This letter was sent
to a priest who forbid me (Fr. Joseph Dwight) to
offer to the people, in his parish church (in Italy, 2009), printed
copies of the Testimony of Gloria Polo when I substituted for him at
a few Sunday Masses.
- - - - - - -
Dear Father ... ,
How are you? I hope
that you find time to pray without hurry before Jesus in the
tabernacle even though we all have so many things to do.
You asked me
by telephone to not offer anymore the booklet on the testimony of
Gloria Polo: “From Illusion to the Truth”
(http://testimony-polo.blogspot.com/)
in your parish. You indicated to me that it was too strong for some
people that perhaps were not ready for this testimony.
If I might offer a few
reflections…
It is true that we
studied in pastoral theology the need to apply the “law of
graduality”. But what I find is that the recent popes, in the
world today, put us on our guard not so much about the lack of
applying the “LAW OF GRADUALITY” but rather the danger of the
“GRADUALITY OF THE LAW”, which must be refuted in as much as it
reduces the value of the law to a mere ideal.
The secretary
of the Congregation for Clergy, Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, has
lamented that many faithful no longer confess their sins. Archbishop
Piacenza told Vatican Radio the sacrament of penance has been
experiencing a "deep crisis" for decades. Piacenza, an
official for the Vatican office on clergy, says fewer people
distinguish between good and evil, and as a result do not go to
confession. The archbishop said in an interview that if faithful do
not have a sense of sin, they might "CONFUSE" CONFESSION
WITH "THE COUCH OF A PSYCHOLOGIST OR A PSYCHIATRIST." He
says the Vatican plans to publish this year (2009) a “vademecum for
confessors and spiritual directors”.
(http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=14231).
Pope John Paul II
wrote that relativism is the principle
cause for the lack of evangelical and missionary zeal (Redemptoris
Missio, no. 36;
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_07121990_redemptoris-missio_en.html).
Relativism,
according to Pope
Benedict XVI, is "the
most profound difficulty of our time."
(http://popebenedictxviblog.blogspot.it/2005_05_01_archive.html).
In his
homily at the Mass preceding the conclave that quickly elected him
Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger said: “How many winds of
doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological
currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of the thought of
many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves - flung
from one extreme to another: from Marxism to liberalism, even to
libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism
to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so
forth. Every day new sects spring up, and what St Paul says about
human deception and the trickery that strives to entice people into
error (cf. Eph 4: 14) comes true. Today, having a clear faith based
on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism.
Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be "tossed here and
there, carried about by every wind of doctrine", seems the only
attitude that can cope with modern times. WE ARE BUILDING A
DICTATORSHIP OF RELATIVISM that does not recognize anything as
definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego
and desires.”
(http://www.vatican.va/gpII/documents/homily-pro-eligendo-pontifice_20050418_en.html;
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/colson_relativism_may05.asp).
Pope Pius XII and
Pope John Paul II said THAT THE GRAVEST SIN
IS TO BELIEVE THAT THERE IS NO SIN, to loose the sense of sin; this
is the great trap today for countless souls. We know that, here in
Italy, less than 5% of the baptized Italians come to Sunday Mass
regularly, and among these, few go to confession regularly.
And among those who
go to confession in this atmosphere of relativism, reconciliation is
confused with "the couch of a psychologist or a psychiatrist."
We have lost “the sense of sin”! The servant of God, Archbishop
Fulton Sheen, said: “Sin is not the worst thing in the world. The
worst thing in the world is the denial of sin!” Years ago Catholics
believed that there was only one creature conceive without sin, the
Immaculate Conception; TODAY THE GREAT MAJORITY BELIEVE TO BE
CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN!
I believe that there
are a great number of people, like Gloria Polo, who are in the
illusion of being OK with their own
conscience, or according to the standards of the world, or according
to the common thought (“everybody does it”), or according to the
criteria of the devil, BUT NOT ACCORDING TO THE CRITERIA OF GOD, that
is, according to THE TRUTH! This is the fundamental deception of
Satan from the beginning of mankind and always (Gen 3:4-5)! We human
beings are very capable and astute in deceiving ourselves, WILLFULLY,
and then we forget about it so easily! This is the great trap of
today for countless souls. Few people go to confession today. When
we die, Jesus will ask us if we sought the truth in his revelation in
Sacred Scripture interpreted by his Church, or if we decided and
determined ourselves, alone (like little gods!), the truth. The other
day a man who never goes to Mass said to me in his store: “I am
totally ok” (“Io sono apposto”). And I asked him: “According
to who?” For him, totally immersed in relativism, there is only one
“who”; himself; God, the Bible, the Church have nothing to do
with his conviction: “I am totally ok”! BUT WHEN HE DIES, WHO
WILL DECIDE IF HE IS TOTALLY OK OR NOT?
I prefer to know the
truth while I am still alive even if the truth is very strong and
provokes in me great uneasiness or even to
cause me to enter into a (holy!?!) crisis. If God offers me this
great gift of the truth while I am alive, even in a brusque way (a
lightening bolt!?!), there is still time to make a good confession
and change my life. After death one cannot change anything for all
eternity! I think that this testimony is a gift from God for our
particular time today. I BELIEVE THAT THIS TESTIMONY WILL HELP MANY
PEOPLE TO MAKE A GOOD EXAMINE OF CONSCIENCE FOLLOWED BY A GOOD
SACRAMENTAL CONFESSION.
A contemporary
preacher in the U.S. recounted a few times that when a certain woman
came to confession to Padre Pio, PADRE PIO SHOUTED AT HER AND THREW
HER OUT OF THE CONFESSIONAL. Afterwards, Padre Pio revealed that the
women did not discipline her two daughters, did not say no, and in
particular, did not teach her daughters to not go around in public
dressed immodestly. Both daughters, who were already dead, ended up
in hell.
People say that you
must not frighten people and that God is merciful. BUT
HOW CAN ONE RECEIVE THE MERCY OF GOD IF ONE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT
MORTAL SIN IS? The majority of the people who come to Mass today are
objectively in mortal sin and are used to their spiritual state of
living and they believe that everything is ok; they believe that God
gets used to their way of living and that He changes the 10
Commandments according to the majority of the people today. These
people come forward to receive Holy Communion and very few priests
speak about mortal sin today! But the 10 Commandments do not change;
God does not change but He gives more graces today to those who pray
to do His holy will.
ONE OF THE GREATEST
MESSAGES FROM GOD FOR OUR WORLD TODAY IS THE MESSAGE OF THE DIVINE
MERCY GIVE THROUGH SAINT FAUSTINA. You
might say God is pleading with us to avail ourselves of His mercy
while there is still time. Jesus ha spoke these works to St. Faustina
distinctly and forcefully: “You will prepare the world for My final
coming.” (Diary of St. Faustina: 429;
http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/mercy/coming.htm).
But if we do not believe we need the mercy of God and do not ask for
God’s mercy, God’s hands are tied to be able to offer to us the
possibility of salvation due to respect of our free will.
Speaking precisely
about the great sacrament of reconciliation, Jesus told Saint
Faustina: “When you approach the confessional, know this, that I
Myself am waiting there for you. I am only hidden by the priest, but
I Myself act in you soul. Here the misery of the soul meets the God
of mercy. Tell souls that from this fount of mercy souls draw graces
solely with the vessel of trust. If there trust is great, there is no
limit to My generosity. THE TORRENTS OF GRACE INUNDATE HUMBLE SOULS.
THE PROUD REMAIN ALWAYS IN POVERTY AND MISERY, BECAUSE MY GRACE TURNS
AWAY FROM THEM TO HUMBLE SOULS.” (Diary, 1602). The people who do
not want to hear about the mortal sins that they have committed
according to the teachings of the Church (relativism), even those who
come to confession but only want to hear what they want to hear,
“REMAIN ALWAYS IN POVERTY AND MISERY, because My grace turns away
from them to humble souls”! The priests who actually facilitate and
enable this situation with false compassion cause tremendous damage
to many souls! This is similar to the “enablers” of alcoholics or
other devastating vices!
THE VAST MAJORITY OF
CATHOLICS DO NOT SEEK ANYMORE TO CONFORM THEIR CONSCIENCES ACCORDING
TO THE TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH. I believe
that 100 years ago it would have been difficult to find a person who
would have had difficulty reading a testimony similar to that of
Gloria Polo. In other parts of Italy they offer this testimony also
to the youth of 10 or more years and it goes well. Our Lady of
Fatima showed to three children of 7, 8, and 9 years old hell and the
thousands of souls that fall every day into the eternal abyss. Why is
it that so many adults today have this difficulty? Have they never
heard these things? If we priests help so gradually the people to
discover what the Catholic Church teaches, above all regarding mortal
sin and the consequences of mortal sin, how many people will die
before discovering the truth of their willingly embraced subtle
illusions?
Italy is dying more
quickly than we want to admit. The statistics tell us that today the
average couple in Italy produces only 1.1 babies; there is needed 2.1
babies for each couple to maintain zero growth. COUPLES WANT ONLY
ONE OR TWO BABIES TO SATISFY THE THEMSELVES, LIKE A NICE DOLL IN THE
HOUSE, but not for the motive for which God created us, that is, for
pure and generous love for others, even for those who do not choose
to freely respond to God’s gratuitous love. God was very happy
without us before the creation of the universe. He created us out of
love even though there was the risk that many of us, in our God-give
freedom, would refuse this gift of life. If we do not do as God, how
can we be saved? With original sin, “man
preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose
himself over and against God, against the requirements of his
creaturely status and therefore against his own good” (CCC 398).
Surrounded and immersed today in cultural scepticism and relativism,
together with the revolution of illuminism, a great number of people
no longer believe that there is a true good, they no longer believe
in a truth to guide their behaviour. All of this leads us to think
that the most important thing is our choices divorced from our
Creator.
IT IS NOT EASY TO BE
RELIGIOUS OR CIVIL LEADERS TODAY. But God
gives more graces and help today for those in authority if they have
the humility to continually ask for help from God to do His Will,
even when it is very uncomfortable. Thus the judgment on bishops and
priests will be very severe in the end if they do not preach the
whole truth that the Catholic Church teaches, especially those truths
that are uncomfortable and clearly indicate the need to suffer and to
carry the cross of Christ and to avoid sin, such as the great
sinfulness of artificial birth control. (“Humanae Vitae”, 1968)
and abortion, pornography and other sins of egoism that are accepted
today (by most Catholics) as if it were totally normal and even good.
“WOE TO THOSE WHO CALL EVIL GOOD AND GOOD EVIL” (Is 5:20), as us
being done today! The priest must bring God to a world that has
forgotten or pushed aside God and seeks only power, money and sex! I
believe that one of the jobs of the priests today is precisely to
shake the consciences of the vast majority of the people who consider
themselves good and OK but in reality are motivated only by personal
interests and pleasure, even though they often do things that seem
good and holy. This job is not easy above all in our modern society!
POPE JOHN PAUL II
(AMONG MANY OTHER OCCASIONS) SPOKE FIRMLY TO THE US BISHOPS AGAINST
THIS "PICK AND CHOOSE SMORGASBORD TYPE CATHOLICISM" in
LA in his September 1987 visit: "It is sometimes reported that a
large number of Catholics today do not adhere to the teaching of the
Church on a number of questions, notably sexual and conjugal
morality, divorce and remarriage. Some are reported as not accepting
the Church's clear position on abortion. It has also been noted that
there is a tendency on the part of some Catholics to be selective in
their adherence to the Church's moral teachings. It is sometimes
claimed that dissent from the Magisterium is totally compatible with
being a “good Catholic” and poses no obstacle to the reception of
the sacraments. This is a grave error that challenges the teaching
office of the bishops of the United States and elsewhere. I wish to
encourage you in the love of Christ to address this situation
courageously in your pastoral ministry, relying on the power of God's
truth to attract assent and on the grace of the Holy Spirit which is
given both to those who proclaim the message and to those to whom it
is addressed"
(http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1987/september/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19870916_vescovi-stati-uniti_en.html).
THESE ARE WORDS THAT
MOST CATHOLICS DO NOT WANT TO HEAR! The
Vicar of Christ is saying that dissent from the Magisterium (not just
the 10 Commandments or a doctrine defined “ex cathedra”) is
totally incompatible “with being a “good Catholic” and poses an
obstacle to the reception of the sacraments”! That means, grave,
mortal sin!
BLESSED JOHN HENRY
NEWMAN, in his “Discourses To Mixed Congregations” (the Anglicans
and the Catholics), said that one must not come to the Catholic
Church unless one intends to accept all of her teachings on faith and
morals. “And so again, when a man has become a Catholic, were he to
set about following a doubt which has occurred to him, he has already
disbelieved. I have not to warn him against losing his faith, he is
not merely in danger of losing it, he has lost it; from the nature of
the case he has already lost it; he fell from grace at the moment
when he deliberately entertained and pursued his doubt”
(http://www.newmanreader.org/works/discourses/discourse11.html).
It seems that this
disourse of Pope John Paul II to the
bishops of the United States and that of Blessed Cardinal Newman can
also be applied to those who willingly embrace the easy way of not
seeking to discover the truth. The philosophy of life for a great
number of people today is: “IGNORANCE IS BLISS”; perhaps they
think they will have bliss today, but not tomorrow and especially not
after death! For so many today, there is no concern whatsoever about
the reality after death and the reality of eternity; they have
willingly convinced themselves that there is nothing after death as
for the animals with a mortal soul. When people not think about
eternity, they live as blind people! If we want it or not, if we
believe it or not, life is a battle, a
“DOUR COMBAT with the powers of evil”
(CCC 409)! At death, out of love, God will
confirm the choice of freely choosing ignorance of the Truth, and
thus the soul will be separated from the Truth, Who is God, for all
eternity!
POPE JOHN PAUL II,
WHEN ASK, ABOUT A YEAR BEFORE HIS DEATH, FOR ONE VERSE IN THE BIBLE
TO LEAVE THE PEOPLE OF GOD, HE RESPONDED WITHOUT HESITATION: “THE
TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE” (JN 8:32). The Pope knew well that most
people today, who are totally immersed in the atmosphere of
relativism, do not want to take the risk of having to change their
lives and suffer. “I decide”, the truth, good and evil, as our
first parents of humanity decided (Gen 3,4-5). The modern
philosophers, such as Decart and Kant, helped us to no longer seek
the truth outside of our heads in creation and in divine revelation.
“I think, therefore I am” (Decart)! “I am” is the name of God
that God said to Moses (Ex 3:6)! As Pope Benedict tells us, a great
number of people have willingly embraced relativism; each person
becomes a god. The problem is that in the heaven that was created by
the Creator of the entire universe, there is room for only one God,
not two! The One true God is the Truth (Jn 14:6)!
THERE ARE MORE AND
MORE “CATHOLICS” WHO DO AS THE PROTESTANTS. Parents
(at least here in Italy) bring their kids for First Confession by
they do not go to confession themselves saying that “I confess to
Jesus in my heart”! In this way they do not confront themselves
with the more objective reality in the sacrament of Confession but
they slide ever more deeply into the trap of traps, relativism! One
person told me that she speaks with Jesus in her heart even though
the last time she made her confession was 10 years ago! I asked her
if she asks pardon of her husband every 10 years if the marriage
would last? I indicated to her that she has a nice subjective
“feeling” with Jesus as she put a big nail in the hand of Jesus
with her indifference. Is this not relativism, hidden egoism, not
seeking to discover the objective reality of what offends another
person? “How easy it is on earth to
forget what is most sacred” (http://purgatory-manu.blogspot.com).
THE RELATIONSHIP
WITH THE DIVINE PERSON, JESUS, HAS SLOWLY
BECOME A PSYCHOLOGICAL THING IN THE HEAD, A SENTIMENT, A “FEELING”,
THAT GIVES US SATISFACTION WITHOUT SEEKING THE OBJECTIVELY WHAT JESUS
WANTS OR WHAT OFFENDS JESUS! And so also, for a great many Catholics,
the Eucharist has become a “sacred thing” but no longer the
divine Person, and thus, the graces are not received (and even there
is merited a punishment) not only for the individuals but for the
whole world which waits for these precious graces from us Catholics
who have received the most powerful spiritual weapons along with a
great responsibility! We do not want to know that our indifference
and ingratitude toward Him, Who gave us everything, Who even suffered
terribly and died for us, causes Jesus to suffer more than we can
imagine because we do not seek to discover the reality of our
objective sins outside of our little heads; we willing embrace the
convenience of relativism, and what is worse, we do not want to know
or hear otherwise! The more one loves (the immense love of Jesus!),
the more pain there is due to indifference and ingratitude. The
saints and the popes have spoken often of the need to make
“reparation” to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary and to console them!
“I am consumed with
sorrow at the sight of those who are cold and ungrateful; and I then
try to have such a love for God that it will make amends for those
who do not love Him, those who feed their Savior with ingratitude at
its worst” (Diary, 481).
Jesus said: “This
is eternal life, that they know Thee the
only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent” (Jn 17:3).
This is the only thing that remains after life, a relationship with
God, a personal relationship with Him. The greatest joy in paradise
is to enjoy this relationship, to see God face to face. But do we
really believe that we know God? TRUE LOVE OF A HUSBAND TOWARD HIS
WIFE is not just a feeling, a subjective thing, inside of hum in
order to only satisfy himself. True love seeks to discover in an
objective way what serves her, what she wants, and what hurts her! It
is the same with Jesus. It is necessary to pass time together in
order to have a relationship with a person, otherwise that
relationship will come crashing down. It is the same with Jesus. If
one does not pass time before the divine Person in the Eucharist,
participate often at the Holy Mass, meditate regularly on the passion
of Jesus and pray much, our “religion” reduces itself to a
subjective thing inside our heads to satisfy ourselves. “People
think they love and will soon become saints because they feel a
little more sensible devotion than usual, but all these natural
devotions are as nothing” (http://purgatory-manu.blogspot.com).
