Editor's Note: In the Name of Our Good God, I urge you, for the good of your souls, to read this article carefully and ask what you do not understand with confidence, either through Telegram or WhatsApp, as well as through the blog's own comments. , but do not stay with the doubt since it is about the salvation of your souls and there is no more important business on earth than this: THE SALVATION OF YOUR SOULS.
But
you will say: ¿Can penance repair the loss of innocence? That's true, I
admit it. (The saint speaks not only of corporal penance but also
of the sacrament of penance as such, although he emphasizes corporal penance
more than the sacrament itself) But I also know that penance is very
difficult in practice; we have lost the custom so completely, and it is so
abused by sinners, that this alone should be enough to convince them that very few are saved by this way. ¡Oh,
how steep, narrow and thorny, ¡horrible to look at and difficult to climb! Wherever
we look, we see traces of blood and things that bring back sad
memories. Many weaken at the sight of her. Many lose from the
beginning. Many drop from exhaustion in the middle, and many lose
miserably in the end. And how few are
those who persevere in it until death! St. Ambrose says that it is
easier to find men who have maintained their innocence than it is to find men
who have done proper penance.
If the sacrament of penance is considered,
there are so many distorted confessions, so many studied excuses, so many
deceitful repentances, so many false promises, so many useless resolutions, so
many invalid absolutions! Is
the confession of one who accuses himself of sins of impurity and still clings
to the occasion of them considered valid? Or someone who is accused of
obvious injustices, without the intention of making any reparation for
them? Or someone who falls back into the same iniquities after going to
confession? (¿San Lorenzo speaks of these confessions made at his time,
that is, of his time, what will become of the confessions of our current times?) ¡Oh, the horrible abuses of so great
a sacrament! One confesses to avoid excommunication, another to make a
reputation as a penitent. One frees himself from his sins to calm his
remorse, another hides them out of shame. One imperfectly accuses them of
malice, another does it out of habit. One does not have the true purpose
of the sacrament in mind, another lacks the necessary pain, and another more
firm purpose. Poor confessors, what efforts do they make to attract the
greatest number of penitents to these resolutions and acts, without confession
being a sacrilege, acquittal a conviction and penance an illusion?
Where
are they now, those who believe that the number of the saved among Christians
is greater than that of the damned, and who, to authorize their opinion, reason
in this way: ¿the majority of adult Catholics die in their beds, armed with the
sacraments of the Church, ¿then are most adult Catholics saved? Ah, what
good reasoning! You must say the exact
opposite. Most Catholic adults confess wrong at death, therefore most of
them are damned.I say "everything is safer" because, for a
dying person who has not gone to confession well when he was in good health, it
will be even more difficult to do so when he is in bed with a heavy heart, a
shaky head, a weak mind. confused; when he is opposed in many respects
even by living beings, and above all by demons who seek all means to throw him
into hell. Now, if you add to all these false penitents all the other
sinners who die unexpectedly in sin, due to the ignorance of doctors or the
fault of their relatives, who die of poisoning or being buried in earthquakes,
or in a stroke, or in a fall, or on the battlefield, in a fight, in a trap,
struck by lightning, burned or drowned,That
is the reasoning of Saint John Chrysostom. This saint, he says that most
Christians are walking on the road to hell throughout their lives. Why,
then, are they so surprised that most of them go to hell? To get to a
gate, you must take the path that leads there. What do you have to answer
to this powerful reason?
The answer, you will tell me, is
that God's mercy is great. Yes, for those who fear him, says the prophet,
but great is his justice for those who do not fear him, and he condemns all
obstinate sinners.
So
they will say to me: Well, then, who is paradise for, if not for
Christians? It is for Christians, of course, but for those who do not
dishonor their character and who live as Christians. Moreover, if to the
number of Christian adults who die in the grace of God, is added the number of
children who die after baptism and before reaching the age of reason, they will
not be surprised that Saint John the Apostle, speaking of those who are saved,
say, "I saw a great
multitude that no one could number."
And
this is what deceives those who claim that the number of the saved among
Catholics is greater than that of the damned... If to that number, we add the
number of adults who have kept the mantle of innocence, or that after being
stained, they have washed in the tears of penance, it is certain that a greater
number are saved, and that explains the words of St. John, "I saw a great
multitude," and these other words of our Lord, “many will come from east
and west, and will feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of
heaven,” and the other figures often cited in support of that view. But if we are talking about adult Christians,
experience, reason, authority, propriety, and Scripture are in agreement that
the greater number be damned.. Do not think that, because of
this, paradise is empty, on the contrary, it is a very populated
kingdom. And if the damned are "as numerous as the sand in the
sea", the saved are "as numerous as the stars in the sky", that
is, both one and the other are innumerable, although in very different
proportions.
