us remember we also have sinned gravely in our lives and deserved hell.

We also must beware lest we ourselves desert the Church. However badly bruised her members are, the Church is the true spouse of Jesus Christ with out spot or blemish. We must not become disheartened, shocked or discouraged in the apostasy of our day! Our Lord foretold this day many times in scriptures.

I can picture our Lord looking at me the same way he looked at his apostles after he told them that they must eat his body and drink his blood or they will not have life within them. Many of the disciples could not accept the teaching and they walked away from Him. Jesus sadly turned His gaze upon his apostles and said: "Will you leave me also?"  We should make the words of St. Peter our own: "Master, to whom else shall we go? You are the Holy one of God. You have the words of Eternal Life!"

Let us pray for God to help us to help Him clean house. Our job is to pray and sacrifice, as we do our best to be exemplary Catholics in word and deeds. Say your prayers fulfill your  penances and follow the requests of Our Lady at Fatima. Then wait for God! 

We will be judged on our own sins not the sins of our clergy! Did you pray for God's mercy upon them so that they do not end up in hell with all the other poor sinners? The following prayer of HONORABLE AMENDS may be recited to make reparation and to console our Lord in His sufferings over the treason of his closest friends. Oremus, Let us pray!-Spera Rose

An Act of Honorable Amends 

to the Most Holy Face of Our Lord Jesus Christ

in Reparation for the sin of blasphemy, 

the sin of the profanation of Sundays, 

and of other impious crimes against God and the Church

Most holy and most adorable Face of the Savior, humbly prostrate in Thy presence, we present ourselves before Thee, in order, by a solemn act of faith and of piety, to render to Thee the homage of veneration, praise and love which is Thy due. We also desire to offer to Thee honorable amends and a public reparation for the sins, blasphemies and sacrileges of which the present generation has rendered itself culpable towards the Divine Majesty, and which, in regard to Thee, oh well-beloved Face, renew the ignominies and the sufferings of Thy Passion.

It is with terror and profound affliction that we are witnesses of these monstrous crimes, which cannot fail to draw down upon society and upon our families, the malediction and the chastisements of Divine Justice. We see, in fact, all around us the law of the Lord and the authority of His Church despised and trodden under foot; His thrice holy Name denied or blasphemed, the Sunday which He has reserved for His worship, publicly profaned; His altars and His offices forsaken for criminal or frivolous pleasures. Impious sectarians attack all that is sacred and religious. But it is, above all, the Divinity of Christ, the Son of the living God; it is the Incarnate Word; it is the august Face and the Crucifix which they attack with the greatest fury; the spit and the blows of the Jews are renewed by the insults and the outrages which their hatred dares, in every possible manner, to inflict upon Thee, oh Face full of sweetness and of love.

Pardon, a thousand times pardon, for all these crimes! May we make amends for them by our humble supplications and the fervor of our homage. Oh, but guilty and sinful as we are, what can we offer the Eternal Father in order to appease His just anger, if it be not Thyself, oh sorrowful Face, who has deigned to make Thyself our Advocate and our Victim? Supply what may be wanting in us by Thy satisfactions and Thy merits.

Heavenly Father, we entreat Thee to look on the Face of Thy Christ. Behold the wounds which disfigure It, the tears which escape from Its sunken eyes; the sweat with which It is bathed; the blood which flows in streams down Its profaned and wounded cheeks. Behold also Its invincible patience, Its unalterable gentleness, Its infinite tenderness and Its merciful goodness towards sinners. This Holy Face is turned towards Thee, and, before exhaling Its last sigh, lovingly inclined upon the Cross, It implores Thee in favor of those who curse and outrage It. Oh Father, listen to that suppliant cry, permit Thyself to be touched; have pity on us and pardon us. Grant, moreover, that in presence of this Divine Face, equally formidable and powerful, the enemies of Thy Name may take flight and disappear; that they may be converted and live! 

May the most adorable Name of God; be adored forever and ever.
May the Holy Day of the Lord; be sanctified by all men.

May the Holy Face of Jesus; be loved by every heart.
May holy Church, our Mother; be exalted throughout the whole earth.
May our holy Father, the Pope, Vicar of Jesus Christ: be venerated by all people.
Saint Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and Patron of the Archconfraternity, pray for us.
Lord, show us Thy Face; and we shall be saved. Amen. Amen.

Taken from the Manual of the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face, 1887, Tours, France, pp. 155-158

Finding a Safe Harbor in this Current Time of Apostasy

I received a Homily from a faithful priest that was given this past Sunday, August 26th regarding the current crisis in the church. Prudence dictates that I keep the priest anonymous. His homily is included at the end of this post. 