Jesus “ought
to be treated as a Friend, a Father, a spouse. Often He does not even
receive the consideration shown to a stranger. THIS INDIFFERENCE IS
FOUND ALSO AMONG THE CLERGY, AT PRESENT MORE THAN AT ANY OTHER TIME.
He is treated as an equal by those who should tremble at the thought
of the awful and august mission with which they have been entrusted.
The most sacred reality is often treated with coldness and boredom.
How many are there who have the interior spirit? I can assure you
that there are but a few. Here in Purgatory the priests who are
expiating their indifference and their want of love are numerous…”
(http://purgatory-manu.blogspot.com).
Without words the
priests transmit the personal relationship
or the lack of the personal relationship to parents and then to the
children. WE CATHOLICS HAVE THE SPIRITUAL NUCLEAR BOMB, THE
EUCHARIST, but… For this the world is in bad shape and is about to
crash.
“It is useless for
you to worry about the souls entrusted to you, to reprove them or to
try to make them a little more spiritually inclined. You will only
succeed in as far as you yourself are spiritual. IT IS ONLY THROUGH
THE OVERFLOW OF YOUR OWN PIETY THAT YOU CAN PUT IT INTO THEIR HEARTS.
If you yourself are not what you ought to be, if you are not closely
united with Jesus, your words will reach their ears but will not
enter into their hearts, and so your effort will not be fruitful. Do
you see how good it is to be united to Jesus? That is the only true
happiness on earth” (October 16, 1880;
http://purgatory-manu.blogspot.com).
At the beginning of
a Mass for 36 youth preparing for the sacrament of Confirmation, I
asked them where is the divine Person present in this church. NONE OF
THEM RESPONDED THAT JESUS IN PERSON WAS IN THE TABERNACLE! Ninty five
percent of the parents do give thanks to God, Who gave them
everything, in the Eucharist at Mass each Sunday, and the majority of
those who do come to Sunday Mass chatter in church without a
recognition and the faith of Who is in the tabernacle. How is it
possible for the youth to know where is “the source and summit of
the Christian life” when their first catechists, their parents, who
practice a religion of convenience, do not know. The children learn
from their parents this intimate, interior relationship with Jesus,
or they learn the lack of this vital relationship. The children
acquire a relationship with Jesus not from the words of their
parents, or from a First Communion or Confirmation party, as if these
precious sacraments are only a tradition or even a superstition.
What the world does
not tell us, as well as so many leaders in the Church due to human
respect, is that true love means respecting our great dignity, being
created in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27) and thus RESPECTING OUR
CHOICE, OUR FREE WILL. It is true that one
must love as St. Paul tells us, to love the people as the would like
to be loved (1Cor 9:19-23), and not in an insensitive way (find
diary). But all of the virtues must be guided by the virtue of
prudence which tells us that true love means to desire well for
people above all that they might be well for eternity, even though
there are a great number of people today who do not believe anymore
that there is something after death. But in order to arrive to a
happy eternity, it is necessary to pass through Calvary with Jesus,
and this is the part that people do not want to hear! TRUE LOVE ALSO
MEANS TO DO AS THE PROPHETS WHO ANNOUNCED THE WHOLE TRUTH EVEN THOUGH
ALMOST ALL THE PROPHETS WERE KILLED LIKE THE GREATEST PROPHET, JESUS
CHRIST. We are all called to be prophets from our Baptism. It is
difficult to do as St. John the Baptist especially today! But if the
religious leaders do not do this essential part of their vocation, it
is like a dam: if a crack is not repaired quickly, the dam will break
and there will be a tremendous washout, a tsunami! The dignity, and
thus the responsibility of parents, priests and bishops is very
great! Saint John Crisostomo, Saint John Eudes and Saint Athanasius
wrote about what the floor and the lamps in hell are made of! OUR
LADY AT GARABANDAL (Spain, 1965) revealed
that "many cardinals, many bishops and
many priests are following the road to perdition, and
with them they are taking many more souls.” Contrary
to common belief, the Catholic Church has never condemned Garabandal
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garabandal_apparitions).
It is very interesting that Our Lady revealed this at about the time
that Pope Paul VI published Humanae Vitae. I once told my
parishioners that if sometime in the future I begin to loose the
faith and to preach in opposition to what the Pope teaches on faith
and morals, “DO NOT FOLLOW ME TO HELL”! “But even if we, or an
angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that
which we preached to you, let him be accursed” (Gal 1:8). We must
pray very much for the first targets of Satan, those who received
more responsibility in the “dour combat”, as Our Lady asks us
often: PRAY FOR THE POPE, BISHOPS AND THE PRIESTS! Just as a mother
cannot substitute for the role, the vocation of the father and vise
versa, so too the lay people cannot substitute for the priests and
the bishops but can pray and offer sacrifices for them!
Mother ___ is in the
Purgatory. Souls of religious, priests and those on whom graces have
been showered have a terrible Purgatory if they abuse the means which
odd as placed at their disposal.
(http://purgatory-manu.blogspot.com).
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT
TO ALWAYS DISTINGUISH BETWEEN THE OBJECTIVE AND THE SUBJECTIVE. It
is necessary to judge objectively the bad actions of other people in
order not to do the same and to warn the persons that we are
responsible for. But subjectively we do not know the intentions,
motives, thoughts, personal history or the graces that the other
people have received; only God knows this. Saint Thomas Aquinas
wrote: “Rarely affirm, seldom deny,
always distinguish.” If a priest or
bishop does not obey the Church and the Pope, let us hope that they
are invincibly ignorant, even though they may cause considerable
damage to immortal souls! Saint Ignatius of Antioch tells us THAT NOT
ONLY THOSE WHO GIVE SCANDAL WILL GO TO HELL BUT ALSO THOSE WHO FOLLOW
THEM. “Such a wretch in his uncleanness I bound for the
unquenchable fire, and so is anyone else who gives him a hearing”
(2 OT, Monday, breviary).
IF GOD SHOWED US
EVEN A TINY INSTANT OF HEAVEN OR A TINY GLIMPSE OF HELL, WE WOULD NO
LONGER BE FREE TO SAY NO TO THE TRUTH (BIG “T”), TO GOD. Love
means respecting this primordial gift of our great dignity (Ps 8:5),
and thus respecting our freedom which is also accompanied with a
tremendous responsibility for ourselves and for those over whom we
have been given responsibility as parents, priests, bishops, civil
authorities, etc. Here on earth we are surrounded by God, even those
who do not want the Truth (big “T”). But if a person rejects the
Truth all his life without repentance (sacramental confession for
Catholics), when he dies, he discovers that the Truth is God, as
Jesus told us: “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one
comes to the Father, but by Me” (Jn 14:6). The greatest pain in
hell is the total separation from God which is a pain far worse than
all the fires and pains put together. Here on earth, whether we
believe it or not, we are surrounded by God’s loving providence.
The greatest joy in heaven is to see God face to face! “No eye has
seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has
prepared for those who love Him” (1Cor 2:9)!
FEW
ARE THE FAITHFUL CHILDREN THAT SEEK TRUE CHRISTIANITY, BUT ONE ADAPTS
TO THE DOCTRINE THAT IS CLOSEST TO THEIR WAY OF THINKING AND SO THEY
FEEL SATISFIED.
RELATIVISM IS
LIKE ACID RAIN; IT IS AS IF THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG, GOOD OR EVIL.
You have your way of looking at it, I have my way of looking at it.
“Different strokes for different folks”; until of course someone
steals your car. Then you may not think that it is irrelevant. Then
the truth matters because you want your car back. There is an
objective morality. Pope John Paul II was applauded during his United
Nations speech (October 5, 1995) as long as he was talking about
global ethics; but as soon as he got down to individual ethics, the
people developed hearing problems. MORAL RELATIVISM HURTS EVERYONE,
YOU CANNOT AVOID IT; IT IS LIKE THE ATMOSPHERE.
(http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1995/october/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_05101995_address-to-uno_en.html).
The Pope teaches
beautifully: You never stand as tall as when you bend down to help
someone up. Pope John Paul II quoted often from Gaudium et Spes (24;
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_cons_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html):
“Man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for
itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of
himself”.
POPE JOHN PAUL II IS
CONSISTENT IN ALL OF HIS TEACHINGS about
what is right or wrong regarding both personal and social ethics
(VERITATIS SPLENDOR;
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor_en.html;
EVANGELIUM VITAE, http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0141/__P10.HTM).
MANY CHRISTIANS COME
TO CHURCH TO FEEL GOOD AND HOLY, TO SATISFY THEMSELVES, BUT NOT TO
SATISFY THE ONE WHO GAVE THEM EVERYTHING THEY HAVE! The
first question we learned as children in the catechism was: “Why
did God make you=” We responded: “To know, to love and to serve
God…”. Today a great number of people have totally reversed it.
God must serve us and thus religion exists in order to serve us not
in order to help us to serve God, not to help us to discover the will
of God and to help us to do the will of God! We have slowly slid away
from the eternal standard of God’s law into a Christianity without
the cross and then we allow ourselves to be convinced that God does
not mind, God adapts to our modern criteria of having sex outside of
marriage, having sex inside of marriage not for altruism but for
egoism (mutual masturbation, not open to life with the contraceptive
mentality), killing unwanted babies and old people, and pushing aside
or eliminating anything or anyone else who gets in our way of
satisfying our own egos and desires.
Regarding priests
and religious, Sister Mary Gabriel in
purgatory told Sister Mary of the Cross on December 8, 1879: “ALAS,
HOW MANY LIVES SEEM TO BE FILLED WITH GOOD WORKS AND AT THE DEATH ARE
FOUND EMPTY. This is because all those actions that appeared to be
good, all those showy works, all that conduct that seemed
irreproachable - all these were not done for Jesus alone. Some will
have their eyes opened when they come here to this life (in
Purgatory). On earth they wanted to be made much of, to shine, to be
thought very exact in religious observances, to be esteemed as
perfect religious. This is the mainspring of so many lives. If you
only knew how few people work for God and act for Him alone. Alas, at
death, when they are no longer blinded, what regrets they will have.
If only sometimes they would think of eternity. What is life compared
to that day which will have no evening for the elect, or to that
night which will have no dawning for the damned? On earth, people
attach themselves to everything and everyone except to Him, who alone
ought to have our love and to whom we refuse it. Jesus in the
Tabernacle waits for souls to love Him and He finds none. HARDLY ONE
SOUL IN A THOUSAND LOVES HIM AS IT SHOULD. You love Him and make up
to Him for this guilty indifference which exists all over this
world.” (http://purgatory-manu.blogspot.com).
WHAT EVER OUR STATE
IN LIFE, WE CAN USE WHAT WE HAVE AS WELL AS OUR SITUATION IN LIFE TO
SERVE OURSELVES OR SERVE OUR CREATOR WHO GAVE US ALL THAT WE HAVE.
As Sister Mary Gabriel in purgatory clearly
indicates, a priest or religious, even though they seem holy to
others, can use all they have received from God to serve their own
egoism.
“Oh, what pain it causes
my heart when I see a nun who has not the religious spirit! How can
one be pleasing to God when one is inflated with pride and self-love
under the pretense of striving for God’s glory, while in fact one
is seeking one’s own glory? When I see such a thing, it gives me
very great pain. How can such a soul be united closely with God?
Union with the Lord is out of the question here” (Diary, 1139).
“On several occasions, I
have learned how some religious defend their own glory under the
pretext of being concerned for the glory of God, whereas it is not a
question of the glory of God, but of glory of self. O Jesus, how
painful this has been for me! What secrets the day of Your judgment
will bring to light! How can one steal God’s gifts?” (Diary,
1149).
The Lord said to Saint
Faustina: “I have wanted to exalt this Congregation many times, but
I am unable to do so because of its pride. Know, My daughter, that I
do not grant My graces to proud souls, and I even take away from them
the graces I have granted” (Diary, 1170).
THE MORE GRACES ONE
RECEIVES, ACCOMPANIED BY MORE RESPONSIBILITY, IT IS NECESSARY TO
RESIST EVEN MORE THE TRUTH IN ORDER TO HIDE THE HYPOCRISY AND THE
TRUE MOTIVES OF SELF GLORY INSTEAD OF GOD’S GLORY. We
can see today and understands this easily looking at the Pharisees
and the scribes during the time of Jesus. Few people realized the
hypocrisy of the religious leaders 2000 years ago, who in effect,
made it more difficult for people to discover and do the will of God.
Precisely for this reason one finds often in the Gospels polemical
discourses between Jesus and the religious leaders. Also today it is
very difficult to realize this inversion of values and motives when a
priest has followed this way of self glory for many years. While one
seeks to hide the true motives from the eyes of others one becomes
more and more blind to his true situation and reality from God’s
point of view. Everyone can take advantage of their situation and
their and the graces that accompany their vocation for the glory of
God or for the glory of self. The greater the responsibility of the
vocation, the greater good or evil one does according to his motives
and criteria. Those who are seeking God, go beyond and know how to
loose their ideas and motives and honor and suffer in order to follow
the Truth which makes us free (Jn 8:32)! The priests who seek their
own glory put a big wall up between the people and God because they
are not transparent. Few lay people realize this as also 2000 years
ago; this is why one finds often from the mouth of Jesus the
unmasking of the motives of the Pharisees and scribes in the Gospels.
WE MUST PRAY VERY MUCH FOR THE POPE, BISHOPS AND PRIESTS!
I think that this
situation of the lack of the authentic
voice and of a coherent guide on the part of many religious leaders
today in a world so secularized is SIMILAR TO THE TWO POLES OF A
BATTERY. If the priests and the bishops preach only the positive
pole that God is love and merciful, which is essential and
fundamental (!), without preaching the negative pole of the reality
of mortal sin and the reality of hell, the current does not flow! It
is much easier and comfortable to imagine that it is almost
impossible to commit a mortal sin as so many so-called “theologians”
try to convince us today; unfortunately many seminaries in the last
50 years have swallowed this subtle deviation from the truth (Mortal
Sin: CCC 1856-1861). It is certainly easier and more pleasant and
pleasing to us priests and bishops to make the people happy and to
say what they prefer to hear, and to preach with “our intelligence”
or with our “cultural preparation”, that we believe to possess,
while everyone is comfortable and they feel nice after our homilies!
We priests, as well as the lay people, are happy to talk about and
live Christ risen but not Christ crucified! But is there a
resurrection without a crucifixion, or Easter without Good Friday?
We want only
satisfaction, gratification here on earth.
We do not want to change our lives or suffer; by now a great number
of people have chosen the easiest way and they have convinced
themselves that there is nothing after death. PRIEST, NON HAVING A
NATURAL FAMILY, WANT TO BE LOVED, and thus many priests shy from
preaching the whole Gospel along with and all of the teachings of the
Church which explain the Gospels authentically. They are so afraid of
alienating the people and thus do not preach the Gospel in its
fullness and compromise the faith. It is interesting that the more
there is sin in the world, the less one speaks about sin and the
existence of Satan. Sin is the only thing that can separate us from
God. To hide the reality of sin is the trap of the devil. Today, any
discussion about sin is seen as bad psychology, not politically
correct! “Woe to you, when all men speak well of you” (Lk 6:26).
WHAT WOULD YOU THINK
OF A DOCTOR WHO CARED NOTHING ABOUT DISEASE
AND DOES NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT DISEASE And sends patients with a
grave disease home telling the patient not to worry because the
doctor was afraid of upsetting the patient. He would be considered a
quake, an incompetent, culpable of gross professional negligence. He
could be sued for malpractice. But if priests do speak about the only
thing that can kill the soul, mortal sin, because the people
(spiritual patients) do not want to hear these things, what would you
think of such a priest? If the doctor operates in this way, the
person could easily loose his life; but if the doctor of souls, the
priest, does this, the person could loose his immortal soul which
lasts for all eternity. “For what will it
profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?”
(Mt 16:26; Mc 8:36).
The results of
mortal sins not confessed during ones whole life is the eternal death
of the soul! HOW MANY PRIESTS DO NOT WANT TO KNOW OR STUDY THE
DESEASES OF THE SOUL EXPLAINED BY THE CHURCH? The priest do not want
angry phone calls, less people in church, less money, less
popularity, and thus they say what they believe the people want to
hear; many people today want to hear only what gives them delight or
pleasure and satisfaction for this very short life. But there are
some who are hungry for the truth in a world that has push the Truth
out of the public square. When one does not go to confession for a
long period of time, one forgets his sins and the conscience becomes
insensitive and vulnerable to temptation and will eventually grow
dumb. One looses the sense of sin according to the Truth, Who is God.
A priest who say to not come to confession without mortal sins are
like a doctor who says do not come until you are dying. So many
Catholics today believe like our protestant brothers who say that
they confess directly to God, not to a sinner, a priest. But if this
does not word with a traffic cop, why does one believe that it works
with God? It is a real act of humility to confess to a priest;
without humility, there is no virtue! It is Jesus, the Son of God,
Who decide to found His Church on 12 sinners instead of 12 perfect
angels from heaven! Who is more intelligent and full of wisdom, God
or us? Many follow the mass media today in criticizing the Church and
the priests and the bishops. I asked one of these puppets of the
propaganda of the mass media who continually criticizes Catholic
clergy instead of praying for them: “Would it have been better if
Jesus Christ had founded the Church on 12 perfect men as yourself,
Sir?