One
day Saint John Chrysostom, preaching in the cathedral of Constantinople, and
considering these proportions, could not help but tremble with horror and
ask: "Out of this great
number of people, how many do you think will be saved?" And without
waiting for an answer, he added, “among so many thousands of people, we would
not find a hundred who were saved, and I even doubt the hundred”. What a horrible thing! The great saint
believes that, of so many people, barely a hundred would be saved, and even
worse, he was not sure of that figure. What will happen to you who are
listening to me? My God, I can't think about this without shuddering!Brothers, the problem of salvation is a very
difficult thing, because according to the maxims of the theologians, when an
end requires great efforts, only a few manage to achieve it.
This
is why Saint Thomas, the Angelic Doctor, after weighing all the reasons for and
against, in his immense scholarship, finally came to the conclusion that the
greatest number of adult Catholics are damned. He says , "Because eternal beauty surpasses the
natural state, especially since it has been deprived of original grace, it is a
small number that are saved."
So,
take off the blindfold that blinds you with self-love, that prevents you from
believing such an obvious truth giving you very false ideas about the justice
of God, "Just Father, the world has not known you", said Our Lord
Jesus Christ . He does not say “Almighty, kind and merciful Father”. It
says "Just Father", so we can understand that, of all the attributes
of God, none is better known than his justice, (According to Saint
Thomas, in his treatise on justice, he says that God is just by essence more
than merciful , since justice corresponds to his essence and mercy corresponds
more to charity than to his justice. Therefore, he is more just than merciful,
hence the expression of Our Lord, "Just Father") because men
refuse to believe what they are afraid to suffer. Therefore, take off the
bandages that cover your eyes and say between tears: Ouch! The largest
number of Catholics, the largest number of people who live here, even those in
this Assembly, will be damned! What topic could be more deserving of your
tears?
King Xerxes, standing on a hill, looking at his
army of a hundred thousand soldiers in battle, and considering that of all of
them there would not be a single man alive in a hundred years, he could not
hold back his tears. Have we no more reason to weep at the thought that,
of so many Catholics, the greater number will be damned? Perhaps this thought will not make our eyes shed
rivers of tears, or at least produce in our hearts the feeling of compassion
felt by an Augustinian brother, Ven. Marcello de Santo Domingo One day,
while he was meditating on eternal pain, the Lord showed him how many souls are
going to hell at that moment and made him see a very wide path in which
twenty-two thousand reprobates were running towards the abyss, colliding with
each other. each. The servant of God was astonished at the sight and
exclaimed: “¡Oh, what a number! What
number! And there is even more on the
way. Jesus! Jesus! What
madness!” Let me repeat with Jeremiah: “Who will give water to my head, and a
fountain of tears to my eyes? And I am going to cry day and night for the
dead of the daughter of my people.”
Poor
souls! How can you run so fast to hell? For pity's sake stop and
listen to me for a moment. Either they understand what it means to be
saved and to be damned for all eternity, or they don't. If you understand and, despite that, do not decide to
change your life today, make a good confession and trample the world, in a
word, make every effort to be counted among the small number of those who are
saved, I say they have no faith. You are more forgivable if you don't
understand it, because if you don't have to say that you are insane. To be saved for all eternity, to be damned for
all eternity, and not do your best to avoid one, and make sure of the other, is
inconceivable.
The Goodness of God:
Perhaps
you still do not believe in the terrible truth that I have just
taught. But they are the most highly regarded theologians, the most
illustrious Fathers who have spoken through me. ¿So how can you resist
reasons supported by so many examples and the words of Scripture? If you
still do not make up your mind, in spite of this, and if your minds are
inclined to the contrary opinion, is not this consideration enough to make you
tremble? ¡Ah, this shows that they don’t care much about their salvation! In
this important matter, a sensible man is hit harder by the slightest doubt that
he is in danger, by the evidence of utter ruin in matters in which the soul is
involved. One of our brothers, Giles of Assisi,he had a habit of saying that if a single man was going to be
convicted, he would do everything in his power to make sure it wasn't that man.
¿So
what should we do, we who know that the majority is going to be condemned, ¿and
not just all Catholics? What should we do? Resolve to belong to the
small number of those who are saved. Someone will say: ¿If Christ wanted to curse me, why did he
create me? Silence, hasty tongue! God did not create anyone to
condemn him, but he who is condemned is condemned because he wants to be. Therefore, I am going to try to defend the goodness
of my God and to absolve it of all guilt: which will be the subject of the
second point.
Before
we continue, we are going to gather all the books and all the heresies of
Luther and Calvin on one side, and on the other side the books and heresies of
the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, and we are going to burn them. Some
destroy grace, others freedom, and all are full of mistakes, so we throw
them into the fire. All the damned have before them the oracle of the
prophet Hosea, "Your condemnation comes from
you", so that they can understand that everyone who is condemned is condemned
by his own malice and because he wants to be condemned.
Let's
first take these two undeniable truths as a basis: " God wants all men to be saved", "All are in need of God's grace ". Now, if you show me that God wants to save all men,
and that for this he gives them all his grace and all the other means necessary to obtain this
sublime end, they will be forced to accept that he who is condemned must impute
it to his own malice, and that, if the greatest number of Christians are
condemned, it is because he wants to be. "Your curse comes from
you, your help is only in me."
TO BE CONTINUE…
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario