Priests and Religious with Hearts Buried in the World
Our Lady warns that even priests and religious would fall into this fascination and pursuit of the things of this world: “The secular Clergy will leave much to be desired, because priests will become careless in their sacred duties. Lacking the divine compass, they will stray from the road traced by God for the priestly ministry, and they will become attached to wealth and riches, which they will unduly strive to obtain. The Princes of the Church think only of piling riches upon riches, to protect their authority and dominate with pride” (Our Lady at La Salette, 1846).

Think of Eternity
St. Alphonsus argues that the opposite should be the norm: “God has made us Christians, and instructed us in the maxims of Faith, that we may think of eternity. ‘We are Christians that we may always think of the world to come.’  This thought has driven from the world so many of the nobles of the earth, has made them renounce all their riches, and shut themselves up in the cloister, there to live in poverty and penance (Sunday Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori).

“Turn ye not to idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods. I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:4). It is the heart that idolizes things--“if he separate himself from Me, and place his idols in his heart” (Ezechiel 14:7). “If riches abound, set not your heart upon them” (Psalm 61:11)—so the heart has to change from esteeming things more than God, to esteeming God more than things; from loving things more than God, to loving God more than things.

Perish the Thought of Perishable Fruit
Sadly, most people produce far, far more earthly fruit than they produce spiritual fruit. But to what purpose? At what cost? “And Jesus spoke a similitude to them, saying: ‘The land of a certain rich man brought forth plenty of fruits. And he thought within himself, saying: “What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?” And he said: "This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and will build greater; and into them will I gather all things that are grown to me, and my goods. And I will say to my soul: 'Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thy rest; eat, drink, make good cheer!'” But God said to him: “Thou fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee: and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?” So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God!’” (Luke 12:16-21).

“A good man out of a good treasure bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of an evil treasure bringeth forth evil things” (Matthew 12:35).
 
Too Many Earthly Pleasure Seekers
Our Lady, speaking to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, said: “There are so many among mortals, who seek the flesh and the continual indulgence of its pleasures. They ardently seek honors and fly from injuries: they strive after riches, and despise poverty; they long after pleasure and dread mortification. All these are enemies of the Cross of Christ and with dreadful aversion they fly from it … If thou wishest to be our disciple enter into this school, in which alone is taught the Doctrine of the Cross and the manner of reaching true peace and veritable delights. With this wisdom, the earthly love of sensible pleasures and riches is not compatible; nor the vain ostentation and pomp, which fascinates the bleary-eyed worldlings, who are so covetous of passing honors, and so full of ignorant admiration for costly grandeur” (Our Lady to the Ven. Mary of Agreda).

He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty away” (Luke 1:53).

The Higher We Aim, the Higher We Get
Our Lady, again speaking to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, about the mystery of the Ascension, said:

"I have so many times urged thee to detach thyself from all visible and earthly things and to die to thyself and to all that savors of a child of Adam; yet I now call upon thee anew, that, forgetting all else, thou raise thyself to another life, more exalted and heavenly, approaching that of the eternal happiness. I desire that thou leave entirely the ancient Babylon, thy enemies and all their false and harassing vanities, and that thou approach the holy and celestial Jerusalem, live in its porches, where thou art to occupy thyself in the true and perfect imitation of my life and thus arrive by the divine grace at the intimate union of my Son.

"Divine favor will not fail thee, for the Most High will not deny it to those, who on their part exert themselves according to their power, and He will not refuse thee his assistance to attain what is pleasing and acceptable to Him, if thou do not by thy negligence make thyself unworthy. Prepare and expand thy heart, inflame thy will, purify thy understanding, and cast out from thy faculties every image and impression of visible creatures. For thus will none of them interfere with thee, nor any of them draw thee into venial sin or imperfections. From now on thy life is to be like that of one newly called from the grave. Just as such a one is apt to turn to a new life, as if estranged and foreign to all that he loved in his former life, changed in all his desires, reformed and alienated from all his former inclinations; so I desire, that thou, my daughter, be renewed. Do not grieve the Holy Ghost by thy tardiness."

Not Made for Earth
“In My Father's house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2).

“Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also” (Matthew 6:19-21).

“For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting” (Galatians 6:8).

All Change!
The resurrection of Our Lord sees Him come back much changed and much different to what He was before. So much so, that He is not even recognized by His nearest and dearest!  Something similar is seen in the apparition of St. Dominic Savio after his death, when he came to St. John Bosco—his teacher and confessor while he was still on earth. St. John Bosco did not recognize him and had to ask: “Is that you Dominic?” 

New Life!
Our Lord had passed through the barrier of suffering and death and emerged on the other side in His new life, His glorious life, a life in His glorified body. This should teach us that, only after the suffering of serious penance (in paying for our past sins) and serious mortification (buying grace and protection for the future) and our attempts to kill sin by rooting out and banishing from our life all mortal sin and then deliberate venial sin, we should finally start to emerge from our old selves or our “old skin” as ‘new-beings’ with a new attitude and a new life-style.

Saul Resurrects as Paul
St. Paul, too, went through his ‘three-days-of death’ or, rather, ‘three-days-of-darkness’ when he was struck blind by Jesus on the road to Damascus. He then went through his own ‘death’ by being in the dark tomb of blindness, dead to the world and what was going on around him; praying and not eating or drinking for three days—much like Our Lord was dying for three hours on the cross and placed in the tomb for three days:“And he was there three days, without sight, and he did neither eat nor drink” (Acts 9:9).

These three hours of dying on the cross, or the three days of death in the tomb, or the three days of blindness—are all symbolic of the three stages of the spiritual life that every soul must pass through before it can gain entry into Heaven and see God. The first stage is the Purgative Way or the Way of Beginners—whereby we must die to mortal sin and do penance for our past sins. The next and more advanced stage is the Illuminative Way or the Way of Proficients—whereby we must die to all deliberate venial sin, pray a great deal and start deliberately acquiring the virtues. The third stage is the Unitive Way of the Way of Perfection—whereby we must now die to our imperfections by always striving to do the most perfect thing and this is coupled with a great desire to suffer greatly for God.

Throughout these three days of blindness, God was preparing Saul for a new life—like He wants to prepare us for a new life, a changed life, a different life, a more noble life, a spiritual life. Saul would be given a new name—Paul (like Simon was renamed Peter). He would be given a new mission—instead of rounding up Christians to arrest them; he would now round up people and make them into Christians.

“And the Lord said to Ananias: ‘Arise, and go into the street that is called Strait, and seek in the house of Judas, one named Saul of Tarsus. For behold he prayeth!’ (And he saw a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hands upon him, that he might receive his sight.) But Ananias answered: ‘Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to Thy saints in Jerusalem. And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that invoke Thy Name!’ And the Lord said to him: ‘Go thy way; for this man is to me a vessel of election, to carry my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake!’ ”(Acts 9:1-16).

I was blind! Now I see!
This should also be the case for ourselves, who have been blind and, like Saul, by our sins, have persecuted Christ. Our Lord could well say to us the words He addressed to Saul (Paul): “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?” (Acts 9:4). Yet the mercy of Christ transformed the soul of Saul into the pillar of Paul, but not without pain and suffering.

Suffering After His 'Resurrection'
The new Paul was destined to pay for his past sins by suffering throughout his new ‘risen’ or ‘resurrected’ life. Paul himself lists some of the many sufferings that he had endured in the short time since his ‘resurrection’:

“In many more labors, in prisons more frequently, in stripes above measure, in deaths often. Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I was in the depth of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. In labor and painfulness, in much watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. 

"Besides those things which are without: my daily instance, the solicitude for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire?  If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things that concern my infirmity.  My daily instance: The labors that come in, and press upon me every day. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever, knoweth that I lie not. At Damascus, the governor of the nation under Aretas the king, guarded the city of the Damascenes, to apprehend me. And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and so escaped his hands. … But for myself I will glory nothing, but in my infirmities. For though I should have a mind to glory, I shall not be foolish; for I will say the truth.