TODAY THE PRIESTS
WHO PREACH THE WHOLE GOSPEL AND ALL OF THE TEACHINGS OF THE
MAGISTERIUM OF THE CHURCH ARE LABELED
RIDGED AND OLD-FASHIONED, INSENSITIVE, LACKING IN COMPASSION,
DIVISIVE, JUDGMENTAL, MORALISTS. While at the same time the ones who
maintain a culpable silence, the ones who tell their people what they
think they want to hear are seen as understanding, sympathetic,
pastorally sensitive and merciful. But this way of doing things is
not true mercy! AND THEN STILL WORSE IS THAT SO MANY BISHOPS DO NOT
WANT PROBLEMS, and thus when a pastor seeks to help the people to
follow him to Calvary with Jesus, with the teachings of the Church to
arrive to the resurrection, many parishioners who are used to a type
of Christianity without the cross phone the bishop. Those who truly
pray each day perceive instinctively the wisdom of such a pastor who
does not want to offer a false short cut to paradise; but these
sincere and non phony Christians are normally much more silent in
their daily work and do not go around seeking to chatter or to
telephone the bishop. Many bishops take the side of the people who
are against such a pastor, which is the easier solution, and
transfers the pastor somewhere else. The pastor is abandoned by the
parishioners and by his bishop, while the people are more and more
convinced that they can arrive to salvation by choosing among the 10
Commandments and among the teachings of the Magisterium of the Church
only that which the people like and that which is comfortable
according to the mentality of the world today totally immersed and
surrounded by the atmosphere of relativism. “Do
not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come
to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his
father, and a daughter against her mother,… He who loves father or
mother more than me is not worthy of me…” (Mt 10:34-37). Only God
can say things so strong, because He is capable of offering eternal
life, a higher good! If we truly want to seek every day the Truth,
and live the Truth, it will happen to us as in the Gospel passage.
The great majority today do not seek the uncomfortable Truth outside
of their heads, but rather the comfortable truth, fabricated inside
their heads. But if one lives in this way, one cannot remain with the
Truth, Who is God, outside of our head for eternity. How much damage
is done by “goody goody” parents, priests and bishops to the
souls under their care and guidance who offer false, earthly, non
eternal “love”?
WHEN CONFESSION IS
OFFERED HERE IN ITALY FOR THE OCCASION OF “FIRST HOLY COMMUNION”
AND CONFIRMATION, THERE ARE STILL A FEW PARENTS WHO COME TO
CONFESSION ON THIS OCCASION. The majority
of these parents have not gone to confession for 5 or 10 years. When
I seek to help these people to understand according to the teachings
of the Church the gravity of their situation and the possible
consequences in only a few minutes, some have accused me of giving a
reprimand (“i cicchetti”), which they did not want to hear,
similar to a spoiled child who does not want to receive any counsel
or reprimand from his parents, for the good of the child. After
confession a few of these complained to the pastor. some of them
complain to the pastor. One of these pastors gave me a telephone call
to scold me saying that it is not necessary to scare the people. We
spoke on the phone for over 20 minutes and after he finished cussing
me out, I explained briefly what is found in this article. In the end
I said that I am an ordained priest for the universal Catholic Church
and thus my right and responsibility and mandate in regards to the
Mass and confession come from the Church and I will have to respond
to Jesus at the end of my life if I sought to fulfil my priestly
obligations according to the Church of Jesus, or not. I said to this
pastor that he has the right to not invite me anymore to help out in
his parish. Among other things I asked him how can one receive the
mercy of God if one does not understand what is a mortal sin? Pardon
of sins is not automatic. Salvation is not automatic precisely
because true love means to respect our free will; it is necessary to
ask for pardon according to the criteria of Him Who implanted in our
hearts the true sense of good and evil. One must at least say like
the prodigal son: “Father I have sinned…”. If we do not have
need of mercy, the redemption is nullified!
THE FIRST HOMILY
FROM THE MOUTH OF THE FIRST POPE ON THE DAY OF THE BIRTH OF THE
CHURCH GIVES US PRIESTS A GOOD AND FUNDAMENTAL MODEL TO FOLLOW AND TO
IMITATE! After having remained in hiding
for fear of being crucified by the Jews, Peter, a fisherman, came out
of the Cenacle and said with great courage to the “rulers of the
people and elders” (Acts 4:8), “You have crucified Jesus”
(Acts 4:10), “the author of life” (Acts 3:15). Peter was in love
with Jesus and wanted to share the “good news” (Gospel) of the
possibility of salvation. When a baby is born, or two engaged people
decide to get married, they want to tell the whole world of the good
news! Why are there few people who want to do as Peter? Are we in
love with Jesus, or is religion only a thing to satisfy ourselves?
There is no place in heaven for the mediocrity after death: there is
incredible joy (paradise) or incredible pain (hell) which cannot be
imagined. One asks why? Because God created the animals with a mortal
soul, and human beings with an immortal soul, made in the image of
God, at the level of the angels, and thus with a great
responsibility? So many want the easy way of mediocrity, the
comfortable life, and then receive willingly the lie of the devil
that afterwards all will go well or after death there is nothing.
“Ignorance is bliss!” This is the philosophy of life for a great
number of people today! But one must choose between following Jesus
with the cross here on earth in order to enjoy paradise afterwards,
or avoid the cross and then afterwards hell. One cannot have both,
life without the cross and not suffering afterwards; this is the
great convenient lie of the devil. If Peter and the apostles would
not have announced the truth, just about everyone would have believed
that Jesus was just a criminal like all the rest of the criminals.
Why is it that one hears so rarely a homily similar to this one of
Saint Peter, “You have crucified Jesus with your mortal sins”,
and then to explain the mortal sins most common today such as
contraception, abortion, euthanasia, homosexual acts, indifference
toward Jesus in the Eucharist, indifference toward those in need? Why
is it that so few preach on the “Four Last Things” today: death,
judgment, heaven and hell? Why is it that so few parents, priests and
bishops do not have the courage to speak up for love of Christ and
the salvation of immortal souls confided to them as did Saint John
the Baptist: “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s
wife” (Mk 6:18; Mt 14:4)? Why do so few in charge of souls not say
“It is not lawful” to have sex outside of marriage (between a man
and a woman!!!) in any circumstance? Are we not all baptized with the
grace to fulfil our God-give vocations?
TODAY THERE IS MORE
AND MORE THE RISK OF BEING PERSECUTED FOR PROCLAIMING THESE THINGS OR
AT LEAST TO FEEL MORE AND MORE UNEASY TO PROCLAIM THE TRUE VALUES OF
CHRISTIANITY IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE. Peter in
the end was crucified! Peter said: “Repent therefore, and turn
again, that you sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:19); but today
very few are willing to change their lives or suffer with Jesus! One
cohabitates and has sex like the animals; we are greatly encouraged
in this way by the TV, without restrictions or rules, as I read on a
T-shirt here in Italy: “Just Do It!” Saint Peter said: “You
asked for a murderer to be granted to you” (Acts 3:14), that is, it
is seen as a good thing today acts of homosexuality, abortion,
euthanasia… but the Author of life, that is, chastity, abstinence,
openness to life in marriage, this NO! Truly, as Pope John Paul II
wrote in “Evangelium Vitae”, IN THE RICHER COUNTRIES, WE HAVE
CREATED THE CULTURE OF DEATH!
IT IS NEVER MERCY TO
REMAIN SILENT OR TO AFFIRM PEOPLE IN THEIR SINS. Diligence
for eternal salvation is true love. Today there is a great increase
of sins everywhere; there are few people who go to confession, but
almost everyone in the church come forward for Holy Communion. We are
habituated to live in sin and we do not want to know anything else.
The saints were ready to suffer everything for the love of Christ and
the truth instead of remaining silent before sin. The truth is a
question of life or death. The prophets did not remain silent before
sin! We are all called to be prophets by our Baptism. May God save us
from priests who do not take their responsibility seriously before
Christ!
ONE OF THE PHRASE
USED MOST OFTEN IN SACRED SCRIPTURE IS “REPENT” “CHANGE YOUR
LIVES”. The first words of Jesus:
“Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mk 1:15; Mt 4:17). “And if
anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the
dust from you feet as you leave that house or town” (Mt 10:14; Mk
6:11).
MANY RELIGIOUS
LEADERS TODAY OFFER MISGUIDED COMPASSION
WHICH IS FALSE COMPASSION. But the Lord said to the prophet Exechiel:
“If I say to the wicked, O wicked man,
you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn
from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his
blood I will require at your hand. 9 But if you warn the wicked to
turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way; he shall die in
his iniquity, but you will have saved your life” (Ez 33:8-9).
WHEN I HEAR ONLY
HOMILIES FROM PRIESTS AND BISHOPS, WHICH ARE NICE AND GOOD AS WAS
OFFERED 20 OR 30 YEARS AGO, I ask myself
more and more, while I update myself regularly with the writings of
the recent popes about the powerful and subtle traps of the devil in
the world today, how is it that these religious leaders do not warn
the sheep of the strategy of the very sly wolf which is carrying away
a great number of souls while the souls remain spiritually asleep in
relativism and in the masked egoism of false and destructive “love”?
A question: We
religious leaders, have we prepared our sheep for our
period in the history of the world and of the Church for the very
strong, subtle, almost imperceptible, and rich in nuances,
underhanded and astute traps of the prince of demons, Satan? THE
VICAR OF CHRIST HAS THE VOCATION AND THE CHARISMA FROM GOD TO
PERCEIVE THE TRUE SITUATION OF THE WORLD OF TODAY AND THE SUBTLE
TRAPS AND TO OFFER ALSO THE SOLUTIONS AND THE ANTIDOTE OF THESE
DEVASTATING SNARES. But how many priests and bishops listen to the
Vicar of Christ today, in particular the teachings that are not easy
to live and not wanted by the people? With fatigue and perseverance,
priests and bishops have received the graces for their great vocation
to discover the truth and to communicate thes truths explained by the
Pope in the language of the souls confided to them. If they do not do
this, the people remain spiritually asleep and ignorant of the subtle
traps of Satan today. We religious leaders, as well as the souls
entrusted to us, are we ready to loose our titles, prestige and
honors and enter into poverty and then die instead of committing a
mortal sin which separates us from God? Already this year, 2012, many
people will be before this radical choice!
MARY ANN GLENDON EXPLAINS
WHY THE BISHOPS ARE SUING THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
The main goal of the
mandate is not, as HHS claimed, to protect women’s health. It is
rather a move to conscript religious organizations into a political
agenda, forcing them to facilitate and fund services that violate
their beliefs, within their own institutions.
UK DOCTORS WHO REFUSE TO
PERFORM SEX CHANGES CAN BE BANNED FROM PRACTICING
The General Medical
Council has issued guidance warning that it would be “discriminatory”
for doctors not to prescribe either the pill or morning-after pill
because they disagree with people having sex before marriage.
(http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/uk-doctors-who-refuse-to-perform-sex-changes-can-be-banned-from-practicing/;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9284065/Doctors-could-be-banned-from-practising-for-refusing-to-give-unmarried-women-contraceptives.html).
HOW MANY CATHOLICS
ARE READY TO LOOSE THEIR WORK AND PRESTIGE AND ENTER INTO POVERTY IN
ORDER NOT TO COMMIT A GRAVE MORTAL SIN? I
think very few indeed! The devil moves very gently and unperceivable
so that we might go toward the infernal precipice full of gaiety,
dancing and all sorts of pleasures (Diary, 153).
DURING THE FUNERAL
OF FATHER STEFANO GOBBI AT COLLEVALENZA, JUNE 30, 2011, CARDINAL IVAN
DIAS, Prefect Emeritus of the Vatican
Congregation for the Evangelization of the Peoples, during the
homily, said that shortly before Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Pope,
Ratzinger said while among other cardinals that we are living in the
strongest and most difficult period in the history of the world and
of the Church, and that he was very surprised that very few people in
the Church realize the very grave situation and crisis in the world
and in the Church today.
“CARDINAL IVAN
DIAS AT LOURDES ANNOUNCES: WE ARE AT THE FINAL BATTLE BETWEEN THE
CHURCH AND ANTICHURCH. He is the head of the powerful Congregation of
the Propagation of the Faith, that promotes the evangelization of the
world. This was in the last few days at Lourdes, during which time
was celebrated the 150th
anniversary of the apparition of the Virgin to Bernadette. He
pronounced a surprising homily for its apocalyptic tones; one could
deduce that the end of Time is not far off. We cite a few passages.
“What meaning could the message of Our Lady of Lourdes have for us
today? I love to situate these apparitions in the broader context of
the permanent and fierce combat between the forces of good and evil,
which will continue till the end of time”. Our Lady foresees “the
rise of the Antichrist and his attempts to replace God in the life of
men; attempts that despite their striking successes, will be
nevertheless destined to failure”. The cardinal counsels to pray
the Rosary, and to practice the conversion of heart, and to accept
sufferings for the salvation of the world. Especially now, he
explains, because “The combat between God and his enemy always
blazes, even more today, because the world finds itself terribly
swallowed up in the swamp of a secularism that wants to create a
world without God; of a relativism that suffocates the permanent and
immutable values of the Gospel; of a religious indifference which
remains imperturbable before the superior good of the things which
regard God and the Church”. And then he cites John Paul II: “We
are before today the greatest fight that humanity has ever seen. I do
not believe that the Christian community has totally understood this.
We are today before the final confrontation between the Church and
the anti-Church, between the Gospel and the anti-Gospel”. BUT IT IS
THE WOMAN “OF GENESIS AND OF THE APOCALYPSE”, CONCLUDES THE
CARDINAL, “THAT WILL COMBAT AT THE HEAD OF THE ARMY OF HER SONS AND
DAUGHTERS AGAINST THE ENEMY FORCES OF SATAN AND WILL CRUSH THE HEAD
OF THE SERPENT”. Do you share the sensation that there may be
preannounced a final collision, and perhaps, the end of the times?”
(December 13, 2007;
http://www.lastampa.it/_web/CMSTP/tmplrubriche/giornalisti/grubrica.asp?ID_blog=196&ID_articolo=36&ID_sezione=396&sezione=San%20Pietro%20e%20dintorni)
IF A BUCK PRIVATE IN
A WAR BATTLE DOES NOT LIVE UP TO HIS
RESPONSIBILITIES, there will not be too much damage. BUT IF A
GENERAL does not live up to his responsibilities it will cause
considerable damage. So too those who have received more
responsibility in this spiritual battle (as instruments of God; e.g.,
bishops and priests) in this “cosmic struggle” as Pope John Paul
II puts it, will cause considerable damage if they do not live up to
and fulfil their GOD GIVEN RESPONSIBILITY. WE
MUST PRAY VERY MUCH FOR THE POPE, BISHOPS AND PRIESTS!
It is interesting
that HILDEGARD of BINGEN
(d. 1179) wrote that when the new Pope
is elected immediately before the Antichrist, a cardinal will kill
the elected pope before he is crowned through jealousy, he wishing to
be Pope himself. Then when the other cardinals elect the next Pope
this cardinal will proclaim himself (anti) Pope, and two-thirds of
the Christians will go with him. She notes that this Antipope as
well as the Antichrist are descended from the tribe of Dan. If this
private revelation of St. Hildegard turns out to be true, is it
possible that this Antipope, who will appear “IMMEDIATELY BEFORE
THE ANTICHRIST”, might be the FALSE PROPHET predicted in the book
of Revelation (Rev 16:13; 20:10; chap. 13 etc.) who will work hand in
hand with the first "beast", the Antichrist, to subdue the
world.
It seems that Pope
Benedict is encouraging us to read the writings and prophecies of
this holy woman and mystic by canonizing her and
proclaiming her a doctor of the Church this year.
December 16,
2011. (Romereports.com) Benedict XVI is
set to appoint Hildegard of Bingen as a Doctor of the Church in
October of 2012. She was a German Benedictine nun and was known for
her visions and prophecies.
(http://www.romereports.com/palio/pope-to-canonize-and-name-hildegard-of-bingen-as-doctor-of-the-church-english-5666.html).
The last part of the
homily of Pope Benedict XVI; Esplanade of
the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima; before 500,000 people: 13 May
2010:
“WE WOULD BE
MISTAKEN TO THINK THAT FATIMA’S PROPHETIC MISSION IS COMPLETE. Here
there takes on new life the plan of God which asks humanity from the
beginning: “Where is your brother Abel […] Your brother’s blood
is crying out to me from the ground!” (Gen 4:9). Mankind has
succeeded in unleashing a cycle of death and terror, but failed in
bringing it to an end… In sacred Scripture we often find that God
seeks righteous men and women IN ORDER TO SAVE THE CITY OF MAN and he
does the same here, in Fatima, when Our Lady asks: “Do you want to
offer yourselves to God, to endure all the sufferings which he will
send you, in an act of reparation for the sins by which he is
offended and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?”
(Memoirs of Sister Lúcia,
I, 162).
At a time when the
human family was ready to sacrifice all that was most sacred on the
altar of the petty and selfish interests of nations, races,
ideologies, groups and individuals, our Blessed Mother came from
heaven, offering to implant in the hearts of all those who trust in
her the Love of God burning in her own heart. At that time it was
only to three children, yet the example of their lives spread and
multiplied, especially as a result of the travels of the Pilgrim
Virgin, in countless groups throughout the world dedicated to the
cause of fraternal solidarity. MAY THE
SEVEN YEARS WHICH SEPARATE US FROM THE CENTENARY OF THE APPARITIONS
HASTEN THE FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECY OF THE TRIUMPH OF THE
IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY, TO THE GLORY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.”
(http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20100513_fatima_en.html;
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/fatimas-prophetic-mission-not-complete-pope-declares-on-solemnity/).
I BELIEVE THAT SOON
THE BODY OF CHRIST, THE CHURCH, AS A GREAT PURIFICATION, WILL HAVE TO
PASS THROUGH THE PERIOD OF THE PASSION,
like her Head, Jesus Christ, even to the point of crying out “My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt
27:46; Mk 15:34). And then will come the Triumph
of the Immaculate Heart of Mary”, the resurrection of the Body of
Christ, the Church.
I think that ADRIANO
CELENTANO, A VERY WELL KNOWN SINGER AND ACTOR, during the “Sanremo”
festivities here in Italy (Feb. 14, 2012), which is similar to the
annual Hollywood festivities in California, hit the mark about the
situation when he said: : “What I cannot stand is Priests and
religious who never speak about the more important things and the
motive for which we were born… They never speak about heaven as if
each person was born only to die…”!
(http://tv.liberoquotidiano.it/video/105307/Adriano_fa_la_predica_ai_preti_e_a_Avvenire.html).