People need to hear what he has said.  It is best for us to do all that we can during this time of crisis to keep a prayerful peace of soul. Trusting in God to purify and save his church.  

I decided to put on blinders and ignore all the blogosphere gossips and commentaries. One idiot said the church will implode from within.  I didn't read it because I was so 😠 mad!  Even if it appears true it does more harm than good to write about the crisis in this way. The Church belongs to Christ. He will support the pillars! Have Faith. 


When we die and go to meet our JUDGE He will not ask us what did we think about the Pope, or this Cardinal, or that Priest. He will be judging our transgressions against the law. We have to account for our own sins and actions. Did we help the Pope or that priest by our prayers and sacrifices, or did we Judge them? Worse yet, was our Judgement in error and did we spread our erroneous judgements? God will hold you accountable for this. PRAY FOR THEM AND WAIT FOR GOD'S INTERVENTION. These problems cannot be undone WITHOUT A DIVINE INTERVENTION. It will happen our Lady at Fatima said Her Immaculate Heart will Triumph. Do you believe it will happen? I do!  Credo!

We need life jackets to persevere and ride out the raging storms we are passing through. God gave us many warnings of the current crisis. Warnings with instructions on how to successfully pass over the raging waters. The first warnings were given in scriptures, the most relevant is the book of Jude. It is the shortest book of the Bible aptly depicting the current crisis. Read and pray over the book to see how God wants us to live through these days.

Also recall the visions of St John Bosco in the 1840s.  Remember the 2 Columns and the ship, representing the church. The pope was guiding it as it traveled through a fierce storm.   Other ships were bombing it with canons and it almost capsized. Finally seeing two columns in the distance it made its way towards them and found safety and anchored between them. The first column was the Eucharist and the second was Our Lady.  Placing its anchor here the storm could no longer toss them about in this safe harbor. Let each one of us find that safe harbor in the church wirhb the pope.

We must continually work on our own faults and deepen our personal union with Jesus. Taking the speck from our own eyes first so we can see clearly how to help our brethren. Our strength will come from the Eucharist and Our Lady;
Her message at Fatima pleaded for us to:
"Pray, pray very much and make sacrifices for poor sinners! Many souls go to Hell because there is no one to pray and sacrifices for them!"

      Homily by a faithful priest 
      Sunday, August 26, 2018 “If it does not please  you to serve the  Lord, decide today  / whom you will serve.” “Far be  it from us to forsake  the Lord.” –  Words from the first  scripture, the Book of Joshua. The desertion of the disciples of  Christ recounted in this Gospel must have been  a source of great grief to the  Divine  Teacher who  was instructing  them on how  to attain eternal life; but they  would have none  of it. 

This was not the first time God had been spurned and  dismissed by  ungrateful men who want anything else but what God offers them. What is it that fallen humanity  seeks?  Pleasures of the flesh and of the tongue,  having  lots of money, being  held in esteem by  others, having  good looks, being considered  important,  and  having not eternal life hereafter but ongoing life in this world. These are the  base aspirations of many  men–base  even by  human standards, for it might  be that someone would wish to gain knowledge about  many good  things.  That’s  a  far  more noble thing  than those just mentioned. 

There  may also  be  the  desire  to achieve  virtue, that is, to become a  good man, a good woman.  That’s  certainly  a  worthwhile  goal,  and  there  are  a  few  honorable  people  who seek this.  And there  are  other good things that one  might aspire  to: creating art or writing; having  worthy and satisfying employment; mastering  skills in  language, music, sport,  or craft; better  yet: offering oneself  in  service  to  humanity  by  being a teacher,  a physician,  a helper  to  the poor,  the suffering, or the hungry. So then: there are  unworthy, ignoble  human pursuits,  and there are worthy  ones. Yet any  and all of these have  not a penny’s weight to  claim a  reward in  the next life when they’re  done on the  natural  human level. (Saint Paul went so  far  as  to say that giving up all one’s possessions, and even giving up one’s body  to be burned alive, would be devoid of any  value!) On the other hand, even  the most  menial  occupation  (“digging  ditches” was  once  said  to  be among  these)  can  gain  huge dividends in heaven  if  they’re  done in a state  of grace and with  a supernatural intention. All depends on  the  state  of  one’s  soul and  the  reason motivating  the  good deeds. 