"But I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth in me, or any thing he heareth from me. And lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt me, there was given me a sting of my flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me. For which thing thrice I besought the Lord that it might depart from me. And He said to me: ‘My grace is sufficient for thee; for power is made perfect in infirmity!’ Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. For which cause I please myself in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ. For when I am weak, then am I powerful” (2 Corinthians 11:23-33; 12:1-10).

Don't Go Back!
Our resurrection should in this life, should see us become a new and different being—so much so that we are in a certain sense unrecognizable as Our Lord could not be recognized after He rose from the dead. We should not go back to our old ways, like the dog goes back to his vomit: “As a dog that returneth to his vomit, so is the fool that repeateth his folly” (Proverbs 26:11). There are too many Catholics, who take two steps forwards and fall two steps backwards and will go back to a life of self-indulgence and over-indulgence. 

In very first readings of the first two Masses of the Church’s Liturgical celebration of the Resurrection at Easter (the Midnight Mass and the Day Mass), the Church clearly tells us that we have to change!  This is the very first message of the Resurrection of Christ at Easter! That the old ways have to be cast far away from us, so that we live a new, resurrected, better and more holy life:

“Brethren,purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new paste, as you are un­leavened: for Christ our Pasch is sacrificed. Therefore let us feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (Epistle from Midnight Mass on Easter Sunday: 1 Corinthians 5:7-8).

“Brethren: If you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God: mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth. For you are dead [to the world and sin], and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ shall appear, Who is your life, then you also shall appear with Him in glory” (Epistle from the Day Mass on Easter Sunday: Colossians 3:1-4).

Christ Rises With His Wounds
The second point that is worth mentioning and imprinting upon our minds and hearts, is the fact that Our Lord rises from the dead WITH his wounds still visible. He could have healed Himself totally, but He chose to keep His wounds like a stigmata.

He also leaves His shroud to us as a relic and a reminder of His Passion. He doesn’t want to be remembered so much for His resurrection as He wants to be remembered for His Passion and Death. It was the latter that redeemed us and brought about the defeat of the devil, sin and death.

Progress in the spiritual life does not mean an end to penance and sacrifice. Penance and sacrifice are the bread and butter of the Christian life. It should be the staple diet of any and every Christian. Our Lady calls for penance at Lourdes and sacrifice at Fatima. Our Lord clearly told us: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross DAILY, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). “Daily” means every day of the year and not just Lent. Our Lord and Our Lady suffered every single day of their lives—not just during the Passion or Seven isolated Sorrows! And Our Lord told us: “I say to you: but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish!”(Luke 13:3).

Delighting the Devil
If we fail or give up our efforts and go back to our old sinful attitudes and lifestyle, then we are insanely going backwards when we should going forwards—to the devil’s delight! Or if we have managed to give up mortal sin and perhaps also all deliberate venial sin, it does not that we can take it easy or indulge ourselves with the non-sinful things in life. Mortification and the disciplining of passions and tendencies is a ceaseless battle until we die. Hence the famous axiom of the spiritual life—“He who does not make progress, goes backwards.” In other words, there can be no treading water and taking a break in the spiritual life—because we are swimming upstream against a strong downstream current. A momentary rest means that we are swept a long distance downstream before we even know it! Worse still would be going back to the venial or even mortal sins of the past! In doing this, we end up caressing Our Lord with our extra prayers and sacrifices while we make progress, and then go back to slapping Him around with our sins!

Maintain your Higher Spiritual Levels
It is not just during Lent that we should be making spiritual efforts and making progress—spiritual growth is a year round activity, just as is our physical growth. The human body does not cease renewing itself day in, day out—the same should be true of our spiritual life. Those who only make spiritual efforts for 40 days a year will fall far behind in the race for Heaven that St. Paul speaks about. Lenten fasting might not be a bad idea to do so on certain days of the week—for fasting is a wonderful weapon against the devil—who does not just work during Lent, but all-year-round!), above all, we can and still should ‘fast’ from sin, occasions of sin, worldliness and frivolity. “Know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of God” (James 4:4) … For the word of God cannot survive in a worldly atmosphere, “the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts after other things entering in choke the word, and it is made fruitless” (Mark 4:19). 

God Wants to Save; But Many Don't Want His Terms
Even though “God sent not His Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him” (John 3:17), “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.  He came unto His own, and His own received Him not ...  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:4-11).  

St. Paul was in darkness, which got worse and ended up with him being blinded as a means of driving home to him the extent of his spiritual blindness. There are so very many Catholics living in spiritual blindness—remember that Fr. Faber compares lukewarmness to spiritual blindness, and the spiritual masters are of the opinion that the vast majority of the Catholic world (those who still practice!!!) are lukewarm. Therefore may the scales fall from our eyes as they fell from St. Paul’s eyes; so that we can see the new life that God has mapped out for us! How many Catholics and how many times have they rejected God’s invitation to come to the spiritual banquet of a new life at a higher spiritual level—content, rather, to grovel at a low, sin laden, level? God may well say one day: “The marriage indeed is ready; but they that were invited were not worthy!’ And he said to his servants: ’Go ye therefore into the highways; and as many as you shall find, call to the marriage!’” (Matthew 22:8-9). 

Listen to Your Mother!
Let us not ignore God’s invitation, nor test His patience: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked” (Galatians 6:7). Let us take the advice of Holy Mother Church, as given at Easter: “Brethren, purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new paste, as you are un­leavened. Therefore let us feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth … If you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God: mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth. For you are dead [to the world and sin], and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Epistles from the Midnight Mass and the Day Mass: 1 Corinthians 5:7-8; Colossians 3:1-4).

Yet let us remember that there is no Resurrection with the Death of the Cross—it was not the Resurrection that saved us, but it was the Cross that saved us. It is not the Resurrection that is the center of our Faith, but it is the Cross that should be planted at the center of our hearts. There is a tendency among Modernists today to ignore the Crucifixion and to focus on the Resurrection—this is akin to wanting to paid a handsome wage without having done any work. Besides, if a master artist has completed a great work—if he is truly an artist—he thinks less of the price he got for his work of art than he does of the work of art itself. I am sure Heaven thinks far more of Our Lord’s Passion and Death than it does of His Resurrection. The words that Our Lady spoke to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, in The Mystical City of God, bear this out also—the vast amount of focus is upon the sufferings of her Son and not His Resurrection.

Pinnacle
Here we are on the pinnacle of the mountain!  The greatest event and the most poignant event in the history of time!  God the Creator of all life gives up His life that we might have eternal life.  The innocent Jesus takes our guilt upon His shoulders in order to carry us, His lost sheep, back into His sheepfold! He becomes the Paschal Lamb, the Victim, and the Scapegoat for our transgressions! 

Sorrowful yet Beautiful
In Good Friday’s beautiful, yet sorrowful, liturgy—laden with so much contemplative material, like a rich banquet—we have some prayerful gems that sparkle above all the other precious jewels. One particular gem is the hymn, Crux Fidelis (Faithful Cross), which is sung during the Adoration of the Cross. This hymn, so beautiful in both its words and its haunting melody, is one that could be meditated and contemplate throughout the entire year, and still we would draw from it all the spiritual nourishment that is hidden therein. Let us sample just a little of its wondrous beauty by taking a few lines from this spiritual masterpiece:

Faithful Cross
Faithful Cross, O Tree all beauteous, 
Tree all perfect and divine!
Not a grove on earth can show us,
Such a leaf and flower as Thine!
Sweet the nails, and sweet the wood
Laden with so sweet a load!

Sing my tongue, the Savior’s glory!
Tell His triumph far and wide!
Tell aloud the famous story,
Of His Body crucified!