IT IS GOOD TO LOVE
OUR NEIGHBOR AS OUR NEIGHBOR WANTS TO BE LOVED as
Saint Paul tells us (1Cor 9:19-23), not adding undue hardship and
pain in an insensitive way. But the problem today is that the great
majority of people no longer consider eternity and thus they think
and desire only for the happiness of this world. But if parents,
priests and bishops seek only to satisfy this desire of earthly
happiness without seeking to help people to discover the truth that
one cannot arrive to the resurrection, as Jesus, without passing
through Calvary, is this true love or false love?
So many “goody
goody” types put aside the difficult
texts of Sacred Scripture and of the teachings of the Church. This is
like a Mom of a family which tells her children that they do not have
to pay attention to Dad when Dad, out of love and with prudence,
disciplines the children. ONE CANNOT IMAGINE HOW MUCH THIS TYPE OF
COUNCIL CAUSES DAMAGE IN THE HOMES, PARISHES AND DIOCESE.
L’Arcivescovo Fulton Sheen said that the Antichrist will offer a
Christianity without the cross!
POPE BENEDICT XVI
SAID IN ST. PETER'S SQUARE, FRASCATI; 15
July 2012:
“The First Reading
presents us with the same perspective, showing us that all too often
God’s messengers are not well received. This is the case of the
Prophet Amos whom God sent to prophesy in the Sanctuary at Bethel, a
sanctuary of the Kingdom of Israel (cf. Amos 7:12-15). Amos preached
very energetically against injustices, denouncing in particular the
abuses of kings and notables, abuses of power that offend the Lord
and nullify acts of worship. Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, therefore
ordered Amos to leave. Amos answered that it was not he who chose
this mission but that the Lord had made him a prophet and sent him to
this very place in the Kingdom of Israel. Therefore, whether he was
accepted or rejected, he would continue to prophesy, preaching
whatever God told him and not what men wished to hear. AND THIS HAS
CONTINUED TO BE THE CHURCH’S MANDATE: SHE DOES NOT PREACH WHAT THE
POWERFUL WISH TO HEAR. HER CRITERION IS TRUTH AND JUSTICE EVEN IF IT
IS UNPOPULAR AND AGAINST HUMAN POWER.”
(http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2012/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20120715_frascati_en.html).
What do we choose, a
nice comfortable life of 100 years or a nice eternal life? SO
MANY PARENTS DO NOT KNOW HOW TO SAY “NO” TO THEIR CHILDREN ON
EARTH AS PADRE PIO INDICATED! AND THUS THEY DO NOT KNOW HOW TO SAY
“YES” TO ETERNAL HAPPINESS! And then afterwards they ask
themselves why their children ended up divorced and in so many other
disasters? Is this true love? Love for
whom? No cross, no crown! No pain, no
gain! A priest in the United States said to parents that if they
want to assure failure and disaster for their children in the future,
do not help them to learn to discipline themselves. The devil seeks
with all his might to convince us that he does not exist and that
hell does not exist so that we do not apply ourselves to discover our
great lack of love and our hidden egotistical motives. SO MANY PEOPLE
HAVE CHOSEN THE EASIER WAY OF CONVINCING THEMSELVES THAT THERE IS
NOTHING AFTER DEATH INSTEAD OF SEEKING THE TRUTH AND TO CHANGE THEIR
LIVES ACCORDINGLY. If the demons do not exist, and there is no hell,
then we all go to Heaven! And thus, what do we have to fear?!? WHAT
A DECEPTION! The first step of conversion it to realize that we are
sinners, otherwise we have no need of Christ on the cross which would
seem nonsense. “And when he comes, he
will convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and
judgment” (Jn 16:8); the first thing mentioned in this verse of the
Bible is “convince the world concerning sin”!
IF PRIEST SPEAK ONLY
ABOUT GOD-LOVE AND GOD-MERCIFUL and do not
speak about the reality of mortal sin and of hell, many people end up
believing that there is not much need or motive (none!) to ask for
the mercy of God and thus the redemption is rendered useless and
void. We have no need of Christ the Redeemer! So many people
(Catholics) today do not understand anymore what is a grave sin.
Precisely for this motive the Vatican will
soon publish a “vademecum for confessors and spiritual directors”.
I POSED A QUESTION
TO SEVERAL PEOPLE WHO WORK IN THE PARISHES:
“When is the last time that you heard a priest say that it is a
mortal sin to use artificial birth control and that one must confess
this grave sin and throw away the IUD’s and the pill before
receiving the Most Holy Eucharist, otherwise one commits another
mortal sin, a sacrilege? Or that the contraceptive mentality erodes
and destroys the fundamental cell of society, the family.” ALL OF
THEM SAID NEVER!
BEFORE 1930 ALL
MAINLINE PROTESTANT DENOMINATIONS WERE IN ACCORD WITH THE CATHOLIC
CHURCH that the use of artificial birth
control was a grave evil and a serious sin. When the Anglican Church
changed its stance in 1930 (Lambeth Conference) the other protestants
churches quickly followed suit while Pope Pius XI reaffirmed the
Church’s constant teaching on this grave evil in his encyclical
Casti Cannubii (1930). Church discipline
can be changed, but the doctrines of the faith and morals which come
from God cannot, and will not change. The Church does make progress
in understanding the revealed faith from God, but the Church cannot
change the faith and morals which come from the immutable God,
according to the customs and fads of each period of the world.
ULTIMATELY THE
CONTRACEPTIVE MENTALITY OF RECREATIONAL SEX,
detached from responsibility and life, quickly led even to the point
of the denial of equal dignity for a whole class of human beings and
the genocide of countless millions of innocent, defenseless unborn
babies (as JUST A FORM OF CONTRACEPTION!) in the place that ought to
be the safest refuge in the world for our fellow human beings, their
mother’s womb.
POPE PAUL VI
PROPHESIED TO US ABOUT THE “GRAVE CONSEQUENCES OF ARTIFICIAL
METHODS OF REGULATING BIRTHS” IN HIS ENCYCLICAL: HUMANAE
VITAE:
Consequences of
Artificial Methods
“Responsible men
can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid
down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences
of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first
consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for
marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not
much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to
understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so
exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it
is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another
effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed
to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a
woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium,
reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own
desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should
surround with care and affection.”
(Humanae Vitae, no. 17;
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html).
WHEN SO MANY
COUNTRIES FOUND THEMSELVES WITH MORE WELLBEING AFTER THE SECOND WORLD
WAR, as well as with the discovery of the
“pill” (1960), many Catholics (and non-Catholics) were expecting
the Church, guided by the “ROCK” (Mt 16:18), to update itself
according to the mentality of the world. And so when Pope Paul VI
issued his prophetic encyclical, “HUMANAE VITAE” (1968), there
was an incredible negative reaction not only on the part of lay men
and women but also on the part of numerous so-called “theologians”,
priests and bishops, even entire Episcopal conferences (e.g., the
‘Winnipeg Statement’
of the Canadian Bishops)! We cannot
imagine what darkness this brings down on
earth this radical egoism in the heart of the fundamental cell of
society, THE FAMILY! And then we ask why the world is in such bad
shape and the economy is coming down!?! For the first time in the
history of the world, there are more grandparents than children who
work to pay for the pensions of the grandparents!
IT WAS EVEN AGAINST
THE CIVIL LAW IN MOST COUNTRIES 60 YEARS AGO TO SELL OR BUY BIRTH
CONTROL DEVICES precisely because they
understood 60 years ago in a culture of life how much damage is done
by these things to the marital relationship and thus to the family.
60 years ago in a more wholesome environment, it was instinctively
understood that each person had to make little sacrifices for the
common good. Today there is almost no concern for the common good
unless if effects directly the egotistical desires of the
individuals. This has everything to do with all that we are seeing
today. The basic decomposition of our beloved country and the whole
western world, the meltdown of western civilization, is tied into
this.
WHEN THE ANGLICAN
CHURCH FIRST APPROVED THE USE OF CONTRACEPTION IN 1930 IT WAS ONLY
FOR SERIOUS REASONS and only for married
people who have been generous for life. However, by providing an
opening for contraception, the qualifying phrase “for serious
reason” was quickly ignored. Subsequently the use of contraception
was viewed as virtuous behavior, and even the silent holocaust of
abortion has become a private ethical choice of birth control. The
unborn, unwanted babies no longer have any legal protection; they are
now ripped to pieces after they are brutally murdered. What
nice words! “Freedom of choice” of the woman!
This is “freedom” to kill per our conveniences and our
comfort?!? This is an fundamental example of how modern and
egotistical men have detached freedom from the truth as Pope John
Paul II indicated in “Evangelium Vitae”.
BABIES DO NOT CHOOSE TO DIE!
AS SOON AS ONE DOES NOT
SEE LIFE AS A PRECIOUS GIFT BUT ONLY AS A COMMODITY OF CONVENIENCE,
OUR SOCIETY DESCENDS INTO THE CHAOS OF HELL IN THE CULTURE OF DEATH!
Without the
recognizing of sin, one does not realize the great need of the mercy
of God! Why do so few go to confession today? They
say that “God is good and merciful.” God, who is very respectful
of our free will, waits for each person to freely ask for mercy; if
not, God does not give us mercy! “Ask and it will be given …
knock and it will be opened…” (Mt
8:7-8; Lk 11:10). WE CATHOLICS ASK FOR THE
MERCY OF GOD BY WAY OF THE SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION! Which is the
love more true and sincere: to help a person to arrive to salvation
and eternal happiness, or to have only comfort and to feel good and
secure (false!) during this short life?
IN THE FOUR GOSPELS
ONE FINDS FROM THE MOUTH OF JESUS REFERENCES TO THE REALITY OF HELL
MANY TIMES, BUT ONE HEARS ABOUT THIS REALITY RARELY TODAY. Perhaps
100 years ago there were some who exaggerated in preaching about
hell, fire and brimstone. But today the pendulum has swung totally
to the other extreme to the detriment of so many souls. “The fear
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps 111:10; Job 28:28; Prov
1:7; 9:10; 14:16; 15:33; Is 33:6).
WHY DID OUR LADY OF
FATIMA SHOW THE THREE SHEPHERD CHILDREN A VISION OF HELL with
thousands of souls falling into the abyss everyday like sparks into a
great fire? Our Lady at Oulx in Val di Suza (TO) was crying because
children, even eight years old, end up in hell for all eternity!
Lucy of Fatima revealed to Father Fuentes (1957) that the face of our
Lady was always very sad. Our Lady sheds tears for each of her
children who fall into hell for all eternity! God respects our
primordial gift of our free will, being created in His image (Gen
1:26-27). This is true love! We are capable of saying NO to
GOD! Hell exists! It is not easy to preach the
whole truth today! BUT PASTORS, PRIESTS AND BISHOPS MUST PREACH BOTH
POLES OF THE BATTERY, otherwise there is not true Love Who is also
Infinite Justice! One no longer hears anymore from the pulpit about
“The Four Last Things”!
THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE
WHILE WE ARE STILL ALIVE and if we are willing to humbly respond to
the graces and inspirations of God to make a good confession. After
death our eternal destiny will be fixed for all eternity as it was
for the angels in one instant after their creation (Diary, 1332). The
two sins against the Holy Spirit which Christ said would not be
forgiven are presumption (relativism) and
desperation. Desperation is considered worse because it denies that
even God can save me through His infinite mercy. Jesus told St.
Faustina: "I desire that priests
proclaim this great mercy of Mine toward the souls of sinners. Let no
sinner be afraid to approach Me" (Diary, 50). “Let the
greatest sinners place their trust in My mercy. They have the right
before others to trust in the abyss of My mercy” (1146).
MANY FEEL THAT THEIR
SINS ARE UNFORGIVABLE BUT, JESUS SAID to Saint Faustina: “Write,
speak of My mercy. Tell souls where they are to look for solace; that
is in the Tribunal of Mercy (the great sacrament of Reconciliation).
There the greatest miracles take place and are incessantly repeated.
To avail oneself of this miracle, it is not necessary to go on a
great pilgrimage or to carry out some external ceremony; it suffices
to come with faith to the feet of My representative and to reveal to
him one’s misery, and the miracle of Divine Mercy will be fully
demonstrated. Were a soul like a decaying corpse, so that from a
human standpoint, there would be no hope of restoration and
everything would already be lost, it is not so with God. The miracle
of Divine Mercy restores that soul in full. Oh, how miserable are
those who do not take advantage of the miracle of God’s mercy! You
will call out in vain, but it will be too late” (1448).
“In the Old Covenant I
sent prophets wielding thunderbolts to My people. Today I am sending
you with My mercy to the people of the whole world. I do not want to
punish aching mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to My
merciful heart. I use punishment when they themselves force Me to do
so; My hand is reluctant to take hold of the sword of justice. BEFORE
THE DAY OF JUSTICE I AM SENDING THE DAY OF MERCY” (1588).
“Speak to the
world about My mercy; let all mankind recognize My unfathomable
mercy. IT IS A SIGN FOR THE END TIMES; AFTER IT WILL COME THE DAY OF
JUSTICE.” (848). (To read other such quotes, visit:
http://spir-food.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-letter-2011.html)
We must stay very
close to Jesus in the Eucharist with our Rosary in our hands. Visit:
“DON BOSCO’S PROPHECY OF THE TWO COLUMNS”
(http://thereedofgod.blogspot.com/2010/04/don-boscos-prophecy-of-two-columns.html).
Do not worry! I
will not offer this booklet nor will I speak about this testimony of
Gloria Polo in your church. BUT I AM
CONVINCED THAT WE PRIESTS WHO HAVE RECEIVED MORE FROM GOD, WILL HAVE
TO ANSWER TO GOD AFTER DEATH FOR ALL THE PEOPLE THAT WE COULD HAVE
HELPED TO DISCOVER HOW THEY WERE LIVING IN ILLUSION INSTEAD OF IN THE
TRUTH, AND WE DID NOT DO ANYTHING! I believe that this testimony is
a gift from God to help many people to make a good examine of
conscience and then a good sacramental confession.
Below (appendix) I have
included some writings of the Popes and of others which regard the
“law of graduality” and the danger of the “graduality of the
law” with the addresses on the web if you might be interested in
reading more.
Best wishes and may God
bless you in your work in His vineyard!
Fr. Joseph
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - -
A SECOND LETTER:
After you received
this e-mail (above), you said to me on the
phone: “EVERYONE GOES TO HEAVEN!” You also said: “Nowhere in
the encyclical Humanae Vitae does one find the words “mortal sin”!”
With
all due respect, may I say to you that if I
freely choose to not want to spend eternity with God in paradise, God
respects my free choice, precisely because He loves me! YOUR
STATEMENT IS AN INSULT TO MY DIGNITY AS A HUMAN BEING CREATED IN THE
IMAGE OF GOD! You directly indicate that there is no one in hell,
but I, with my primordial gift from God of my free will, can choose
to be the first guest in hell! One of the greatest gifts that God
gave to me, being created in His image, is my free will. When so
many priests and bishops want to only talk about the fact that God is
love and merciful without talking about the whole and integral
reality and essence of man, it is a terrible injustice and has far
greater negative consequences than we can imagine. This misleading
pedagogy also lowers man down to the level of the animals which have
not been given this great gift of free will. “Faced
with a culture that largely reduces human sexuality to the level of
something common place, since it interprets and lives it in a
reductive and impoverished way by linking it solely with the body and
with selfish pleasure, the educational service of parents must aim
firmly at a training in the area of sex that is truly and fully
personal …” (“Familiaris consortio”,
cfr. n. 37;
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_19811122_familiaris-consortio_en.html).
SOME APPARENTLY
GOOD PRIESTS, WITH SEEMINGLY BIG HEARTS, offer themselves to their
parishioners as a good mother but not a good father. But children
need both the mother and the father (the Gays do not understand
this!). We call the Church, “Holy Mother Church”, but the Church
is truly both mother and father to her children, just as a pastor
must be both the mother and the father of his parishioners. If the
pastor only offers the part of the mother but does not offer to his
parishioners the part of the father of his flock, it is like giving a
kiss, supposedly motivated by love, to many of his parishioners while
the wolf is carrying away the sheep one by one. This is false
humility and false love! It is like a mother who does not say
anything to her son who likes very much to run even though within 20
yards there is a cliff (eternity without God)! Pastors and bishops
have received the graces of their vocation to serve as fathers and as
mothers; it is not easy. The graces of the vocation are offered by
God but one must correspond with these graces in order bring forth
good fruits in the vineyard of the Lord.
ONE OF THE
FUNDAMENTAL STRATEGIES OF SATAN IS THAT WE REMAIN SPIRITUALLY ASLEEP
UNTIL DEATH. “One day, I saw two roads.
One was broad, covered with sand and flowers, full of joy, music and
all sorts of pleasures. People walked along it, dancing and enjoying
themselves. They reached the end without realizing it. And at the end
of the road there was a horrible precipice; that is, the abyss of
hell. The souls fell blindly into it; as they walked, so they fell.
And their number was so great that it was impossible to count them.
And I saw the other road, or rather, a path, for it was narrow and
strewn with thorns and rocks; and the people who walked along it had
tears in their eyes, and all kinks of suffering befell them. Some
fell down upon the rocks, but stood up immediately and went on. At
the end of the road there was a magnificent garden filled with all
sorts of happiness, and all these souls entered there. At the very
first instant they forgot all their sufferings.” (Diary, 153).
“Today, I was led
by an Angel to the chasms of hell… But I noticed one thing: that
MOST OF THE SOULS THERE ARE THOSE WHO DISBELIEVED THAT THERE IS A
HELL.” (Diary, 741).
Today, a great
number of people have conveniently and
willingly swallowed this lie that hell and the devil do not exist!
Catechism of the Catholic
Church:
“1035 The teaching
of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity.
Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of
mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of
hell, “eternal fire.” The chief punishment of hell is eternal
separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and
happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.