Christ’s  followers must live for  God  and have  eternity  as the goal of their whole being. If they’re insincere  about  that  they’re fools  to  be mocked  and  despised.  There’s no gain in  feigning,  pretending, to be Christian: that is, in talking  about being  religious but  contradicting  it by  one’s  deeds and real intentions. The Church is suffering with gaping wounds today  because many  fake  Catholics, fake  priests, and bishops, and cardinals are  being  unmasked and revealed for what they  really  are. And by  “fake” (a term indelibly  entrenched in current  usage  by  President Trump) I  don’t mean that they’re  not legitimately baptized or ordained. I mean rather  that they are  insincere  in their intention to serve God and obey  His commandments.

 There are many  variations of  these phoney  Catholics. There’s the Socialite-Catholic who’s religious only  for outward respectability  by  his  neighbors; there’s the Cultural-Catholic who’s enamored with Catholic literature, history, ceremony, philosophy, or art but not  with its  beliefs and its moral restrictions on conduct; there’s the Professional Catholic who serves on church boards, or  who works in chancery  offices,  or who is otherwise employed by  the Church; most  egregious  of all  are the Professional  Clergy  whose ministry  is  a merely  a job  to  make a  living, and to have  position and prestige  because  of  the  Church,  but who abuse youth, who spend Church monies on themselves, who don’t believe in  the Gospel  and in  the doctrines of the Church and who sell  the  Church  out to  leftists such  as politicians or media personalities who support abortion or gay rights  and who  still  think  they’re  Catholics but are  nothing  of the sort. 

The  quotation from today’ Psalm is apropos  of them: “The  Lord confronts the evildoers to destroy  remembrance of them from the earth.”  We call them  apostates.  Here’s God’s judgment on such people, according to Saint Peter: “it would have  been better for  them  never to have known  the way of justice, than after having known it, to  turn back  (2 Peter 2:21). As our Lord said of Judas, the original apostate, “Woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed: it were  better for him,  had he  never been born” (Mt 26:24). To  see these “convictions”  as divine justice meted out to the deserters, opportunists, and the fakes is only  one side of the  whole picture. There’s also  God’s  side–the grief  of Christ being  forsaken by His own people. The  sufferings our Lord endured to redeem humanity  are  as  far  as  it’s  possible  to go  to win them. There’s  nothing more God could have done  to  save them,  because He  will not save them against their  will.  

The  great mystery  is that there  are  some,  perhaps  many, who  prefer evil  to goodness, darkness to light, sin to grace, salvation to damnation. The  sin  of  apostasy  (leaving  Christ,  or  being  a  religious  fake)  is  an outrage  to our  Redeemer and  is now becoming the  ruination  of the Church.  I’m  sad  for  God!  That may be a simpleton’s clumsy  way of expressing  the would-be  exasperation  of  the  Heart  of  Christ, vulnerable  to the  treason of these deserters, deceivers,  and connivers. Nor should  we exculpate ourselves simply  because our sins or our half-hearted Catholicism are have not been made public knowledge. We too must answer to God for our  sins. There  are  altogether  too many bad things  besetting  the Church and  the good society  of men. It’s too much, too great, approaching  a breaking point

Solutions, however, are readily at hand, as they  have always been: prayer (with some fasting)  for  the conversion  or the ousting  of the fakes and the predators; and striving mightily  to  be very  good and sincere Catholics ourselves. If we  deeply  and honestly  desire  the  glory  of  God,  we  will  remain  true  to  Christ  and  to  the  Catholic  faith  and  refuse to  be  defeated by  the  disheartening  apostasy  and  scandal that’s taking  place. There  is  no alternative way  of  being  Catholic  but  to  believe  wholeheartedly  in  Christ  and  in  the  Church  He  founded, the Church which, as Saint Paul instructs us, is “without spot or wrinkle or  any  such thing...holy  and without blemish.” The Church is the true  spouse of Christ; she’s not a fake in what she  teaches and in what she offers us, and she most assuredly  is not given to  us  to be a pretense  for the wicked and the insincere  to hide behind. We  must  beware  lest  we  ourselves  become  deserters!  (a  temptation  from  hell).  Fidelity,  sincerity, true  devotion:  this  is Catholicism. “Far be  it from us to forsake  the Lord” (words we  heard from the first  lesson). 

We must  not  become  discouraged over  the shocking  apostasy  of this present time, nor should we join in it. There’s  nowhere else  to go  but  to  stay with the  Lord and  with the  authentic  faith of the Catholic Church. Ours ought to be  the words  of Saint  Peter in  this  Gospel:  “Master, to  whom else  shall  we  go?  You  are  the Holy  One of  God.” “Faith of our fathers, holy  faith. We will be true to thee  till death.”

Please pray for this priest and all faithful priests to find the safe harbor between the two pillars of the Eucharist and Our Lady as we wait for the Lord to cleanse His House and right all the wrongs. Oremus pro Inviciem; Let us pray for each other!-Spera Rose