Eating of the tree forbidden,
Man had sunk in Satan’s snare,
When his pitying Creator,
Did this second tree prepare.

Thus did Christ to perfect manhood,
In our mortal flesh attain;
Then of His free choice He goeth
To a death of bitter pain.

Lo, with gall His thirst He quenches;
See the thorns upon His brow,
Nails His tender flesh are rending,
See His side is opened now!
Whence to cleanse the whole creation
Streams of blood and water flow!

Lofty Tree, bend down thy branches
To embrace thy sacred load;
Oh, relax the native tension,
Of that all too rigid wood:
Gently, gently bear the members
Of thy dying King and God.

Tree which solely wast found worthy
Earth’s great Victim to sustain,
Harbor from the raging tempest,
Ark that saved the world again,
Tree with sacred Blood anointed
Of the Lamb for sinners slain!

The Cross Helps Us Be Faithful
Suffering is a marvelous thing, if it borne correctly. St. Augustine tells us that the same sufferings lead some souls to Heaven, but other souls to Hell. He was no doubt referring to the two thieves, who were crucified alongside Jesus. One of them resented his crucifixion and hoped that Jesus, if He was Who they said He was, would rescue Himself and the two thieves into the bargain! But that kind of bargain is no bargain! It only leads to the infernal bargain-basement of Hell. The Good Thief, Dismas, acknowledged that he was guilty of sin and confessed that he deserved all that he was getting. One thief went to Hell, the other went to Heaven. Same crime; same sufferings; same place; same day; different fates. If only we could have the spirit of Dismas, saying always and everywhere that we deserve what Divine Providence sends our way, then we could also have the same fate when we breathe forth our spirit!

Never-ending Contemplation
This hymn is so rich that each and every one of us will find something personal and something different in its lines and stanzas. That is what makes it so beautiful and rich—it keeps on giving and giving, without running dry of the “blood and water” that flows from it!

“Faithful Cross, O Tree all beauteous, Tree all perfect and divine!”  To the Good Thief, his cross was truly “beauteous, perfect and divine.” He was a thief rightfully condemned to death, yet the beauty is that, in the end, he actually “stole Heaven”!  Beauty is defined as a harmonious combination of differences—unity in diversity. Nothing could be more different than Christ and the Thief, innocence and guilt, yet the Cross unites them in a strangely harmonious way—one is innocent, the other guilty, yet both accept the Cross and allow its saving power to germinate. A “perfect” acceptance, a “perfect” end, one that could be achieved by the “divine”, as God is always seeking to bring our good from evil—and “good” is the same as “beauty” and “truth”, for they are all of the same three-sided pyramid, just seen from different angles.

Dead Wood Gives Life
“Not a grove on earth can show us, such a leaf and flower as Thine!”  What is this? A cross is a dead piece of wood! How can it show leaves and flowers? Impossible! Well, it reminds me of the true story of an abbot, who to test the obedience of one of his monks, made him plant the abbot’s wooden staff in the garden and to water it—in time, the staff miraculously sprouted both leaf and flower! But that’s beside the point! Yes, the cross is a dead piece of wood, and that is precisely why it was chosen and why it is so fruitful, because it is dead! As Our Lord said: “Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal” (John 12:24-25). We need to be crucified by the world, hated by the world, so that we can die to the world. For the world brings eternal death and unless we die to the world, we cannot have eternal life. The world is an enemy of God, for its prince is the devil. The devil wants our souls and he uses the world as attractive bait to get our souls.

Nailed to Christ, Dead to the World
For Christ to attach Himself to us, we must be dead to the world. We cannot serve Christ and the world, God and Mammon, at the same time! Christ will not force us, He will knock at the door of our worldly soul and invite us to come out into His world and follow Him!  It is like the famous painting which shows Christ knocking at the door of a home—if we look closely, we will see that the artist has deliberately refrained from painting in a door handle, there is no exterior door handle, the door can only be opened from within, by the person who is within the house.  Christ seeks, Christ knocks, Christ asks—but will we open the door? Will we come out of ourselves and our opinions into His world and His opinions? For most persons, they do not turn Christ away, but they prefer to speak to Him through the door—without opening it, without having Him come in, or themselves come out! Sad, but true!

Sweet the Nails that Nail Me to Christ
“Sweet the nails, and sweet the wood, laden with so sweet a load!”  To the true Catholic, the wood and nails of everyday life are always “sweet” — not sweet to the lower, animal instincts of base human nature, but sweet to the higher, more noble, part of the soul.  Our Lord, Himself, found no joy in the sensible sufferings of His Passion—they terrified Him, they discourages Him, they gave Him immense pain—but through prayer He was able to rise above those base considerations to the noble thoughts of redemption and salvation. The Cross, taken by itself, is not sweet at all; but if we remember that Jesus is attached to every Cross we get, then that thought makes it sweet and bearable, for the Cross is then “laden with so sweet a load!”

Sing of the Triumphant Cross
“Sing my tongue, the Savior’s glory! Tell His triumph far and wide! Tell aloud the famous story, of His Body crucified!” Oh, how sad it is to experience the numberless vain, pointless, stupid, banal, even sinful conversations that take place throughout the world, and our own little world, every day.  Our Faith tells us that we shall be judged for every idle-word and every idle-thought we have ever committed. Jesus commanded us to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect—God never commands the impossible! Not that we can be as perfect as God is in His divine nature, but we can be as perfect as our own human nature allows. We are to love God entirely—with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength, not just some of the time, but all the time. Sounds hard! But perfection is hard, and most do not seek it or want it. We cannot love what we do not know, and we don’t love for long if we don’t have the object of our love before us--“out of sight, out of mind.”

Read, Think, Talk and Treasure the Cross
So to “Sing of the Savior’s glory! To tell His triumph far and wide! To tell aloud the famous story, of His Body crucified!”  means to revisit and review and retell and remember those remarkable essentials of our redemption that we recall in the Redeemer’s Passion and Death. How often do we read and think about these things?—which belongs to the private, individual sphere of our Faith. How much do we talk about these things?—which is the public sphere of our Faith.  Do we really treasure and adore these things by going to the re-enactment of this, which is shown by going to the Mass (Calvary) as often as we can?—the religious or divine sphere.  The Passion and Death has to have an impact in all the chief spheres of our life—in relation to myself, to my neighbor and to God. Sing, my tongue, of these things, and let us leave the vain, banal, worldly things to the heathens.

Planting the Cross in the Soil of Humility
“Lofty Tree, bend down thy branches, to embrace thy sacred load; Oh, relax the native tension, of that all too rigid wood!”  We are too lofty, we are too proud! Yet Our Lord asked to learn of Him, for He was humble. He bent down to us from the lofty heights of Heaven, in order to embrace our “load of sin” and the punishment due to it!  There was nothing rigid about Him—He became all things to all men, in order to lead them to God. We, ourselves, become too lofty with our excuses for not doing what God wants us to do, we will not bend to His will, we think it is impossible for us to bend to His will and that He is bending us too much and that we will snap under the pressure!   Yet, it is truly amazing to see how pliable wood can really be—especially if we rub copious amounts of oil into it!  Oil is a symbol of—you guessed it—HUMILITY.

Here! Why Don’t You Carry This?!
God willingly accepts the Cross that comes to Him from the hands of men. Do I accept the Cross that comes to me from the hand of God? The Cross is our salvation. It is the key to Heaven. Reject the Cross and you reject salvation. Throw it off your shoulders and you throw away the key to Heaven. The Cross stands at the heart of history. Does it also stand in the center of my heart? Our Lord said: "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his Cross daily and follow Me" (Luke 9:23).  Elsewhere He says:  “And whosoever doth not carry his cross and come after Me, cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:27). "And he that taketh not up his cross and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me!" (Matthew 10:38).