1036 The
affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on
the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon
man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They
are at the same time an urgent call to conversion: “Enter by the
narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to
destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is
narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it
are few. (Mt 7:13-14)”
MANY PEOPLE WHO
REGULARLY COME TO CHURCH TODAY ARE OBJECTIVELY IN MORTAL SIN; many
priests remain in culpable silence while other priests
indicate to them in various ways the attitude: “Do not worry; God
loves you!” , without helping them to confront their behaviour and
the concrete actions of their lives in the mirror of God, the
objective Truth. Thus these people remain in their own willingly
accepted illusions, developed and reinforced by the silence of so
many priests and bishops in the atmosphere of relativism which
totally surrounds us today. Is this true love on the part of the
pastor of souls? We must help our sheep to not follow the world with
it’s immorality, backbiting, wrong behaviors. There is no longer
any rules, no scruples that holds them back, they are in jeopardy,
and go to meet evil without looking back to think: “But where am I
going?”
I INVITED EVERYONE
IN VARIOUS PARISHES DURING LENT TO BUY A COPY FOR EVERY FAMILY THE
CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, not the
one for children nor the “compendium” (abbreviated), but the one
for adults, the complete edition. I challenged everyone to read
during Lent the part on the 10 Commandments and to confront their
lives with that instead of floating downstream with the culture of
death which totally surrounds us by way of the motors of the culture:
the mass media, the schools, and even most religious institutions. If
one does not do this he ends us not confronting his life with THE
OBJECTIVE TRUTH, stamped into our hearts and souls by our Creator,
but with the moving sands of sentiment and feelings, of the fads of
our times, which leads us to the worst enslavement; confession
becomes only psychological therapy. I wonder if even one person took
my advice in order to discover the will of God and to do the will of
God?
A GREAT NUMBER OF
PRIEST, BISHOPS AND PARENTS DO AS PETER DID AT THE BEGINNING OF HIS
WALK WITH JESUS when Peter rebuked Jesus
who revealed to the Apostle that He must “suffer many things from
the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed” (Mt
16:21). Peter later matured to the point of giving his life as a
martyr for Jesus. Jesus would say today to these numerous priests,
bishops and parents, who never matured as Christians, even after many
years of being a Christian and a priest or bishop, the same as He
said to Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me;
for you are not on the side of God, but of men” (Mt 16:23). The
principle commandment of the devil is: “Don’t suffer! You must
not suffer!” Jesus said: “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate
is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who
enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard,
that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Mt 7:13-14)!
The narrow gate is the actual and personal presence of Christ
crucified in our personal lives – suffering and pain both interior
and exterior! “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk 9:23).
“IT WOULD BE A
VERY UGLY THING FOR A RELIGIOUS TO SEEK RELIEF FROM SUFFERING”
(Diary, 387).
“INSTEAD OF GOOD
FORTUNE ALL MEN EVERYWHERE WOULD SEEK OUT TROUBLES, ILLNESS AND
SUFFERING THAT THEY MIGHT OBTAIN THE INESTIMABLE TREASURE OF GRACE.
This is the final profit to be gained from patient endurance. No one
would complain about the cross or about hardships coming seemingly by
chance upon him, if he realized in what balance they are weighed
before being distributed to men” (Breviary, August 23, St. Rose of
Lima).
IT SEEMS THAT MANY
PRIESTS AND BISHOPS ARE INCAPABLE OF DISPLEASING THE PEOPLE. The
ones who should speak are silent because they are afraid of being
laughed at or mocked or being accused of not being up with the times.
In this regard, even the enemies of Christ admitted: “Teacher, we
know that you are true, and teach the way of God truthfully, and care
for no man; for you do not regard the position of men…” (Mt
22:16; Mk 12:14; Lk 20:21). In the end WE ended up crucifying
Christ!
HOW MANY COUPLES AND
FAMILIES HAVE WE PRIESTS AND BISHOPS HELPED
TO UNDERMINE AND DESTROY in the name of “love” by giving council
that some of the teachings of Jesus, explained by the Church, are too
difficult and outmoded, such as Humanae Vitae? This is false love;
this is false compassion; this is false humility! This is trust in
our own human wisdom and intelligence instead of trust in God Who
speaks through His Church confirmed by the living Pope. Satan
continues to offer to the people of the world his new subtle and
destructive traps, and thus it is important to continue to read the
encyclicals of the living Pope so as to be aware of these new
onslaughts of Satan as well as to know how to overcome them. For us
priests it is not enough to have gone through seminary training years
ago. With the internet today we can easily find the documents of the
Church and the writings of the living Pope and of all the popes.
We have slid so far
from the level of the Gospel and of the 10 Commandments in our way of
living that WE PRESUME THAT GOD MUST ADAPT
ACCORDING TO US INSTEAD OF US ADAPTING TO GOD. God does not lower the
bar to 2 inches; the bar remains, as always, at 2 yards high! We say
that it is too difficult to live as our grandparents lived with more
than 2 or 3 kids. But God does not change; the 10 Commandments do not
change. But, as Lucy of Fatima indicated, God gives more graces today
than in the past to those who make sacrifices and truly pray to do
the will of God: “Thy will be done”! But people say I do not have
time to pray and I do not want to make sacrifices! And so, each one
is free to follow his own free will: to seek to discover and to do
God’s holy will, or to not seek to discover and to do God’s holy
will.
A FEW YEARS AGO A
WORLDWIDE STUDY WAS DONE REGARDING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN DIVORCE AND
HAVING CHILDREN. Millions of couples were
surveyed. The results were: the couple with no children, 39% end up
in divorce; one child, 19% divorce rate; 2 children, 12% divorce
rate; 3 children, 9%; and 4 or more children, less than 4% divorce
rate. It was discovered that having children is related to marriage
stability, between the husband and the wife. Even Aristotle said
that childless couples do not have as much holding them together;
they do not have the same type of unity as those couples with more
children. Childlessness is not the way to preserve happiness
together and unity in marriage. God loves each of us immensely; when
we heed His word pronounced by His lawful Church, things go much
better!
TO FIGHT IN A
BATTLE, IS IT NOT PRUDENT AND NECESSARY TO KNOW NOT ONLY YOUR OWN
WEAPONS, TACTICS AND STRATEGY BUT ALSO THE WEAPONS, TACTICS AND
STRATEGY OF THE ENEMY? It was recounted to
Pope John Paul II that the Vatican's chief exorcist, Father Gabriele
Amorth, “knows too many bishops who do
not believe in the Devil”. The Pope replied bluntly: “ANYONE WHO
DOES NOT BELIEVE IN THE DEVIL DOES NOT BELIEVE IN THE GOSPEL”.
When asked “What do you see as Satan’s greatest success?”,
Amorth replied: “The fact that he has managed to convince people
that he does not exist. He has almost managed it, even within the
Church. We have a clergy and an Episcopate who no longer believe in
the Devil , in exorcism, in the exceptional evil the Devil can
instill, or even in the power that Jesus bestowed to cast out demons.
… And they no longer believe in the Devil. We have entire
Episcopates trying to counter exorcism. We have countries completely
devoid of exorcists, such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain and
Portugal. This is a shameful shortfall.”;
(http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=2879;
http://www.vaticans.org/index.php?/archives/61-An-interview-with-the-Vaticans-chief-excorcist,-Father-Gabriele.html).
WOULD IF THAT THERE
MIGHT BE VISIBLE IN A PARISH THE DIABOLICALLY POSSESSED THAT ONE
READS ABOUT OFTEN IN THE GOSPELS; THE CHURCH WOULD BE FULL TO ASK FOR
GOD’S HELP! Today Satan is more powerful
than ever (wars, divorces, abortion, Satanism, promotion of
homosexuality and the culture of death, etc.) and yet more hidden.
People do not want to hear these things today because it indicates
that we are in a battle against the forces of evil (CCC 409); it is
much easier not to combat! “And behold, all the city came out to
meet Jesus; and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their
neighborhood” (Mt 8:34). In a battle, if one army relaxes and is
not vigilant, the other army advances in a silent and hidden way so
that it might totally surround the other army. This is one of the
basic strategies of Satan. For this reason one finds often from the
lips of our Lord: “but know this, that if the householder had known
in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched
and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also
must be ready…” (Mt 24:43-44; Lk
12:39-40).
SO MANY TODAY DO NOT
WANT THE TRUTH; THEY DO NOT WANT TO DIALOGUE WITH THOSE WHO ARE
SEEKING THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH WHICH OFTEN LEADS TO SUFFERING AND
HARDSHIP. These people subjectively believe
to be good people, while they do not want confront their lives with
the Truth Who is Jesus of the Gospel which does not correspond to the
Jesus of their own idea! It is a contradiction! On June 27, 2012, at
Collevalenza, Italy, before about 150 priests and 10 bishops of the
Marian Movement of Priests, Cardinal Ivan Dias said: “Brothers, we
are in full battle!”
We are in the greatest
spiritual battle in the history of the Church and of the world, and
so many of our generals, the bishops, and our captains, the priests,
do not even believe or want to believe that the enemy exists, let
alone to understand the weapons, tactics and strategy of the enemy!
WOE TO US SIMPLE BUCK PRIVATES WHO ARE ON THE BATTLE FIELD WITH SUCH
UNINFORMED AND UNPREPARED OFFICERS TO LEAD US!
Speaking about the
situation in the Church today, the Holy Father Paul VI affirms to
have had the sensation that: “FROM SOME
CREVICE, THE SMOKE OF SATAN HAS ENTERED THE TEMPLE OF GOD”
(Pope Paul VI, June 29, 1972).
“CONFRONTING THE
DEVIL'S POWER”; Address of Pope Paul VI
to a General Audience November 15, 1972. “WHAT ARE THE CHURCH'S
GREATEST NEEDS AT THE PRESENT TIME? Don't be surprised at Our answer
and don't write it off as simplistic or even superstitious: one of
the Church's greatest needs is to be defended against the evil we
call the Devil.”
(http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Paul06/p6devil.htm).
“THERE IS A RISE
IN SATANISM, and satanic activity and satanic ritual murders. This
danger is real and should not be ignored.”;
(http://www.fatima.org/crusader/cr45/cr45pg27.asp).
Bishops and priests
who have not obeyed the living Pope will have to
answer for all of the souls under their care at the moment of death.
A subtle mistake of a jet pilot can kill all the passengers; a
passenger changing his seat to the other side of the plane affects
the flight very little. On May 29, 1969 the Sacred
Congregation for Divine Worship issued
“MEMORIALE DOMINI”, containing the
Instruction on the Manner of Distributing Holy Communion, which is
still in vigor and could be summarized as follows: the prohibition of
receiving Holy Communion in the hand remains in vigor in the
universal mode and the bishops, priests and faithful are heartily
exhorted to diligently follow this law newly reasserted.
Nonetheless, WHERE THIS USE MAY HAVE BEEN ENTRENCHED AND INTRODUCED
IN AN ILLICIT MANNER, there is provided the possibility to concede to
those sectors which are NOT DISPOSED TO OBEY THIS EXHORTATION.
(http://www.rinascimentosacro.com/2008/11/itinerario-verso-il-fatto-compiuto.html).
ONCE THE
UNDOMESTICATED HORSE IS OUT OF THE STALL, IT IS HARD TO GET THE HORSE
BACK INTO THE STALL! It is like being on a
slippery slop similar to what happened to the
Anglican Church when contraception was approved for serious reasons
and only for married people who have been generous for life. It is an
important and difficult task for priests and bishops to hold the line
to preserve the life saving teachings of Holy Mother Church. The
generals and captains in the battle do all they can to guide and
protect the soldiers under their command. Today many religious
leaders are not astute in warning those under their charge of the
subtle but very powerful enticements and traps of the enemy!
“POPE BENEDICT
SETS THE NORM FOR RECEIVING COMMUNION”;
“In other words, it is an exception to
the norm, and Pope Benedict is making it clear what the norm has been
and still is: Communion on the tongue while kneeling.”
(http://homilysun.blogspot.com/2010/03/lent-3c.html).
“Oh, if only all souls
knew who is living in our churches, there would not be so many
outrages and so much disrespect in these holy places” (Diary, 409)!
SO MANY BISHOPS AND
PRIESTS TODAY BELIEVE THEY KNOW MORE THAN THE POPE,
especially the living Pope, and even accuse those bishops and priests
who seek to follow the directives of the Pope, in particular the
established Church norms of how to receive Holy Communion and the
guidelines regarding sexual conduct, as full of pride because those
who follow the directives of the Pope are in the minority today.
Which is true humility here and which is false humility? And
moreover, what is true charity toward God and toward the faithful: to
offer to the faithful the teachings of the Church approved by the
Popes, or to offer to the faithful what the majority of bishops and
priests promote which are divergent from these official Church
teachings in fundamental and very important issues of faith and
morals? And then we wonder why the Church and the world are in their
present condition and we wonder why Our Lady at Fatima and at so many
other places around the world in the last 150 years warns us of
incredible catastrophes that will happen if we do not convert
according to God’s criteria of conversion! Who is right, our Lady,
or we intelligent and wise leaders of the Church? “The truth shall
set you free” (Jn 8:32), even though we will have to suffer as
Christ suffered on the cross and we will have to adore the Body,
Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist as Jesus
wants to be adored, explained by the authoritative teachings of the
Church. WE CATHOLICS HAVE THE NUCLEAR SPIRITUAL BOMB: THE EUCHARIST!
The Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.”
(LG 11) (CCC 1324). We have received many more “talents” to
multiply for the Kingdom of God and for the good of the whole world.
Receiving the Most Holy Sacrament in the hand, standing, results in
the decrease of the faith even to the point that many of the faithful
today see the Eucharist as a sacred object, but not as the Divine
Person. The great majority of Catholics today do not even go to
Sunday Mass to thank God for everything, and many who go see the
Eucharist as a nice “sacred thing” but not as the divine Person,
to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in an intimate
relationship. The first precept of the Church remains always: “YOU
SHALL ATTEND MASS ON SUNDAYS AND ON HLY DAYS OF OBLIGATION AND REST
FROM SERVILE LABOR” (CCC 2042).
WHEN THERE IS
LACKING FAITH AND HUMILITY BEFORE THE MOST BLESSED SACRAMENT THE
GRACES RECEIVED PERSONALLY AND FOR THE WHOLE CHURCH AND FOR THE WHOLE
WORLD ARE GREATLY DIMINISHED! Our nuclear
spiritual bomb to be able to support the world in this “cosmic
struggle” (John Paul II) is reduced to a fire cracker, or worse, a
punishment! When Catholics slid into this subtle defect which seems
to many insignificant, the who world suffers more than we can
imagine. Even the Satanists believe in the Eucharist; they seek to
acquire the consecrated Hosts in order to profane them and their
black masses; at the major basilicas of Rome and in many other
churches, there is a guard next to the priest who distributes Holy
Communion to make sure that the people put the Body of Christ in
their mouth and do not take It out of their mouth.
HOW MANY TIMES IN
THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH THE MAJORITY OF THE BISHOPS AND PRIESTS
WERE AGAINST THE PRONOUNCEMENTS OF THE POPE,
such as during the Arian heresy or after the encyclical Humanae
Vitae? I am sure Saint Athanasius was
accused of pride by the majority of the priests and bishops because
he proclaimed that Jesus is divine during the Arian heresy and thus
was not in accord with the majority of the great leaders in the
Church at the time; St Athanasius even had to flee for his life! “I
thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden
these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to
babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will” (Mt
11:25; Lk 10:21)!
Dr. Scott Hahn,
Professor of Theology and Scripture at Franciscan University of
Steubenville (http://www.scotthahn.com/),
said a simple statement that struck me the more I thought about it.
HE SAID THAT THE CRISIS IN THE CHURCH BEGAN WHEN CATHOLICS BEGAN TO
SEE THE EUCHARIST AS ONLY A SACRED THING AND NO LONGER AS THE DIVINE
PERSON! Perhaps this seems like an explanation too simple or even
naïve for many people today! Saint Augustine wrote: “God in His
omnipotence could not give more, in His wisdom He knew not how to
give more, in His riches He had not more to give, than the
Eucharist.”
This is also
directly related to how we Catholics began to come to church TO
RECEIVE RATHER THAN TO GIVE, first of all to God in adoration, and
then to Jesus in each neighbor. The angels
and saints in heaven adore their infinite God, prostrate before Him.
Do we seek to discover the way that God desires to be adored, in
particular, at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, or do we decide by
ourselves how or even if we should adore God?
GOOD PARENTS OFTEN
MUST TELL THEIR CHILDREN TO DO THINGS THAT ARE DIFFICULT AND EVEN
PAINFUL. Some children trust their
parents, while other children rebel. Our culture today tells us and
brainwashes us, through powerful and sophisticated means, that the
Ten Commandments and the Church’s teachings are a big NO. But for
the children who trust God, the Ten Commandments and the Church’s
teachings are a big YES, a big yes to true freedom (Jn 8:32) and
eternal salvation!
WHERE DO WE FIND
THIS SAVING AND LIBERATING TRUTH FROM GOD HERE ON EARTH? From
Fr. Joe, from you, from who? The vast majority of people today have
freely chosen to enter into the deep trap of relativism and thus each
person makes himself the source of truth, which leads to horrible
slavery. I prefer to seek the truth from the “Rock” that Jesus
left us here on earth (Mt 16:18), the living Pope!
TO EXPLAIN SIMPLY,
AS WELL AS TO AVOID THE TYPICAL ELUSIVE ARGUMENTATION which
covers up the true motive of so many who are fleeing from God (even
though they believe they will go to heaven if they still believe that
such a place exists), I tell people that if they want to make it to
heaven, they must seek the Truth (big “T”) in a difficult and
confusing world, especially listening to the Vicar of Christ on
earth, the Pope; then live this Truth with God's help, so that they
can spend eternity with the Truth, who is God. Most people today do
not even take the first step of seeking the Truth which is
inconvenient because it bothers our almost dead consciences
indicating to us that we must change our lives and suffer.
A GREAT NUMBER OF
PEOPLE CHOOSE THE EASY WAY OF CONVINCING THEMSELVES THAT THERE IS NO
ETERNITY AFTER DEATH and thus they freely and knowingly choose to
lower themselves even below the level of animals with a mortal soul,
thus thinking that they have no responsibility despite their great
God-given dignity and great responsibility. When they die, after
fleeing the Truth all of their lives, God, out of true love, will
respect and confirm their choice, and they will go to the place where
there is no Truth, no God for all eternity!
I AM AMAZED AT THE
NEGATIVE REACTION OF MANY PRIESTS THAT I KNOW, when I begin
explaining and unmasking in an understandable and simple way how we
have slowly fallen very deeply into relativism, in particular by
setting aside the difficult parts of Sacred Scripture and of the
teachings of the Magisterium of the Church. How many of us priests
have yielded to the desires of so many people today who want a
Christianity without the cross; thus we have yielded to human respect
instead of holding firm to the respect for God’s holy Will and we
have put aside or ignored, in various ways, Humanae Vitae or the
directives of the popes and of the documents of the Church to
maintain a great reverence and humility before the Most Blessed
Sacrament (e.g., Memoriale Domini, Inestimabile Donum, etc.). If many
bishops and priests do not obey the Pope, what can the Pope do?
Naturally people do not want to suffer or struggle to maintain
reverent silence before Jesus in Person in the tabernacle or to make
acts of humility even before their God in the most holy Eucharist.
But when I encourage priests to help people to go in the right
direction as indicated by Sacred Scripture and by the documents of
the Church, so many react in an argumentative way or even worse with
apathy. How few priests are seeking the uncomfortable and unpopular
Truth by asking questions about where I found this information from
the documents of the Church or from the writings of the Popes.
IT IS DIFFICULT TO
LIVE THE GOSPEL BECAUSE GOD ASKS US TO LOVE AS HE LOVES:
“You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is
perfect” (Mt 5:48). God does not love us 99% but always 100% and He
asks the same from us with His help. Many times we are like children,
greatly loved by our parents, who do not want to respond to that love
of the parents even to the point of saying to the parents to stop
loving me so that they feel more free, and the conscience, not yet
dead, bothers them less (Prov 25:22; Rom 12:20). We want to lower the
bar to 2 inches, but God hold us to 2 yards. It is a great temptation
to not live our call from our Baptism, and thus to not live our
vocation as parents, priests or bishops, as the prophets did who
always called back themselves and the people to God’s unchanging
standard, to the law of God.
I UNDERSTAND BETTER
NOW WHY POPE JOHN PAUL II OFTEN ENCOURAGED DIALOGUE,
because in dialogue we open ourselves up to seek the truth together
rather than falling into the widespread temptation of inventing the
truth according to our own head for our own relative convenience.
Often we talk about the deep longings in our hearts and fundamental
questions put in us by our Creator only with those who are in
agreement with how we want things to be. Few priests I know want to
go forward everyday in seeking the Truth together, in open and
sincere dialogue, with the willingness to change our lives in
accordance with the great treasure of each piece of Truth that God
offers to each of us, often by way of other well-intentioned people.
I understand more
and more why Pope John Paul II, when asked to offer one verse from
the whole Bible for the People of God,
replied without hesitation: “THE TRUTH WILL MAKE YOU FREE!” (Jn
8:32). Most people today trust themselves rather than trusting the
One Who created them and loves them more than they love themselves,
and thus God's hands are tied due to His respect for our free will.
Today, surrounded by this very destructive atmosphere of relativism,
a great number of Christians say with their mouths “thy will be
done” but in practice they live “my will be done” without even
realizing the difference; “my” and “thy” have become equated
as did our first human parents in the garden of Eden (Gen 3:4-5).
“Not every one who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom
of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven”
(Mt 7:21)! How often one finds in the writings of the saints, and
even in the private revelations of Christ to the saints, the great
importance of submitting to lawful superiors and lawful authority in
all those things within their jurisdiction except sin. But even here,
the schismatic traditionalists put many directives of lawful
authority in the category of sin, according to the way they want to
interpret things, which are not in the category of sin; in this way
they justify at least to themselves disobedience and non-compliance
to the lawful authority of the Church. Is this truly an attitude of
seeking the truth and trusting more in God than themselves?
IF YOU SAY TO
PEOPLE: “YOU ARE LIVING IN SIN!”, HOW MANY LISTEN TO YOU?
Perhaps one in four hundred?! How many
couples “live together” today in the sin of “free sex”?! How
many religious leaders seek, with the motive of “love”, with
misguided and false compassion, to satisfy “cohabitation” by
promoting these types of civil laws even though one says in the “Act
of Contrition” “I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace to
sin no more and to AVOID THE NEAR OCCASION OF SIN”? Even the
anti-Catholic New York Times had to admit: “Study
Finds Cohabiting Doesn’t Make a Union Last”
(http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/us/03marry.html).
“My heart almost
stopped at the sight of these tortures. The Lord said to me, I suffer
even greater pain than that which you see. And Jesus gave me to know
for what sins He subjected Himself to the scourging: these are sins
of impurity. Oh, how dreadful was Jesus’
moral suffering during the scourging! (Diary, 445).
WHERE
THERE IS SIN THERE CANNOT BE PEACE AND TRUE LOVE. Where sin is,
there “lives together” the other “god”, the “god I”, and
that god is made to measure, made for self and based on self; it is
stamped by the seal of the devil. Oh, it is true that for them God
cannot command them in anything, but they do not even believe in the
existence of the devil and thus they are in his arms and he maneuvers
their minds leading them to abominable acts. God gives Love; the
devil gives death! Jesus tells us to follow Him every day with our
cross and offers us true freedom and eternal happiness; the devil
tells us to avoid suffering at all costs here on earth and convinces
us that everyone goes to heaven after death.
IT IS TRULY IRONIC
THAT PRECISELY THE THINGS THAT OUR HEDONISTIC CULTURE OFFERS TO US AS
FREEDOM ENDS UP BEING DREADFUL SLAVERY AND DESTRUCTION! “Truly,
truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin”
(Jn 8:34). It is not easy today for couples to trustfully follow the
Church’s teaching on human sexuality in our rebellious culture
which seeks pleasure as one of it’s gods. It is still more
difficult for the youth who seek to follow not only Jesus risen but
also Jesus crucified when even the religious leaders indicate to us
in various ways that you can put aside the difficult parts of Sacred
Scripture and of the teachings of the Church. George Weigel, who
wrote a biography of Pope John Paul II, said that the last piece on
the world chess board which resists and is against the devastating
destruction of relativism is the Catholic Church. The first words of
Pope John Paul II were: “Do not be afraid!” Taking advantage of
the motors of the culture, the secularists make the true Christians
feel more and more very uncomfortable to speak about Christian values
in the public square. We will arrive to the point, as we have seen so
many times in the history of the Church, that many true Christians
(not the false one in name only) ill be killed in order to try to
silence this witness to the true faith. Like Satan, the dictators do
not put up with those who adore the one true God! Unfortunately there
will be many so-called “Christians” who will deny Jesus Christ in
order to save their lives and to be able to eat.
IT IS TRULY
DIFFICULT TODAY TO FOLLOW JESUS IN THE SOCIETIES TOTALLY SECULARIZED.
Even the disciples of Jesus “were greatly
astonished, saying, Who then can be saved? (Mt 19:25). Jesus did not
change his teaching to accommodate the disciple or to not loose his
disciples (Jn 6) like so many religious leaders do today, let along
politicians. But Jesus “looked at them and said to them, With men
this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Mt
19:26). The true courageous pastors the couple to seek help in the
sacraments and to pray the Rosary in order to live the prophetical
encyclical Humanae Vitae and all of the teachings of the Magisterium
of the Church. Those who bow to the god of human respect give a
“loving kiss” (of death!) as they lead couples gently to succumb
to the mentality and strong currents of our modern world today which
leads to their destruction? The objective reality of the world and
the universe and of human existence was created by God, not by you or
me! Thus the rules of the game of life are determined by Him, not by
the very numerous relativistic gods on the earth today (Gen 3:4-5)!
God’s instruction manual, found and explained in Sacred Tradition,
the Magisterium of the Church and Sacred Scripture, offers “the
Way, the Truth, and the Life” (Jn 14:6) which shows us how to avoid
disasters and to find true freedom and happiness not only in heaven
but also here on earth. They say that God
forgives all the time, and that man forgives sometimes, but NATURE
NEVER FORGIVES.
After the war and
depression, many people said: “I DO NOT
WANT MY CHILDREN TO HAVE TO SUFFER WHAT I HAD TO SUFFER.” It is
normal to want to avoid suffering. But Christians follow Christ
crucified in order to rise with Him after death. True love of God
and neighbor always entails some kind of suffering. Saint Raymund of
Penyafort wrote: “I should hope that you would not be counted among
their number. Their homes are peaceful and complacent. They live in
security and never feel the touch of the Lord’s rod. They pass
their days in plenty and in the end go straight to hell.” (Office
of Readings; Jan. 7)
IN MY COUNTRY, THE
U.S., THERE ARE OVER 30,000 INDEPENDENT PROTESTANT GROUPS ALL
INTERPRETING DIVINE REVELATION IN THEIR OWN WAY. Jesus
knew well that there would be many opinions and confusion about the
most important topic of eternal salvation and so he gave to us the
Church with the ROCK as our guaranteed and divinely protected guide
(Mt 16:18). Are we promoting and teaching the religion of the
Gospels explained by the one true Church, the Catholic Church with
the Pope as the visible head, or are we promoting and teaching a nice
comfortable “Christian” religion without the cross, while
rendering the consciences of our parishioners insensitive and numb?
Are we truly good shepherds of our flocks to protect the sheep from
the very numerous and subtly ingenious wolves of today? Or have we
slipped into the comfortable and self-satisfying role of the hireling
who gratifies himself with the applause of the sheep with his nice
words that the sheep want to hear, but then when the sneaky shrewd
astute sly wolf comes, he abandons the flock, not being ready or
willing to give his life for the sheep due to the fact that he did
not preach the uncomfortable truths which would make him unpopular or
even be rejected by the majority of the self-seeking sheep (Jn
10:7-18)? “For the time is coming when people will not endure
sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for
themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away
from listening to the truth and wander into myths” (2Tim 4:3-4).
WHY DOES JESUS
EXHORT US SO OFTEN IN THE GOSPELS TO PRAY ALWAYS (Lk
18:1; 21:36, etc.)? Why does Jesus tell us: “Ask, and it will be
given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to
you” (Mt 7:7; Lk 11:9)? Is it not precisely
because God is very, in fact totally, respectful of our free will?
Do you really believe, according to your statement to me on the
phone, that God will force everyone, even kicking and screaming, to
spend all eternity with Him? The devil does not want to respect our
freedom at all and he would be happy to force us into his eternal
dwelling even if we are kicking a screaming.
GOD HAS GIVEN US
HUMAN BEINGS AN INCREDIBLY GREAT DIGNITY, LIKE THE ANGELS!
We are made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27), and thus
we can freely say YES or NO to God! Our relativistic culture of
today wants to tell us that there is no truth, and that one opinion
is as good as another, and that it does not matter what you do. But
this way of believing and doing ends up with the law: “Might makes
right”! Our culture wants to say to us that we have very little
dignity, if any, and thus we have no responsibility for our actions.
Is this not a resurgence of the old heresy of Gnosticism which sees
all material things as evil and thus we can do with our bodies as we
like without consequence? Saint Columbanus explains very clearly our
great dignity made in the image of God as well as our great
obligation of preserving this awesome image (Office of Readings; Nov.
23).
WHEN A WOMAN COMMITS
AN ABORTION, IN ORDER TO BE HEALED, SHE MUST FACE THE WHOLE TRUTH OF
THE TREMENDOUS GRAVITY OF THE SIN COMMITTED AS WELL AS THE INFINITE
MERCY OF GOD! If she is not helped by
others to acknowledge the truth of the sin committed as well as the
offer of the infinite mercy of God, she will have even greater
problems psychologically as well as other problems. If all go to
heaven as you say, there should be no consequences or repercussions,
psychologically or otherwise, since there is no responsibility, just
like the animals which do not experience these consequences or
repercussions. The statistics show that in our sexually free
society, the occurrence of depression among females is three times
higher than that of depression among males who have sexual relations
about as freely as shaking hands or playing a game of tennis. Pope
John Paul II did not tell women that everyone goes to heaven and so
they can forget about the act of abortion!
“I WOULD NOW LIKE
TO SAY A SPECIAL WORD TO WOMEN WHO HAVE HAD AN ABORTION. The Church
is aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision,
and she does not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even
shattering decision. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed.
Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong. But do not
give in to discouragement and do not lose hope. Try rather to
understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not
already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to
repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you his
forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. You
will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you
will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now
living in the Lord. With the friendly and expert help and advice of
other people, and as a result of your own painful experience, you can
be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone's right to life.
Through your commitment to life, whether by accepting the birth of
other children or by welcoming and caring for those most in need of
someone to be close to them, you will become promoters of a new way
of looking at human life.” (EVANGELIUM
VITAE, no. 99; http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0141/__P10.HTM).
When Saint Faustina prayed
for the conversion of a woman on a train, she wrote: “I could feel
that my prayer was causing this soul’s struggle to become even
fiercer. I did not console her, but prayed all the more fervently”
(Diary, 396). How many religious leaders or parents do as Saint
Faustina did and love others for their eternal good and not just for
their temporal good?
THE DEVIL WANTS TO
LOWER HUMAN BEINGS DOWN TO THE LEVEL OF
ANIMALS, or worse, down to his level which is far lower than innocent
beasts! Today he is succeeding in this endeavour more than at any
other time in the history of mankind. Even the animals do not kill
their offspring or kill their old and do not have sex between two
males or two females!
FOR THOSE WHO HAVE
REJECTED THE TRUTH, it is so much more
convenient and self satisfying to see ourselves in our own
constructed, subjective mirror rather than seeing ourselves in the
mirror of God who created us and has imprinted the truth in our very
being! At death we will see our whole life and how we sought and
lived the truth or how we accepted and freely embraced so many
convenient illusions offered to us by the world or by the devil or by
ourselves.
RELATIVISM not
only reduces us human beings, but reduces and even denies the
incredible sacrifice of Christ! THE WHOLE REDEMPTION IS NULLIFIED!
Christ came for sinners not for those who automatically go to heaven.
Christ went around with the sinners, not with the self-justified!
The very first step in our walk toward Christ is to recognize our
sinfulness, to repent and to ask God’s forgiveness.
As we say on Ash
Wednesday, “Repent, and believe in the Gospel!” IF
EVERYONE GOES TO HEAVEN, WHY DID JESUS CHRIST SUFFER SUCH A HORRIBLE
DEATH? Who is stupid here, Christ or we presumptuous relativists?
Who determines the criteria of salvation, me, you, or Jesus who
speaks through His Church?
It is interesting
that socialists do not succeed in accepting that individuals have
this remarkable capacity that we call free will, free choice.
SOCIALISM CANNOT DEAL WITH THIS ISSUE OF
FREE WILL!
THE MORE AND BETTER
SATAN SUCCEEDS IN COMING CLOSE TO THE REAL THING, TO THE TRUTH, TO
VIRTUE, AND THEN TO PERVERT IT (“angel of
light”; 2Cor 11:14), the more souls he succeeds in leading astray,
especially among those who have received more grace and truth and
responsibility from God such as parents, priests and bishops. Thus
Satan proclaims that God loves us and is merciful etc., while denying
our responsibility since “God who is love and merciful, would never
sends anyone to hell”. Satan tells us in fact “God probably did
not even create hell and the devil really does not exist!” Most
people in hell swallowed this lie (Diary, 741)! But God does not send
anyone to hell; those in hell freely chose to go there and God
confirms their choice! If I freely choose to not try to live the Ten
Commandments according the God’s criteria throughout my whole life,
God, out of love, will respect my choice and I will go to hell for
all eternity! Does not the devil disguise himself as an “angel of
light” (2Cor 11:14)? The more steps one takes in the direction of
these convenient illusions when confronted with the difficulties and
decisions in life, IT BECOMES MORE DIFFICULT to confront reality and
truth, and can become a major shock and almost impossible to
understand and accept truth when it comes to us as a harsh and strong
reality.
Sister Lucy
of Fatima said to Father Agostino Fuentes, the postulator of the
cause of beatification of Giacinta e Francesco (December 26, 1957):
“Our Lady is very displeased because it is not taken into account
her message of 1917. Neither the good nor the bad have held them in
consideration. Believe me my Father, the Lord will punish the world
very soon; the punishment is immanent! Many nations will disappear
from the face of the earth, many nations will be annihilated. … THE
DEVIL KNOWS THAT THE RELIGIOUS AND THE PRIESTS, NOT LIVING UP TO
THEIR BEAUTIFUL VOCATION, DRAG MANY SOULS TO HELL. … We have at our
disposition TWO EFFICACIOUS MEANS: Prayer and Sacrifice. … The
third time she said that, the other means exhausted and despised by
men, He will give with trembling the last anchor of salvation which
is the Most Holy Virgin in person, signs of tears, messages of seers
spread in all the parts of the earth. Our Lady said that if we do
not listen and if we still offend we will not be pardoned. Father,
it is urgent that we realize this terrible reality. WE DO NOT WANT
TO FILL THE SOULS WITH FEAR, BUT ONLY IT IS URGENT A RECALL TO
REALITY. From when the Holy Virgin gave such a great efficaciousness
to the Rosary, there does not exist any material, spiritual, national
or international problem that cannot be resolved with THE HOLY ROSARY
AND WITH OUR SACRIFICES. To recite it with devotion will be to
consol Mary and to wipe away so many tears from her Immaculate Heart.
… Our Lady expressly said: “We are approaching the end times”.”
I said to the pastor
who scolded my on the telephone: “I
PREFER TO BE FRIGHTENED HERE ON EARTH RATHER THAN FRIGHTENED FOR ALL
ETERNITy!” “He reminds us of the reward
or the punishment that awaits us after this life because He loves us.
He knows, as one Father of the Church put it, that at times fear of
punishment is more effective than a beautiful promise” (Mt
10,32-33; http://www.focolare.org/en/news/2012/08/01/agosto-2012/).
Every time we fall
into sin, it is a nail, it is a thorn embedded in the Heart of the
Sorrowful Mother’s Son, and She cries out to us: “HAVE PITY, HAVE
MERCY!”
HOW MANY PRIESTS
TODAY TRUST MORE IN THEIR OWN OPINIONS (LIKE
RELATIVISTS) RATHER THAN IN THE TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH WHICH INCLUDE
THE WRITINGS OF THE POPES? What was Pope John Paul II trying to tell
us with his visits to Fatima and with the beatifications of Jacinta
and Francesco of Fatima? Why did Pope Benedict chose Cardinal Biffi
to give the annual Lenten retreat to the Pope and the top members of
the Vatican (Feb. 27, 2007)? The Times of London reported in 2004
that the Cardinal described the Antichrist as “walking among us”.
The Lenten retreat did not disappoint. Cardinal Biffi picked up on
his oft repeated theme of the Antichrist, basing his remarks on the
works of Vladimir Soloviev, a Russian religious philosopher who has
received praise from Pope Benedict prior to his elevation to the
pontificate. Quoting Soloviev, the Cardinal said "the
Antichrist presents himself as pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist."
The cardinal said he believes that this is "the danger that
Christians face in our days … the Son of God cannot be reduced to a
series of good projects sanctioned by the prevailing worldly
mentality." The preacher of the Spiritual Exercises added that
"there are relative values, such as solidarity, love of peace
and respect for nature. If these become absolute, uprooting or even
opposing the proclamation of the event of salvation, then these
values become an instigation to idolatry and obstacles on the way of
salvation…."
(http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/mar/07030101.html).
TODAY WE ARE LIKE
FISH HABITUATED TO DIRTY WATER; WE HAVE BECOME TOTALLY USED TO THE
DIRTY AND CLOUDY WATERS OF RELATIVISM AND WE ARE HAPPY WITH IT. Thus
we judge so many things from this dirty water prospective. But the
Creator of the material and the spiritual worlds has imprinted His
laws in these created realities. Thus even if we feel that
everything is basically OK within our dirty water, that is, our
unawareness and blindness of our relativistic point of view, we do
not succeed in understanding when someone offers us a non
relativistic explanation according to the Church. “Therefore
God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is
false, so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but
had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2Thess 2:11-12).
IT IS INTERESTING
THAT WE TELL OUR CHILD TO COVER HIMSELF UP IN THE WINTER WHEN HE GOES
OUTSIDE BECAUSE THERE ARE THE LAWS OF NATURE,
as well as counseling our child regarding so many other natural
precautions. But we do not tell the child anymore to follow God’s
laws on sexual morality, who then ends up in bad relations and ends
up destroying his life on earth and after death. We say: “You
can’t fool mother nature”, but it is open season to shoot at the
teachings of the Church even though these teachings are for our good,
from a mother who loves us, from Holy Mother Church. If everything
is basically OK (except the Truth authentically explained by the
Catholic Church!), as so many insinuate, even though we water down or
totally push aside all the teachings of the Church which are not
comfortable and we ignore the messages of Fatima, then what was the
true cause of the first world war, the second world war, the
destruction of the families, abortion, euthanasia, socialism which
are quickly replacing government and civil structures which used to
respect the very important Church principle of subsidiarity’
A SPORTS TRAINER
QUICKLY LOOSES HIS JOB IF HE DOES NOT DISCIPLINE THE ATHLETES. We
admire coaches who know how to discipline the young athletes. Why is
it that in the moral life we do not accept discipline? Why do so few
today admire and encourage the spiritual leaders who know how to
discipline their flock regarding morals so as to help people win the
prize of everlasting life?
SEVEN TIMES IN THE
BOOK OF JUDGES ALONE THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL WENT THROUGH THE CYCLE of
sin, suffering, supplication to God, salvation from God, and then
silence about God, and then they began all over again to sin again.
The world is about to enter into the second part of perhaps the
greatest such cycle in the history of the world, “suffering”
(tribulation!) which will help many to call out to God and to
recognize and to repent of their sins. It is interesting that when
the Israelites were tired of deciding and doing things on their own
and experienced how much better it is to follow God’s chosen ones,
they finally pleaded with Gideon to “rule over us, you and your son
and your grandson also...” (Judg 8:22). How many Christians have
also become TIRED OF BEING THE POPE and have made this same wise
choice to follow God’s chosen one, the living Pope to whom Jesus
promised that “the gates of hell would not prevail” (Mt 16:18)?
This promise was made to Peter and to his successors, not to the
bishops, or to conferences of bishops or to theologians of whom many
have set themselves up as a second magisterium in particular after
Humanae Vitae was written!
Just before disaster
struck seven times in the Book of Judges, the people of Israel did
not expect it because THEY DID NOT REALIZE HOW FAR THEY HAD DRIFTED
FROM GOD IN THEIR HEARTS AND IN THEIR ACTIONS AND THUS THEY FELT THAT
EVERYTHING WAS OK AND NORMAL SIMILAR TO THE DAYS OF NOAH AND LOT (Gen
6:5-8; 7:6-24; Lk 17:26-30; Mt 24:37-39). God sent prophets but the
people did not heed the words of the prophets. The inhabitants of
Sodom and Gomorrah had no idea that their cities were about to be
destroyed; they could have cared less, as long as they could revel in
their destructive pleasures. Today many heads of state are promoting
homosexuality and abortion and so many will have no idea why a
“punishment greater than the deluge, such
as one will never have seen before” is about to be unleashed
(Akita, Japan). As Lucy of Fatima told
Padre Fuentes: “The other means exhausted and despised by men, He
(God) will give WITH TREMBLING THE LAST ANCHOR OF SALVATION WHICH IS
THE MOST HOLY VIRGIN IN PERSON, signs of tears, messages of seers
spread in all the parts of the earth. Our Lady said that if we do
not listen and if we still offend we will not be pardoned.”
HOW MANY WIVES (OR
HUSBANDS) SUFFER GREATLY BECAUSE THEIR HUSBANDS (OR WIVES) ARE SO
INSENSITIVE AND INDIFFERENT!? A female dog
does not suffer because a male dog is insensitive or indifferent!
Our culture today which has instilled in so many that sex outside of
marriage is like shaking hands or playing a game of tennis, lowering
or totally denying our dignity and human nature given by God, has
great difficulty explaining why do so many girls fall into depression
due to having sex so easily outside of marriage without any kind of
restraint! God has given us an extraordinary dignity made in His
image and likeness. Thus our lack of living up to this incredible
dignity is incomprehensible to our culture which has lowered human
beings to such a low state. We tend to bring God down to our level,
to the level of human love, not divine love, so that it is easier to
not have to respond to such great love from God. This is similar to
a child who says to his loving mother to stop loving him so much so
that his conscience does not bother him due to his lack of response
to his mother’s love. But God loves only in a total way, not 50%
or 95%!
This
type of guilty conscience is one of the principle motives for which
the secularists are making the laws to coerce the true Christians
into the closet, in private, and out of the public square! It is very
interesting that THE SECULARISTS AND HOMOSEXUALS ACTIVISTS ACCUSE THE
CHURCH OF IMPOSING MORALITY, and yet after the vast majority of
states and groups of people voted to maintain marriage as between one
woman and one man as God intended, these culture destroyers continue
to come back against the will of the vast majority of people to
subtly and deviously coerce, manipulate and force their agenda down
our throats against our expressed desires! In the “Land of the
Free”, the United States, it is not longer protected the right of
conscience of people. The truth is that it is now worse in the United
States than in the countries from which our founding Fathers of the
United States fled from centuries ago to be able to have “freedom
of religion”, not just “freedom of worship”, which means only
privately without being able to offer the values of Christianity in
the public square, as our Savior, Jesus Christ, commanded us to do
(Mt 28:19; Lk 24:47; Acts 1:8)!
Sister Mary Gabriel
in purgatory told Sister Mary of the Cross (1880): “PREACHERS
AND DIRECTORS OF SOULS DO GOOD ONLY IN PROPORTION TO THEIR UNION WITH
JESUS. In their spirit of prayer and in watching over their interior,
they must always have their eyes directed towards Jesus, sacrificing
all for the salvation of the souls entrusted to their care.”
(http://purgatory-manu.blogspot.com).
When Pope John Paul
II replied bluntly in response about many bishops who do not believe
in the Devil: “Anyone who does not believe in the Devil does not
believe in the Gospel”, the Vatican's
chief exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth, was asked in his interview of
2001: “Again, ARE YOU SAYING THAT MANY
BISHOPS AND PRIESTS ARE NOT, CONSEQUENTLY, CATHOLIC?” Amorth
replied: “Let
us just say that they do not believe a Gospel truth. So, if anything,
I would stop them propagating a heresy. But, to be clear about this,
a person is officially a heretic if he or she is accused of something
and persists in the error. No one today, given the situation in the
Church, is accusing a bishop of not believing in the Devil, or in
demonic possession or of failing to appoint exorcists because he does
not believe. And yet I could give you the names of so many bishops
and cardinals who, on their appointment to a diocese, stripped
exorcists of their faculty to perform the rite. Or there are bishops
who openly say they don’t believe, that these are things of the
past. Why is that? UNFORTUNATELY, WE HAVE HAD THE INSIDIOUS INFLUENCE
OF CERTAIN BIBLISTS and I could mention some illustrious names. We
who are in daily physical contact with the ‘other world’ know
that this influence is evident in numerous liturgical reforms. (For
example?) The Second Vatican Council asked that some texts be
revised. Disobeying this command, they set about re-writing them
completely with no thought for the danger of making things worse
instead of better. So many rites came off badly from this mania to
throw out the old and start from scratch, as if the Church to date
had always conned us and as if only now the time had at last come of
the great geniuses, the super theologians, the super-biblists and the
super-liturgists who know what the right thing is for the Church.
This is a lie: the last Council simply asked that the texts be
revised, not destroyed.”
(http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=2879;
http://www.vaticans.org/index.php?/archives/61-An-interview-with-the-Vaticans-chief-excorcist,-Father-Gabriele.html).
Cardinal Cañizares
Llovera is Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship said: “THE
"MOST URGENT ISSUE" IS THAT "THE SENSE OF THE LITURGY
BE TRULY RECOVERED”. Some
of his recent remarks made in an interview with the newspaper
Catalunya Cristiana suggest that the "reform of the reform"
is alive and well, even while the process is slow and arduous: …
“People believe that the liturgy is a matter of forms and external
realities, and what we really need is to restore a sense of worship,
i.e. the sense of God as God. This sense of God can only be recovered
with the liturgy.
… THE LITURGY ALWAYS LOOKS TOWARDS GOD, NOT THE COMMUNITY…”
(http://insightscoop.typepad.com/2004/2009/10/cardinal-ca%C3%B1izares-the-most-urgent-issue-is-that-the-sense-of-the-liturgy.html).
After I finish
celebrating the Holy Mass each day, I often go with the other
resident priest to the local bar in Italy
for a cup of coffee with milk (cappuccino!). I often talk and joke
with the bartender, Robert, who by now I know well. The other day I
said to him that this year (2010) many people in the world celebrate
the invention of the “pill” fifty years ago. I briefly said that
the great majority of Catholics fell for this very alluring
temptation of separating the marital act from life, from
responsibility, which poisoned so many families, the fundamental cell
of society. This is the root of the crisis today. Robert responded
casually that he uses the pill and everything works out fine for him.
I SIMPLE REPLIED THAT TODAY THE GREAT MAJORITY OF PEOPLE DO NOT EVEN
KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LOVE ACCORDING TO THE WORLD AND LOVE
ACCORDING TO JESUS CHRIST. I said that what is even worse, much
worse, is the fact that the great majority of people do not want to
know the difference! Ignorance is Bliss!
In our human
way of talking here on earth, many people, who have willingly
accepted and embraced so many times in their life the great but
convenient lies of relativism, will say to Jesus when they die: “I
did not know this or that or …” And Jesus will say: “YES, YOU
DID NOT KNOW, BUT YOU WILLINGLY CHOSE NOT TO WANT TO KNOW, you did
not want to discover the truth or the difference between love
according to the world, with so many hidden egotistical motives, and
true love that I explained while I was on earth leaving my Church,
the Catholic Church with the Pope as the head, to explain what is
true love and what is false love.” The Truth is God (Jn
14:6)!
With love according
to the world, even outward works that seem praiseworthy, there is
always a hidden personal profit or advantage. With love according to
Jesus Christ, there is no hidden personal
profit or earthly advantage; one loves even ones our enemies, the
undesirable ones, the weak, the unwanted, unborn babies, especially
with physical defects, the old people no longer autonomous and who
are often a burden to us and to society, etc.
It is very
interesting the the Indian Minister for the Social Affairs, who was
not even Christian, to Mother Teresa said:
“WE DO THE SAME WORK, BUT THERE IS A DIFFERENCE: WE DO IT FOR
SOMETHING, YOU DO IT FOR SOMEONE”! Mother Teresa never opened up a
new house for her sisters if there was not the possibility to have
Eucharistic adoration everyday. Mother Teresa knew that slowly
growing in faith before the divine Fire one succeeds more and more to
see Jesus in the dying on the streets of Calcutta. Behold, to eat the
Bread of Life is to become as Him: the Bread of Life for each brother
that we meet. How many of us do things for “something” instead of
for “Someone”?!? Only by way of the Eucharist, prayer, we begin
to do all that we do during the day for SOMEONE!
Jesus said to Saint
Faustina: “NOW I KNOW THAT IT IS NOT FOR
THE GRACES OR GIFTS THAT YOU LOVE ME, BUT BECAUSE MY WILL IS DEARER
TO YOU THAN LIFE. That is why I am uniting Myself with you so
intimately as with no other creature” (Diary, 707).
I ENCOURAGED SOME
PRIESTS IN OUR DIOCESE to consider the
advice of the Servant of God, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, TO MAKE A HOLY
HOUR EVERYDAY IN CHURCH BEFORE THE BLESSED SACRAMENT as I have been
doing for the last 12 years, no one began to make a holy hour each
day. One time, after having recounted to a 75 year old priest how
much this habit of making a holy hour each day helps me and helps
those who I serve in the various parishes, he responded that the
distance is not important if one prays in the church or outside of
the church. I did not react to his answer but inside of me I began to
think how many times I read that the saints never spoke in this way.
The saints passed as much time as possible before the Most Blessed
Sacrament and encouraged others to do the same.
“I WILL NOT ALLOW
MYSELF TO BE SO ABSORBED IN THE WHIRLWIND OF WORK AS TO FORGET ABOUT
GOD. I will spend all my free moments at the feet of the Master
hidden in the Blessed Sacrament. He has been tutoring me from my most
tender years (Diary, 82). “Monthly Permissions: To enter the chapel
when I pass near it. To pray in my moments of leisure (Diary, 246).
How many priest who
do not seek to pass more time with Jesus in the Eucharist SLIDE INTO
ACTIVISM, and then the churches are more and more empty each Sunday!
“When I entered
the little chapel, I BROUGHT MY HEAD CLOSE
TO THE TABERNACLE, knocked and said, “Jesus, look at the great
difficulties I am having because of the painting of this image”.
And I heard a voice from the tabernacle, “Me daughter, you
sufferings will not last much longer” (Diary, 152).
Even SAINT
THOMAS AQUINAS, held by the Church as an incomparable teacher,
acquired his knowledge from Jesus in the tabernacle, UPON WHICH HE
WOULD OFTEN LAY HIS HEAD. I prefer the folly of the saints than the
wisdom and intelligence of many clergymen.
“Faced with this
mystery, we are greatly helped not only by theological investigation
but also by that great heritage which is the
“LIVED THEOLOGY" OF THE
SAINTS”.” (NOVO MILLENNIO
INEUNTE, no. 27;
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20010106_novo-millennio-ineunte_en.html)
When I indicated to
this 75 year old priest that I believe that Jesus suffers in a
mysterious way for our sins today, because for
Jesus, as God, there is no time but only the eternal present moment,
he rebuffed me immediately saying that Jesus died 2000 years ago and
no longer suffers. Afterwards I began to recall how many times I read
in the writings of the saints to offer prayers and sacrifices “IN
REPARATION FOR THE OUTRAGES, SACRILEGES AND INDIFFERENCES WITH WHICH
HE HIMSELF IS OFFENDED”, in particular in the Eucharist (Prayer of
the Angel at Fatima, 1917).
HOW MANY TIMES ONE
READS SIMILAR PHRASES ABOUT REPARATION AND CONSOLATION TO JESUS in
the diary of Saint Faustina! “During Vespers, I heard these words:
My daughter, I want to repose in your heart, because many souls have
thrown Me out of their hearts today. I have experienced sorrow unto
death. I tried to comfort the Lord, by offering Him my love a
thousand times over. I felt, within my soul, a great disgust for sin”
(Diary, 866). Jesus said to Saint Faustina: “My daughter, know that
your ardent love and the compassion you have for Me were a
consolation to Me in the Garden (of Olives)” (Diary, 1664).