God's Divine Providence sends us many crosses each day—some small, some great. Do we accept them as willingly as Our Lord accepted them for our salvation. The Cross tests our love. It proves our love. It pays our debts. It heals our wounds and bad habits. Yet how many Crosses have we thrown away by our complaints, our pride, our anger, or our faint-heartedness? Let us henceforth accept our Crosses with the supernatural vision of the predestined, rather than the too naturalistic outlook of the damned. For as St. Augustine so frighteningly says—the same Crosses and sufferings lead some souls to Heaven and other souls to Hell.

Jesus Accepts the Cross of Death
The battle was seemingly over, the enemy had seemingly won, and nothing now remained except that the execution should be carried out as quickly as might be. He, of whom it had been said, before He was yet born, that He would sit on the throne of David His Father, and that of His kingdom there would be no end, He was about to be put to death.

He whose life, as an infant, Herod the Great had failed to destroy, who had openly defied the lesser Herod, saying He would die where and when He would, was at last at the mercy of His murderers.

He whom at Nazareth, at Capharnaum, then in Jerusalem, men had planned to annihilate and had failed, now at last was delivered into their hands.

They had wished to cast Him down from the mountain, and He had passed through their midst; now He would be crucified on a mountain; they had taken up stones to stone Him, and He had vanished out of their sight; they had sent guards to take Him, and the guards had returned empty-handed; they had plotted and devised schemes, and yet He had come in and gone out as He would, and no one had dared to lay a hand upon Him.

Now He stood before them, on the steps between them and Pilate, “to the Jews a block of stumbling, to the Gentiles foolishness”, not only helpless to resist, but almost seeming that He would not resist even if He were able. He was to be led as a lamb to the slaughter; He would not open His mouth. The guilt of the world was upon Him and He would carry it. The sentence had been passed, by His Father, by Himself, and by man; it was for Him now to complete the greatest act of love that man has ever done, for man or for God, upon this earth.

Hurry-Up and Kill Him!
Pilate had delivered the Redeemer to the will of His accusers that they might crucify Him, and they set to work without delay. Since the advent of the emperor Tiberius to the imperial throne in Rome, criminals sentenced by the Roman senate were reprieved for ten days, and, when the emperor had personally pronounced the sentence, even for thirty days. Usually, at least one day of grace was granted. Very rarely did the execution take place on the day of the sentencing. The chief-priests would not grant Christ such a reprieve, for fear that Pilate, who had seen that Jesus was innocent, might in the meantime come to his senses and regret and change the sentence of death already pronounced. Therefore, they were very anxious to get Christ out of the way as soon as possible. They took Jesus down the steps from the balcony where He had stood all this time by the side of Pilate. The Governor's work was done and he could retire to his next diversion: Israel had no further use for the despicable Gentile.

There were other executions appointed for that day, for executions were common on the eve of a great feast. Jesus, then, need not be sent back to prison to await another day. He could be put to death at once with the other criminals; one more in the group would be of no account. There was little time left for further mockery or insult; the sanction had been gained, His blood was already upon the accusers and their children, and a silence of dread determination fell upon the crowd. Indeed, from now until He is actually raised upon the cross, we hear no more of cries and accusation; the task is hurried through without a further word, even the evangelists themselves catch the spirit of the scene, and pause only twice in their story.

The Cross
The preparation for the last journey consisted in the following four things. First the cross was procured. Either it was now hurriedly constructed, or it had been made during the final trial, or perhaps the Romans kept on hand a supply of crosses, for purposes similar to the present one. The cross of Christ is said to have been at least fifteen feet long including the part that would sit in the ground. For the feet of the Savior suspended on the cross were quite distant from the ground, since Scripture says that He was exalted. Then there was a rod needed to apply to His mouth the sponge saturated with vinegar. The cross-piece either at right angles with the main piece, or, in two parts, turned up­wards at either side, may have been six feet long. Thickness and width were suited to the purpose of the cross, and we may truthfully say to Jesus in our prayers, "Who hast carried the heavy cross for us."

Then they prepared the title of guilt, which was to be attached to the cross, above the head of the Redeemer. Wooden tablets coated with plaster were used for this purpose, and for official notices there were always some on hand. The tablet had on it the name of the crime. In the case of Christ, Pilate caused the title to be written in the Latin, Greek and Hebrew languages, the first being the language of the emperor, and the other two the popular tongues. For many Jews, living in foreign parts and present for the paschal feast, understood the Greek better than the Hebrew tongue. Moreover, the use of three languages in the title had a deeper meaning. The confusion of languages at Babylon was the expression of God's anger. The holy cross, the sign of recon­ciliation, was to restore the unity of tongues. In the unity of faith and of love the peoples of all tongues should be united in the worship of the Crucified One. The title read, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews."  Now we have it in clear terms from the judge himself that Christ was not executed on account of a crime, but because He was Jesus, that is, the Redeemer, and because He was King in the realm of truth.

A Sign for All Time
Whether Pilate, in framing this title, purposely desired to vex the chief-priests, cannot be stated with certainty. It suffices to remark that they felt and showed themselves offended and aggrieved. Therefore, according to the opinion of several commentators, they entered a protest at once in front of the court building, against the wording of the title, although St. John narrates it as happening later on. They said to Pilate, “Write not, the king of the Jews; but that he said: ‘I am the king of the Jews.’” But Pilate, who towards the end had been so yielding, answered, “What I have written, I have written”; from which words they could draw the conclusion, “and thus shall it remain.” For an official document cannot well be changed; it might diminish the respect due to authority. Thus Pilate, unwittingly, gave testimony unto the truth. Thus, unwittingly, at an early date, did he produce a short gospel. Not to lose time and not to anger Pilate, the chief-priests relinquished their wish. Meanwhile, the soldiers prepared the Savior for His last journey.

Pain Upon Pain
All this time Jesus had stood before the people as He had left the hands of the Roman soldiers; the red robe of mockery still covered His shoulders, the helmet of thorns was still encasing His head, the cords were still tied around His wrists, the blood flowed down His face, hiding it like a veil. Now these things were torn, once more, from His body, opening the dried wounds afresh, and the blood began to flow anew. His own garment was brought up from the barrack yard, and meekly He covered Himself with it. Just as painful to His Sacred head was the putting on of the outer garment. It was not in parts and had but a small opening at the top and therefore had to be drawn over the head to the shoulders. They then violently and amid jests pushed against the crown of thorns, if indeed they were not constrained to remove it and press it on again, owing to its long and branching thorns.

Make Sure He is Recognized!
This change of garments was, therefore, again most painful to the Redeemer. In this garment He would walk, for the last time, the streets of His beloved city. This was done, as St. Ambrose says, in order that, clothed in His own garment, He might, when led forth, be more easily recognized by the populace as the now unmasked deceiver Who had been ac­claimed by their hosannas a few days before.

If he could not be recognized by his disfigured face and macerated body, then He would be recognized by His clothes. As He went or stumbled along, it should be clear, without a doubt, to every onlooker, who was the Criminal that was going to receive the reward that was His due. It was Jesus of Nazareth, the Jesus whom many knew, whom, till that moment, many had professed to revere! Who would reverence Him now?

Embracing the Cross
Finally they led Christ to the place where the cross was. We cannot help but think that at the first sight of it, undoubtedly of His own free will, the Savior was filled with fear and dismay and that He trembled even to the very marrow of His bones. How a child will tremble at the sight of the rod, a criminal at the sight of instruments of torture, a condemned man at the sight of the sword or of the gallows!

Thus and even more did the Savior tremble, for, sin excepted, He had taken upon Himself all the infirmities and weak­nesses of our nature. But at the same time His soul raised itself from purely human sensations to loftier, divine thoughts and sentiments. He had so often yearned for the cross. How He had longed to see the sacrifice consummated! Now the desired hour had finally arrived.

Jesus—the Fruit on the Cross, the Fruit of the Cross
The executioners were waiting, holding the wooden beams to which the condemned man was destined to be nailed. This cross of death would shortly become a Tree of Life, bearing the Fruit of suffering and giving life to all who would unite themselves to His sufferings through their own little crosses and eat of the life-giving Fruit in Holy Communion with this life-giving Savior. The beams were put upon His shoulders, the bed on which He was to die; meekly He put His arms about them, He pressed them to Him, for they were to be His standard through the ages.

Hail O Cross, our Only Hope
The Redeemer had, therefore, hardly looked upon the cross, when He saluted it as the instrument of the salvation of the world. He embraced it as a most intimate friend, long expected and finally found. His Divine lips imprinted upon it a tender kiss. He pressed it most joyfully to His Most Sacred Heart, and, with His own hands, He took it and laid it upon His hallowed shoulder. Two years before, not far from that very spot, He had stood over a begging cripple and had bid him arise, and take up his bed and walk; in that very street His deed had roused a controversy. He had saved others, Himself He refused to save.

Procession to Calvary, Procession through Life
There was no delay. Then a trumpet gives the signal and the trium­phal procession of the King of kings is set in mo­tion. The usual procession was formed, the herald leading, the Roman guard with the prisoners in their midst, the crowd making way, pinned against the walls of the narrow street. “And bearing His own cross, He went forth to that place which is called Calvary, but in Hebrew Golgotha.”

Thus, in the future, the Redeemer will appear with the cross in the clouds of heaven to sit in judgment upon the good and the bad. Those who will have accepted and carried their crosses in a spirit of sorrow and repentance over sin—like the Good Thief—they will find mercy and forgiveness. Those who will have baulked and bucked under their crosses, in an attempt to free themselves from their just punishment, showing no sorrow for sin, nor any desire to satisfy for their sins—like the bad thief—will perish and be judged unfavorably.

Words of Our Lady to Venerable Mary of Agreda
Many there are who wish to follow Christ and very few who truly dispose themselves to imitate Him; for as soon as they feel the sufferings of the Cross they cast it aside. Laborious exertions are very painful and averse to human nature according to the flesh; and the fruits of the spirit are more hidden and few guide themselves by the light. On this account there are so many among mortals, who, forgetful of the eternal truths, seek the flesh and the continual indulgence of its pleasures. They ardently seek honors and fly from injuries: they strive after riches, and contemn poverty; they long after pleasure and dread mortification. All these are enemies of the Cross of Christ and with dreadful aversion they fly from it, deeming it sheer ignominy, just like those who crucified Christ the Lord.

Another deceit has spread through the world: many imagine that they are following Christ their Master, though they neither suffer affliction nor engage in any exertion or labor. They are content with avoiding boldness in committing sins, and place all their perfection in a certain prudence or hollow self-love, which prevents them from denying anything to their will and from practicing any virtues at the cost of their flesh. They would easily escape this deception, if they would consider that my Son was not only the Redeemer, but their Teacher; and that He left in this world the treasures of his Redemption, not only as a remedy against its eternal ruin, but as a necessary medicine for the sickness of sin in human nature.

Although He well could do it, He chose not a life of softness and ease for the flesh, but one full of labors and pains; for He judged His instructions to be incomplete and insufficient to redeem man, if He failed to teach them how to overcome the demon, the flesh and their own self. He wished to inculcate, that this magnificent victory is gained by the Cross, by labors, penances, mortifications and the acceptance of contempt: all of which are the trademarks and evidences of true love and the special watchwords of the predestined.

Know the value of the holy Cross and the honor which it confers upon ignominies and tribulations; do thou embrace the Cross and bear it with joy, in imitation of my Son and thy Master. In this mortal life let thy glory be in tribulations, persecutions, contempt, infirmities, poverty, humiliation and in whatever is painful and averse to mortal flesh.

Mockery of Mockeries
“Mockery and reproach are of the proud” (Ecclesiasticus 27:31). Yet mockery is also a punishment that God uses and inflicts on those who reject Him or sin against Him. Holy Scripture gives examples of both situations.

Sometimes the wounds of the soul are more painful than the wounds of the body. Saul was a warrior, who endured a variety of physical pressures and sufferings in battle—all of which he overcame. Yet fear of failure and its resulting mockery, led Saul to suicide. When Saul saw that the battle was lost, “Saul said to his armor-bearer: Draw thy sword, and kill me: lest these uncircumcised come, and slay me, and mock at me. And his armor-bearer would not: for he was struck with exceeding great fear. Then Saul took his sword, and fell upon it” (1 Kings 31:4). It was not death that he feared, for he asked to be killed by his armor-bearer, and when he refused to kill Saul, Saul killed himself; but it was the potential mockery that galled him most.

Devil Uses Mockery
The devil, knowing the potential power of mockery, rouses people to mock those who are of God—as in the case of the Pharisees, who mocked Jesus as He died on the cross: “The chief priests mocking, said with the scribes one to another: ‘He saved others; himself he cannot save’” (Mark 15:31). When the Apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday, came out to preach with great zeal, “others mocking, said: ‘These men are full of new wine!’” (Acts 2:13).

God Will Mock the Sinner
Even God threatens to exploit this fear of mockery by using it upon those who despise Him, as is shown in the following passage: “O children, how long will you love childishness, and fools covet those things which are hurtful to themselves, and the unwise hate knowledge? Turn ye at My reproof: behold I will utter My spirit to you, and will show you My words. Because I called, and you refused: I stretched out My hand, and there was none that regarded.  You have despised all My counsels, and have neglected My reprehensions. I also will laugh in your destruction, and will mock, when that shall come to you which you feared. When sudden calamity shall fall on you, and destruction, as a tempest, shall be at hand: when tribulation and distress shall come upon you. Then shall they call upon Me, and I will not hear” (Proverbs 1:22-28).

And again in then Book of Wisdom we read of God trying to correct sinners through mockery:  “Wherefore Thou hast also greatly tormented them, who, in their life, have lived foolishly and unjustly, by the same things which they worshiped. For they went astray for a long time in the ways of error, holding those things for gods which are the most worthless among beasts, living after the manner of children without understanding.  Therefore Thou hast sent a judgment upon them as senseless children to mock them. But they, that were not amended by mockeries and reprehensions, experienced the worthy judgment of God” (Wisdom 12:23-26).

Mocked to Death
Our Lord was subjected to the vilest and cruelest mockeries, especially during His Passion and Death. “They placed also upon His sacred head a cap made of woven thorns, to serve Him as a crown. This cap was woven of thorn branches and in such a manner that many of the hard and sharp thorns would penetrate into the skull, some of them to the ears and others to the eyes. Hence, one of the greatest tortures, suffered by the Lord, was that of the crown of thorns. Instead of a scepter, they placed into His hands a contemptible reed. They also threw over His shoulders a violet colored mantle, something of the style of capes worn in churches; for such a garment belonged to the vestiture of a king. In this array of a mock king, the perfidious Jews decked out Him, who by His nature and by every right was the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Then all the soldiers, in the presence of the priests and Pharisees, gathered around Him and heaped upon Him their blasphemous mockery and derision. Some of them bent their knees and mockingly said to Him: ‘God save Thee, King of the Jews!’ Others buffeted Him; others snatched the cane from His hands and struck Him on His crowned head; others ejected their disgusting spittle upon Him; all of them, instigated by furious demons, insulted and affronted Him in different manners.” (The Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda).