THE SAINTS ARRIVED
TO THIS UNION, THIS LOVE FOR JESUS EVEN TO THE POINT OF SHARING WITH
JESUS HIS SORROW. Instead for so many
“Christians”, there is often a tendency
to not consider very much the possibility of offending God, much less
to cause great pain to God due to our insensitivity and indifference
and ingratitude. We say: “After all He is God; He does not need us
and besides He is far above all these things (as so many cowardly
deists believe)!” WE FORGET THAT THE GREATER THE LOVE IS, THE
GREATER IS THE PAIN DUE TO INSENSITIVITY, INDIFFERENCE AND
INGRATITUDE. God who loves each one of us immensely, suffers more
than we can imagine due to our indifference. One might say how can
this be if Jesus already died 2000 years ago? We must remember that
for God there is no past or future but only the eternal present. And
then it is truly a great mystery that Jesus is totally man and
totally God! Jesus suffered (“suffers”) not only for the sins of
those who lived before and during his crucifixion, but also for all
of the sins after his crucifixion. WE SLOUGH OFF SO EASILY THIS
FUNDAMENTAL INDIFFERENCE OF NOT RESPONDING TO LOVE. This is the
fundamental definition of sin. That is why Gloria Polo said: “You
know, the first thing that we render account to God, even before the
sins, are the omissions! They are so grave! You do not imagine how
much!” God is love; he freely created us out of love and then
suffers and dies on the cross in the eternal present for our not
responding to this immense and personal love for each of us. I have
begun to say these things at every funeral Mass since the great
majority of the people present at the Funeral Mass do not come each
week to Sunday Mass to thank Jesus in the Eucharist (which means
“thanksgiving”) for all that he has given them, not only material
things, but also for all spiritual blessings, including his
incredible sacrifice he paid on the cross for their sins of outright,
cold, inhuman indifference! They feel a little sorrow for the lost
relative or friend in the coffin, but the One who gave them
everything!?! The only thing that we take with us after death is our
relationship and union with Jesus or the lack thereof. HOW MANY
PEOPLE GO TO THE CEMETERY ON SUNDAY BUT DO NOT GO TO SUNDAY MASS? How
can we pretend to spend eternity with Jesus if we do not have even
one hour a week for him? Do they not realize that the greatest pain
in hell and in purgatory, far greater than the torments of the
horrendous fire, is the absence of God?
Not only at the
funeral Masses, but also at the Christmas and Easter Masses, when the
majority of those present do not go regularly to Mass,
I HAVE BEGUN TO SAY JUST BEFORE GIVING OUT HOLY COMMUNION: “I do
not want to offend anyone, but especially I do not want to offend
Jesus, my Savior. The Church has always taught us that to not go
each week to Sunday Mass offends and causes Jesus to suffer so
intensely that one must go to confession to confess this horrendous
sin of indifference before receiving Jesus, the infinite Son of God,
in Holy Communion, so as not to offend and embed another thorn into
the Heart of Jesus due to a sacrilegious Holy Communion.”
Often, while I make
my daily meditation using the writings of the saints, I REALIZE THAT
THE SAINTS SHARED IN THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST not only for themselves
but with Jesus in the present moment, a spiritual union of love
sharing the great sorrows in the work of redemption of souls. I went
to the Internet and I found many documents very interesting in
regards to this mystery of offering reparation and consolation to
Jesus and Mary.
“RIGHTLY,
THEREFORE, DOES CHRIST, STILL SUFFERING IN HIS MYSTICAL BODY, desire
to have us partakers of His expiation, and this is also demanded by
our intimate union with Him, for since we are "the body of
Christ and members of member" (1 Corinthians
xii, 27), whatever the head suffers, all the members must suffer with
it (Cf. 1 Corinthians
xii, 26)” (Miserentissimus Redemptor; no.
14;
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_08051928_miserentissimus-redemptor_en.html).
Consecrating the
world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary means drawing near, through the
Mother's intercession, to the very Fountain of life that sprang from
Golgotha. This Fountain pours forth unceasingly redemption and grace.
IN IT REPARATION IS MADE CONTINUALLY FOR
THE SINS OF THE WORLD. It is a ceaseless source of new life and
holiness” (John Paul II; Fatima, May 13, 1982;
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP820513.htm).
POPE
PIUS XI HAD BROACHED THE QUESTION OF HOW WE CAN OFFER CONSOLATION TO
CHRIST NOW FOR WHAT HE SUFFERED THEN IN THESE TERMS: "But how
can these rites of expiation bring solace now, when Christ is already
reigning in the beatitude of heaven?"[83] John Paul II
presents an analogous query in this way: “But
how can these rites of expiation bring solace now, when Christ is
already reigning in the beatitude of Heaven? To this we may answer in
some words of St. Augustine which are very apposite here, - "Give
me one who loves, and he will understand what I say"
(Miserentissimus Redemptor, no. 13;
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_08051928_miserentissimus-redemptor_en.html).
“Theological
tradition has not failed to ask how Jesus could possibly experience
at one and the same time his profound unity with the Father, by its
very nature a source of joy and happiness, and an agony that goes all
the way to his final cry of abandonment. The simultaneous presence of
these two seemingly irreconcilable aspects is rooted in THE
FATHOMLESS DEPTHS OF THE HYPOSTATIC UNION” (Novo Millennio Ineunte,
no. 26;
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_20010106_novo-millennio-ineunte_en.html).
“But surely the
most distinguished place among those who have fostered this most
excellent type of devotion is held by St. Margaret Mary Alacoque who,
under the spiritual direction of Blessed Claude de la Colombiere who
assisted her work, was on fire with an unusual zeal to see to it that
the real meaning of the devotion which had had such extensive
developments to the great edification of the faithful should be
established and be distinguished from other forms of Christian piety
by THE SPECIAL QUALITIES OF LOVE AND REPARATION” (HAURIETIS
AQUAS, no. 95;
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_15051956_haurietis-aquas_en.html).
“Since in the
course of this year there is completed, as We mentioned above, the
first hundred years since the Universal Church, by order of Our
predecessor of happy memory, Pius IX, celebrated the feast of the
Sacred Heart of Jesus, We earnestly desire, venerable brethren, that
the memory of this centenary be everywhere observed by the faithful
in THE MAKING OF PUBLIC ACTS OF ADORATION,
THANKSGIVING AND EXPIATION TO THE DIVINE HEART OF JESUS. And though
all Christian peoples will be linked by the bonds of charity and
prayer in common, ceremonies of Christian joy and piety will
assuredly be carried out with a special religious fervor in that
nation in which, according to the dispensation of the divine Will, a
holy virgin pointed the way and was the untiring herald of that
devotion.” (HAURIETIS
AQUAS; No. 125;
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_15051956_haurietis-aquas_it.html).
“But to all these
duties, more especially to that fruitful Consecration which was in a
manner confirmed by the sacred solemnity of Christ the King,
something else must needs be added, and it is concerning this that it
is our pleasure to speak with you more at length, Venerable Brethren,
on the present occasion: we mean THAT DUTY
OF HONORABLE SATISFACTION OR REPARATION WHICH MUST BE RENDERED TO THE
MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS. For if the first and foremost thing in
Consecration is this, that the creature's love should be given in
return for the love of the Creator, another thing follows from this
at once, namely that to the same uncreated Love, if so be it has been
neglected by forgetfulness or violated by offense, some sort of
compensation must be rendered for the injury, and this debt is
commonly called by the name of reparation.” (MISERENTISSIMUS
REDEMPTOR; no.6;
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_08051928_miserentissimus-redemptor_en.html).
WHAT CAN ONE
POSSIBLY SAY TO HELP THOSE WHO HAVE ALLOWED THEMSELVES TO SLOWLY
DRIFT FAR AWAY from the realities and
criteria established by God and no longer understand the seriousness
of their situation in regards to their habitually cultivated and
embraced lack of love and habitual indifference above all toward the
One who gave them everything, God, and then to Jesus who hides
himself in each of their neighbors, especially in “the least of
these my brethren” (Mt 25:40)? Many people have taken many steps
in their life away from the Truth, Who is Jesus, without sorrow or
repentance, and now find themselves in spiritual blindness without
even realizing anymore their real situation. Jesus truly identifies
himself with the unwanted, unborn babies and with the non-autonomous
old people and with all the unwanted and rejected outcasts! If
somehow these people, who have freely chosen to become cold-hearted
and calloused, might hear these admonitions and might be confronted
with their great egoism freely embraced countless times in their
life, most of them would refuse and would reject this confrontation
immediately or they would think that this idea comes from another
planet, outside of the real world, the “real world” of today that
they see on TV, etc. IT WOULD BE A GREAT SHOCK TO THESE PEOPLE, LIKE
A LIGHTNING BOLT THAT STRUCK GLORIA POLO! Sister Lucy of Fatima said
to Padre Fuentes: “Father, it is urgent that we realize this
terrible reality. We do not want to fill the souls with fear, but
only it is urgent a recall to reality.” Saint Frances of Assisi
simply said: “Love is not loved”!
MEN ARE INCONSISTENT
BEINGS; they foresee catastrophes
everywhere but a direction of “spiritual help” they do not seek!
Of course when the great chastisement hits, these indifferent
egotistical people will blame God, just as Gloria Polo did before the
lightning bolt struck her! Many others will be in total confusion as
to why!
“O my God, EVEN
IN THE PUNISHMENTS YOU SEND DOWN UPON THE EARTH I SEE THE ABYSS OF
YOUR MERCY, for by punishing us here on earth You free us from
eternal punishment (Diary, 423).
IN THE FINAL MESSAGE
OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN, OCTOBER 13, 1973, ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE
LAST APPARITION AND OF THE MIRACLE OF FATIMA, AT AKITA, JAPAN, SHE
SAID TO SISTER AGNES SASAGAWA: “As
I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father
will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be
punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never have seen
before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of
humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor
faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they
will envy the dead. The only arms that will remain for you will be
the Rosary and Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of
the Rosary. WITH THE ROSARY, PRAY FOR THE POPE, THE BISHOPS, AND THE
PRIESTS. The work of the devil will infiltrate even the Church in
such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops
against other bishops. The priests who venerate Me will be scorned
and opposed by their conferees…churches and altars sacked, the
Church will be full of those who accept compromise and the demon will
press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the
Lord. The demon will be especially implacable against souls
consecrated to God. The thought of the loss of so many souls is the
cause of My sadness. If sins increase in number and gravity, there
will be no longer pardon for them.”
(http://www.miraclerosarymission.org/akita.htm).
Our Lady indicated
often the great dignity and thus great responsibility of priests and
of bishops, and thus she asks us: “WITH
THE ROSARY, PRAY FOR THE POPE, THE BISHOPS AND THE PRIESTS.”
HOW MANY PRIESTS OF
GOOD WILL AND HEART WILL CRY BITTERLY IN THE
END because they fell into these various traps of relativism or
soft-heartedness (false compassion) and did not warn their children
of the truth of the infinite love and mercy of God and the
consequences of not responding to this Infinite Love and mercy? Why
did Jesus cry when he looked at Jerusalem (Lk 19:41)? Why does our
heavenly Mother cry or is so sad in many of her apparitions? We have
a difficult time understanding a God who is love, is also infinitely
Just! Due to our great dignity, there is no place in heaven for the
mediocre, only for saints!
JESUS GAVE GLORIA
POLO THIS MISSION: “You will go back, to
give your testimony, that you will repeat not a 1000 times, but a
1000 x 1000. Woe to the one, listening to you, who will not change,
because he will be judged with greater severity. And this applies
also to you, in your second return, for the religious who are my
priests, and for whoever else that does not listen to you: because
there is no greater deaf person than the one who does not want to
hear, nor a worse blind person than the one who does not want to
see”.
- - - - - - -
- - - - - - -
APPENDIX:
(To read the rest of the
articles and references, visit the Web addresses indicated.)
FAMILIARIS
CONSORTIO:
“The Moral
Progress of Married People
Married people too
are called upon to progress unceasingly in their moral life, with the
support of a sincere and active desire to gain ever better knowledge
of the values enshrined in and fostered by the law of God. They must
also be supported by an upright and generous willingness to embody
these values in their concrete decisions. They cannot however look on
the law as merely an ideal to be achieved in the future: they must
consider it as a command of Christ the Lord to overcome difficulties
with constancy. "AND SO WHAT IS KNOWN AS 'THE LAW OF
GRADUALNESS' OR STEP-BY-STEP ADVANCE CANNOT BE IDENTIFIED WITH
'GRADUALNESS OF THE LAW,' AS IF THERE WERE DIFFERENT DEGREES OR FORMS
OF PRECEPT IN GOD'S LAW FOR DIFFERENT INDIVIDUALS AND SITUATIONS. In
God's plan, all husbands and wives are called in marriage to
holiness, and this lofty vocation is fulfilled to the extent that the
human person is able to respond to God's command with serene
confidence in God's grace and in his or her own will."(95) On
the same lines, it is part of the Church's pedagogy THAT HUSBANDS AND
WIVES SHOULD FIRST OF ALL RECOGNIZE CLEARLY THE TEACHING OF HUMANAE
VITAE as indicating the norm for the
exercise of their sexuality, and that they should endeavor to
establish the conditions necessary for observing that norm. …”
(Familiaris Consortio; no. 34 (see also 9);
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_19811122_familiaris-consortio_en.html).
UNIQUELY IMPORTANT
IN THIS FIELD IS UNITY OF MORAL AND PASTORAL JUDGMENT BY PRIESTS,
a unity that must be carefully sought and ensured, in order that the
faithful may not have to suffer anxiety of conscience.
(cfr. Humanae Vitae, 28).
- - - - - - - -
HUMANAE VITAE;
No 28:
To Priests
28.
And now, beloved sons, you who are priests, you who in virtue of your
sacred office act as counselors and spiritual leaders both of
individual men and women and of families—We turn to you filled with
great confidence. For it is your principal duty—We are speaking
especially to you who teach moral theology—to spell out clearly and
completely the Church's teaching on marriage. IN THE PERFORMANCE OF
YOUR MINISTRY YOU MUST BE THE FIRST TO GIVE AN EXAMPLE OF THAT
SINCERE OBEDIENCE, INWARD AS WELL AS OUTWARD, WHICH IS DUE TO THE
MAGISTERIUM OF THE CHURCH. For, as you know, the pastors of the
Church enjoy a special light of the Holy Spirit in teaching the
truth. (39) And this, rather than the arguments they put forward, is
why you are bound to such obedience. Nor will it escape you that if
men's peace of soul and the unity of the Christian people are to be
preserved, then it is of the utmost importance that in moral as well
as in dogmatic theology all should obey the magisterium of the Church
and should speak as with one voice. Therefore We make Our own the
anxious words of the great Apostle Paul and with all Our heart We
renew Our appeal to you: "I appeal to you, brethren, by the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no
dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and
the same judgment." (1Cor 1:10)
- - - - - - -
VERITATIS SPLENDOR
104. In this context, appropriate
allowance is made both for God's mercy towards the sinner who
converts and for the understanding of human weakness. SUCH
UNDERSTANDING NEVER MEANS COMPROMISING AND FALSIFYING THE STANDARD OF
GOOD AND EVIL IN ORDER TO ADAPT IT TO PARTICULAR CIRCUMSTANCES. It is
quite human for the sinner to acknowledge his weakness and to ask
mercy for his failings; what is unacceptable is the attitude of one
who makes his own weakness the criterion of the truth about the good,
so that he can feel self-justified, without even the need to have
recourse to God and his mercy. AN ATTITUDE OF THIS SORT CORRUPTS THE
MORALITY OF SOCIETY AS A WHOLE, since it encourages doubt about the
objectivity of the moral law in general and a rejection of the
absoluteness of moral prohibitions regarding specific human acts, and
it ends up by confusing all judgments about values.
- - - - - - -
JOHN PAUL II
GENERAL AUDIENCE
Wednesday 28 July 1999
3. THE IMAGES OF
HELL THAT SACRED SCRIPTURE PRESENTS TO US MUST BE CORRECTLY
INTERPRETED. They show the complete frustration and emptiness of life
without God. Rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those
who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source
of all life and joy. This is how the Catechism
of the Catholic Church summarizes the
truths of faith on this subject: “To die in mortal sin without
repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining
separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of
definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is
called ‘hell’” (n. 1033).
- - - - - - -
NO “GRADUATING” OF
GOD'S LAW
3. The difficulties which
the spouses encounter to be faithful to God's law cannot be ignored,
and these difficulties have been the subject of your reflections. It
is necessary to do all that is possible to help married couples in an
adequate way.
ABOVE ALL, IT IS
NECESSARY TO AVOID GRADUATING GOD'S LAW TO THE MEASURE OF THE VARIOUS
SITUATIONS IN WHICH THE SPOUSES FIND THEMSELVES. The
moral law reveals to us God's plan regarding marriage, the total
good of conjugal love; the desire to diminish that plan is a lack of
respect towards man's dignity. The law of God expresses the demands
of the truth of the human person: that order of divine Wisdom “which,
if we observe in this life, will lead to God and unless we observe
it, we will not reach God", as St. Augustine says (De
ordine 1 9,27, CSEL 63, 139).
In fact, we can ask
ourselves if the confusion between the "graduality of the law"
and "the law of graduality" does not have its explanation
also in a scanty esteem for God's law. The view is held that it is
not suitable for every man, for every situation, and so it is desired
to replace it with an order different from the divine. …. (Read
more at:
http://www.federaciocristians.org/metges/4_publicacions/3_video_cd/25_anys_sant_pare/angles/seccio_1/christian%20vocations.htm)
- - - - - - -
If you might want to
see an article that explains briefly and clearly that we are dealing
with mortal sin in the encyclical Humanae Vitae, you might visit the
following website, translating it into English from Italian with
Google:
(http://www.cavmelzo.it/Articoli/concezione_e_contraccezione.htm
).
Father Joseph, RIGHT ON!! To the point! Thanks for all your loving study. All my unity to you. In Mary Desolate, Msgr. Don Fitzpatrick
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ReplyDeleteI have read most of Gloria Polo's testimony. It was truly moving, shocking and confronting. It is definitely another timely warning of the importance of truth and clarity about sin and its consequences.
ReplyDeleteThe details of the abortions were deeply disturbing. The fate of Gloria's father and fellow adulterers in Purgatory was sickening.
The descriptions of sexual sin and consequences are not something to show young children.
We do not want to repeat the mistakes of long past where we thought terrifying children into being good was the best or only way. We need to do the work of parenting or teaching and spend time teaching the Ten Commandments and the story of God's plan of salvation.
Pray for everything.
There may be a danger in reading Gloria'sTestimony that we lose heart. What do we need to do to make amends so we can avoid going to hell or being trapped in Purgatory with no one to pray for us?
Personally I had nightmares about the scenes from Purgatory.
The good fruit of Gloria's testimony is the message to fast, pray,and to attend the sacraments is urgent and CLEAR.
Gloria's testimony needs to be read with others' support. I am glad I read it but I remain derply shocked.
I would urge people to talk about the testimony and support one another in returning to the sacraments and coing back to God.
Blessings to all