Human Respect is a Slave of Mockery
He underwent this mockery bravely, to earn for us the grace to be able to endure our mockery and resist caving-in to the mockery and resist the insidious intentions of those who mock us. Our Lord knows the potential power of mockery and He knows the potential cowardice of Catholics when faced with mockery—human respect, which lurks behind all this, is always pushing us to comply with wishes of others just to avoid being mocked and ridiculed by them. We compromise ourselves just to protect ourselves from mockery and the hatred that lies behind the mockery. Yet, in doing so, we forget that hatred and mockery are part and parcel of being a follower of Christ: “If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated Me before you” (John 15:18). “They hated Me without cause” (John 15:25). “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death: and you shall be hated by all nations for My Name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved” (Matthew 10:22; Matthew 24:9).

Christians Who Make a Mockery of Christianity
How shameful it is for Christians to betray, or at least fail to confess Christ, for fear of words, mocking words, when Our Lord has endured terrible mockeries to bring about our salvation! What a mockery of the Faith, to seek to live in a false peace with those who are enemies of Christ, just because of a fear of speaking-out, a fear of being badly thought of, a fear of being ridiculed or mocked! “Fear not therefore … Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven. Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:31-37).

“O charity incomprehensible and exceeding all measure! O patience never seen or imagined among mortals! Who, O my Lord and God, since Thou art the true and mighty God, who could oblige Thee to suffer the humiliation of such unheard of torments, insults and blasphemies? On the contrary, O my God, who among men has not done many things which offend Thee and which should have caused Thee to refuse suffering and to deny them Thy favor? Who could ever believe all this, if we knew not of Thy infinite goodness. But now, since we see it and in firm Faith look upon such admirable blessings and miracles of love, where is our judgment? What effect upon us has the light of truth? What enchantment is this that we suffer, since, at the very sight of Thy sorrows, scourges, thorns, insults and affronts, we seek for ourselves, without the least shame or fear, the delights, the riches, the ease, the preferments and vanities of this world? Truly, great is the number of fools, since the greatest foolishness and dishonesty is to recognize a debt and be unwilling to pay it; to receive blessings and never give thanks for them; to have before one’s eyes the greater good, and despise it; to claim it for ourselves and make no use of it; to turn away and fly from life, and seek eternal death. The most innocent Jesus opened not his mouth in those great and many injuries” (The Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda).

Fear of Losing His Job Compromises the Truth
How many times do we not compromise the truth, keep silence, or do the ‘socially acceptable’ thing—just because we are afraid of standing-out from the crowd by standing-up for the truth and Christ. We know how things should be, but we are bullied into silence and compromise, or, like Pilate, through fear of reprisals from those above us, or even those below us.

“It seemed to Pilate that the spectacle of a man so ill-treated, as Jesus of Nazareth, would move and fill with shame the hearts of that ungrateful people. He therefore commanded Jesus to be brought from the pretorium to an open window, where all could see Him crowned with thorns, disfigured by the scourging and the ignominious vestiture of a mock king. Pilate himself spoke to the people, calling out to them: ‘Ecce Homo! Behold, the man!  See this Man, whom you hold as your enemy! What more can I do with Him than to have punished Him in this severe manner? You certainly have nothing more to fear from Him. I do not find any cause of death in Him!’  What this judge said was certainly the full truth; but in his own words he condemned his outrageous injustice, since, knowing and confessing that this Man was just and not guilty of death, he had nevertheless ordered Him to be tormented and punished, in such a way that, according to the natural course, He should have been killed many times over. O blindness of self-love! O hellish malice of estimating only the influence of those, who can confer, or take away, mere earthly dignities! How deeply do such motives obscure the reason, how much do they twist the course of justice, how completely do they pervert the greatest truths in judging of the just by the standards of the unjust! Tremble, ye judges of the earth, look to it that the sentences you render are not full of deceit; for you yourselves shall be judged and condemned by your unjust judgments! As the priests and Pharisees, in their eager and insatiable hostility, were irrevocably bent upon taking away the life of Christ our Savior, nothing but His Death would content or satisfy them; therefore they answered Pilate: ‘Crucify Him, Crucify Him!’” (The Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda).

As Our Lady of Good Success complained: "Those who should speak out, will remain silent!"  Our Lord foretells us that we will be put into situations where our Faith is laid on the line: “Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves. But beware of men. For they will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. And you shall be brought before governors, and before kings for My sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what to speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak. For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you” (Matthew 10:16-20).

“And I say to you, my friends: ‘Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do!’ But I will show you whom you shall fear: fear ye Him, Who after He hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell. Yea, I say to you, fear Him” (Luke 12:4-15)

WORDS OF OUR LADY

Pleasure Loving Christians
“My daughter, thou drawest upon thyself (and upon mortals) a severe judgment, if thou dost not overcome thy pusillanimity, ingratitude and baseness by meditating day and night on the Passion and Death of Jesus crucified. This is the great science of the saints, so little heeded by the worldly; it is the bread of life and the spiritual food of the little ones, which gives wisdom to them and the want of which starves the lovers of this proud world. In this science I wish thee to be studious and wise, for with it thou canst buy thyself all good things. My Son and Lord taught us this science when He said: ‘I am the way, the truth and the life: no one cometh to My Father except through Me’ (John 14:6). Tell me then, my daughter: if my Lord and Master has made Himself the life and the way for men through His Passion and Death, is it not evident that, in order to go that way and live up to this truth, they must follow Christ crucified, afflicted, scourged and affronted? Consider the ignorance of men who wish to come to the Father without following Christ, since they expect to reign with God without suffering, or imitating his Passion, yea without even a thought of accepting any part of his suffering and Death, or of thanking Him for it. They want it to procure for them the pleasures of this life as well as of eternal life, while Christ their Creator has suffered the most bitter pains and torments in order to enter heaven and to show them by his example how they are to find the way of light” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).

If You Won’t Do it—Heaven will Make You Do it
“Eternal rest is incompatible with the shame of not having duly labored for its attainment. He is not a true son of his father, who does not imitate him; nor he a good disciple, who does not follow his Master; nor he a good servant, who does not accompany his lord; nor do I count him a devoted child, who does not suffer with me and my divine Son. But our love for the eternal salvation of men obliges us, who see them forgetful of this truth and so adverse to suffering, to send them labors and punishments, so that if they do not freely welcome them, they may at least be forced to undergo them and so be enabled to enter upon the way of salvation. And yet even all this is insufficient, since their inclinations and their blind love of visible things detains them and makes them hard and heavy of heart; they rob them of remembrance and affection toward these higher things, which might raise them above themselves and above created things. Hence it comes, that men do not find joy in their tribulations, nor rest in their labors, nor consolation in their sorrows, nor any peace in adversities. For, altogether different from the saints who glory in tribulation as the fulfillment of their most earnest desires, they desire none of it and abhor all that is painful. In many of the faithful this ignorance goes still farther; for some of them expect to be distinguished by God’s most intimate love, others, to be pardoned without penance, others, to be highly favored. Nothing of all this will they attain, because they do not ask in the name of Christ the Lord and because they do not wish to imitate Him and follow Him in his Passion” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).

The same, which happened in the head Christ the Lord and Son of God, must happen to all the members of his Mystical Body, that is, to the just and predestined to the end of the world. For it would be monstrous to see the members incongruous with the Head; or children show no relation with the Father, or the disciples unlike their Master. If thou seest thy Redeemer, thy Spouse and thy Chief tormented, afflicted, crowned with thorns and saturated with reproaches and, at the same time, desirest to have a part in Him and be a member of his Mystical Body, it is not becoming, or even possible, that thou live steeped in the pleasures of the flesh. The Almighty would indeed have been powerful enough to exalt his predestined in this world, to give them riches and favors beyond those of others, to make them strong as lions for reducing the rest of mankind to their invincible power. But it was inopportune to exalt them in this manner, in order that men might not be led into the error of thinking that greatness consists in what is visible and happiness in earthly goods; lest, being induced to forsake virtues and obscure the glory of the Lord, they fail to experience the efficacy of divine grace and cease to aspire toward spiritual and eternal things. This is the science which I wish thee to study continually and in which thou must advance day by day, putting into practice all that thou learnest to understand and know” (Our Lady to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, The Mystical City of God).

Two-Sides of the Same Coin
The same action—for example fasting—can be either a penance or a mortification. It is a penance when it is intended to be a cleansing from past faults; it is a mortification when its chief purpose is to safeguard us against sin in the present and in the future, by weakening in us the love of pleasure, the source of our sins. In Holy Scripture, we find seven principal expressions that describe mortification in its different aspects.

(1) The word renouncement: “Every one of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). This presents mortification as a giving up of external goods in order to follow Christ as the Apostles did: “Leaving all things they followed Him” (Luke 5:11).

(2) Mortification is likewise an act of abnegation or self-renunciation: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself” (Luke 9:23)

(3) But mortification also has a positive aspect: it is an act that maims and cripples the inordinate inclinations of nature: “Mortify therefore your members” (Colossians 3:5).  “But if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live” (Romans 8:13)

(4) Furthermore, mortification is a crucifixion of the flesh and its lusts, whereby we attach, as it were, our faculties to the law of the Gospel, by devoting them to prayer and labor: “They that are Christ's have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences” (Galatians 5:24).

(5) This ‘crucifixion’, if it persists, produces a sort of death and burial whereby we seem to die completely to self and to be buried with Christ, to live with Him a new life: “For you are dead: and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:9-10).  “For we are buried together with Him by baptism into death” (Romans 6:4).

(6) To indicate this death, St. Paul makes use of another expression. Since in Baptism a new life is given us, supernatural life, the while our own natural life subsists with the threefold concupiscence, the Apostle, calling the latter the old man and the former regenerated man, declares that we must put off the old man and put on the new: “Stripping yourselves of the old man...and putting on the new” (Colossians 3:9-10).   

(7) And since this is not done without a struggle, he says that life is a fight: “I have fought the good fight” (2 Timothy 4:7) and that Christians are the athletes who chastise their body and bring it into subjection.

Withdraw from the World
Retirement from the world, or the solitude, in which God speaks to the heart: “I will draw her, and will lead her into the wilderness” (Osee 2:14), and the mortification of the senses are excellent means of drawing down grace; a good example is found in the conduct of the Apostles during the time preceding Pentecost. (The Catechism Explained, Spirago-Clarke).

Perpetual War
“We have a law in our members fighting against the law of our mind” (Romans 7:23). Our members that are upon the earth must accordingly be mortified (Colossians 3:5). The flesh is continually at war with the spirit, and so we must continually be at war with the flesh. He who does all that is allowed, will soon start to do what is not allowed (St. Augustine). But if we deny ourselves what is lawful, it will be easy for us to abstain from what is unlawful. (The Catechism Explained, Spirago-Clarke).

Even the Most Perfect Fall without Mortification
“The most perfect among us will fall into sin if he ceases to practice self-denial, as a field that is uncultivated produces a crop of weeds. Self-control enlightens the understanding. All that we deny to our carnal senses is repaid a hundredfold to our spiritual senses. “Let us,” says St. Basil, “stifle our fleshly desires, in order that our spiritual sense may become keener, and our interior vitality and peace be augmented.” Self-control fortifies the will. If the will be strong, carnal impulses are quickly subdued, and the temptations of the devil easily overcome. Mortify yourself in matters that are apparently of little moment; you will thereby learn to conquer where great things are at stake. The mortified man is like an oak, which will break, but will not bend; the unmortified is like a reed, shaken with the wind (Matthew 11:7). (The Catechism Explained, Spirago-Clarke).

Open Door to Passion
By self-control we acquire true peace of mind. There is no quiet in a house the door of which stands open to all comers, and there is no peace in the soul if the senses are not kept in custody. Our disorderly affections are like a storm at sea; they raise a tempest in the soul and perturb the mind. But if you know how to command the winds of passion, a marvelous peace and great calm will ensue. He who for the love of God has renounced all carnal lusts will enjoy the sweetest consolations of the Holy Spirit. He who is master of himself will not easily be provoked to wrath. Self-control is the parent of meekness and patience. (The Catechism Explained, Spirago-Clarke).

I Can't Take This Anymore!
We all feel that way at times during our life. Pressures and stresses pile up and it seems to us that we will crack and that we can no longer take any more. But there is a purpose to stresses and strains of life—they humble us and make us turn to God. For they who live in prosperity are accosted by many temptations of pride, of vain-glory, of desires of acquiring greater wealth, greater acceptance, greater honors, and greater pleasures.

Tribulations free us from these temptations, and make us humble and force upon us a state or situation in which the Lord wants placed us. Hence the Apostle says: “We are chastised by the Lord that we may not be condemned with this world” (1 Corinthians 11:32). This is what should give us some joy in our sorrows.

Joyful Sorrow!
As we already noted, there was a fair share of sorrow mixed into the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary; similarly there is a certain amount of joy mixed into the Sorrowful Mysteries—though that joy is your back-slapping, guffawing, “splitting-your-sides” worldly joy!  Our Lord is about enter into a soul-crushing, heart-rending, blood-sweating anguish. There is no human sorrow that even comes close to the sorrow that He would experience in His Agony in the Garden. He could well have died of the sorrow He was to experience—which is why “He began to grow sorrowful and to be sad. Then He said to them: 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death: stay you here, and watch with Me'" (Matthew 26:37-38).

Yes & No! I want, but I don’t want!
Our Lord had said that He had come to suffer and die for us—He even called St. Peter “Satan” when he tried to dissuade Our Lord from this future suffering and death. Yet, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Our Lord asks His Father to let the chalice of suffering pass Him by!

Yes…I do!
“From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples, that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the Ancients and Scribes and Chief Priests, and be put to death, and the third day rise again. And Peter, taking Him, began to rebuke Him, saying: ‘Lord, be it far from thee, this shall not be unto thee!’  Jesus, turning, said to Peter: ‘Go behind Me, Satan!  Thou art a scandal unto Me: because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men!’  Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me!  For he that will save his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for My sake, shall find it!” (Matthew 16:21-25).

No…I don’t!
Yet in the Garden of Gethsemane, plunged deep into His agony, with the Passion now knocking on the door, Our Lord struggles interiorly and begs His Father to remove the chalice of suffering from Him: “My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me!” (Matthew 26:39) … “Abba, Father! All things are possible to Thee! Remove this chalice from Me!” (Mark 14:36) … “Father, if Thou wilt, remove this chalice from Me!” (Luke 22:42).  This is a consolation to us in our own personal agonies—to see Our Lord revolted and disgusted and afraid of the chalice of suffering prepared for Him by Divine Providence. Nobody says that we have to experience thrilling goose-bumps and shed tears of joy amidst raucous laughter at the sight of our crosses. If we can, then it is only by the special grace of God. Usually we will be horrified, terrified, and will want to flee and hide.

No…I don’t!  But I will!
Yet this is not the end of it, but only the beginning. The primary focus of charity—which is what purifies the will—is God. Neighbor comes second to God, and the neighbor should be loved for God’s sake, not for some other sake.Our Lord knew the purpose of His life; He knew why He had come into this world: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). Salvation comes through suffering: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).

This is why the liturgy of Church says: “In the Cross is salvation!”  Eternal life comes through death to this world. “Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal” (John 12:24-25).

Love Drives Our Fear
Our Lord holds the key to Heaven in His hands—yet He has to unlock and walk through the doors of suffering and death to open the passage for us. He Himself does not need to suffer and die—He has not sinned: “Who did no sin” (1 Peter 2:22). We were the sinners, but we could not pay the debt for sin, nor the price of Heaven. We needed an infinite being to pay the infinite debt of sin. However, the price was a bloody price! When faced with making the first of many payments throughout His Passion, His human nature found the thought of it revolting and disgusting. He had come for this, but now He did not want to go through with it. He struggles within Himself. Ultimately, the noble side wins the struggle: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

Our Lord’s Interior Struggle
St. John of the Cross In the higher part of the soul reside the rational faculties. This part, which St. John of the Cross also calls the “spirit”, includes the will, the understanding, and the memory. St. John of the Cross does not give an explicit or formal name to the lower part of the soul. Hence, the whole man may be considered tripartite—a union of three elements.

Therefore, for St. John of the Cross, a person is made up of body and soul; with the soul being divided into (1) a lower sensitive or sensual part and (2) the upper or higher or spiritual part, called the spirit.

The disturbances which arise in the sensual or lower part of the soul, should be controlled by the will from the higher part of the soul—much like the lower members of a family, the children, are controlled by the will of the father of the family. St. John of the Cross writes that “the strength of the soul consists of the faculties, passions and appetites. All this strength is ruled by the will”—just as the strength of a family consists in many children, of different talents and personalities, all being unified and led by the commands of the father.

The will is purified through charity from all inordinate feelings. These feelings, or passions, include joy, hope, sorrow, and fear. The will cannot be ruled by these inferior passions, just like a father cannot be ruled by the feelings or passions of the children below him. It must be the love of God that rules the father, and he must not let himself be ruled by the love of his children: “He that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:37). “Obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29), can easily be paraphrased as “Listen to God, rather than your children.”  The primary focus of charity—which is what purifies the will—is God. Neighbor comes second to God, and the neighbor should be loved for God’s sake, not for some other sake.

How Does Jesus Overcome the Struggle?
Let us first read the accounts that we have of His struggle:

St. Matthews reports it thus: “And going a little further, He fell upon His face, praying, and saying: ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me! Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt!’  And He came to His disciples, and found them asleep, and He said to Peter: ‘What? Could you not watch one hour with Me?  Watch ye, and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh weak!’  Again the second time, He went and prayed, saying: ‘My Father, if this chalice may not pass away, but I must drink it, Thy will be done.  And He cometh again and findeth them sleeping: for their eyes were heavy. [44] And leaving them, He went again: and He prayed the third time, saying the selfsame word” (Matthew 26:39-44).

St. Mark gives this account: “And they came to a farm called Gethsemane. And He said to His disciples: ‘Sit you here, while I pray!’  And He taketh Peter and James and John with Him; and He began to fear and to be heavy.  And He said to them: ‘My soul is sorrowful even unto death! Stay you here, and watch!’  And when He was gone forward a little, He fell flat on the ground; and He prayed, that if it might be, the hour might pass from Him.  And He said: ‘Abba, Father! All things are possible to Thee! Remove this chalice from Me!  But not what I will, but what Thou wilt!’  And He cometh, and findeth them sleeping. And He said to Peter: ‘Simon! Sleepest thou? Couldst thou not watch one hour?  Watch ye, and pray that you enter not into temptation! The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak!’  And going away again, He prayed, saying the same words.  And when He returned, He found them again asleep, (for their eyes were heavy,) and they knew not what to answer Him.  And He cometh the third time, and said to them: ‘Sleep ye now, and take your rest! It is enough! The hour is come! Behold the Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of sinners!  Rise up, let us go! Behold, he that will betray me is at hand!’” (Mark 14:32-42).

St. Luke has the following version:  “And going out, He went, according to His custom, to the Mount of Olives. And His disciples also followed Him.  And when He was come to the place, He said to them: ‘Pray, lest ye enter into temptation!’  And He was withdrawn away from them a stone's cast; and kneeling down, He prayed, saying: ‘Father, if Thou wilt, remove this chalice from Me! But yet, not My will, but Thine be done.  And there appeared to Him an angel from Heaven, strengthening Him. And being in an agony, He prayed the longer.  And His sweat became as drops of blood, trickling down upon the ground.  And when He rose up from prayer, and was come to His disciples, He found them sleeping for sorrow.  And He said to them: ‘Why sleep you? Arise! Pray, lest you enter into temptation!’” (Luke 22:39-46).

Jesus Overcomes By Prayer
► “Going a little further” … “He was withdrawn away from them a stone's cast” — We learn from this to withdraw from the world and go to God in prayer. The Pharisees would pray publicly and ostentatiously, so that they would be esteemed by other people as being very religious: “And when ye pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, that love to stand and pray in the synagogues and corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men: Amen I say to you, they have received their reward” (Matthew 6:5).

► “Sit you here, while I pray” … “Kneeling down, He prayed” … “He fell flat on the ground” … “He fell upon His face, praying” -- Humility is essential to prayer: “God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble” (James 4:6). Kneeling before someone, or prostrating oneself before someone, is a sign of humility. Our Lord shows us this humble posture in His prayer. If we refuse to pray on our knees before God, rest assured that God will do something in our lives to bring us to our knees! Or even make us fall flat on our face!

► “Again the second time” … “going away again, He prayed, saying the same words” … “And He prayed the third time, saying the selfsame word” … “Being in an agony, He prayed the longer” -- Perseverance is needed in prayer. Our Lord Himself said “that we ought always to pray, and not to faint, saying: ‘There was a judge in a certain city, who feared not God, nor regarded man. And there was a certain widow in that city, and she came to him, saying: ‘Avenge me of my adversary!’  And he would not for a long time. But afterwards he said within himself: ‘Although I fear not God, nor regard man, yet because this widow is troublesome to me, I will avenge her, lest continually coming she weary me!” (Luke 18:1). “Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go to him at midnight, and shall say to him: ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, because a friend of mine is come off his journey to me, and I have not what to set before him!’  And he, from within, should answer, and say: ‘Trouble me not! The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed! I cannot rise and give thee!’  Yet if he shall continue knocking, I say to you, although he will not rise and give him, because he is his friend; yet, because of his importunity, he will rise, and give him as many as he needeth!” (Luke 11:5-8).

► “There appeared to Him an angel from Heaven, strengthening Him” — “For He hath given His angels charge over Thee; to keep Thee in all thy ways” (Psalm 90:11). “He was in the desert forty days and forty nights, and was tempted by Satan; and He was with beasts, and the angels ministered to Him” (Mark 1:13). God has given us angels to be our protectors and guides—they are there to be used and not abused. Just as the Angel of Portugal told the three children at Fatima to pray and pray very much, so too do the angels seek to lead us down good and holy paths, woe to those who neglect or ignore their angels, “For the Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels: and then will he render to every man according to his works” (Matthew 16:27).

► “He came to His disciples, and found them asleep” … “He cometh, and findeth them sleeping” … “What? Could you not watch one hour with Me?  Watch ye, and pray that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh weak!” … Most of the Fathers, Doctors and theologians who commentate these passages, link the sleep of the Apostles to lukewarmness and sloth in prayer. Lukewarm prayer is an abomination to God, who threatens the lukewarm with the indignity of being vomited out of God’s mouth. The devil knows the power of prayer, and so seeks to reduce its power by dragging us down into lukewarm prayer and activity.  Our Lord rebukes the sleepiness of His favorite Apostles — and demands an improvement, which they fail to give. Yet to whom more is given, more is expected in return.

► “Why sleep you? Arise! Pray, lest you enter into temptation!” — We fall asleep or we are put to sleep by the things of the world. These distractions  hypnotize us and lull our souls to sleep with regard to spiritual things, but keep us alert to the things of the world. We slumber in our sins, failing to see their true gravity or dreaming that they are not as serious as they really are! “O Lord my God. Enlighten my eyes that I never sleep in death” (Psalm 12:4). “They have slept their sleep; and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands” (Psalm 75:6). Loud noises awake people from their sleep—God will make plenty of loud noises if we fail in our duty of praying to Him.

► “Leaving them, He went again and He prayed” -- If people will not pray with us, then we leave them behind. This reminds us of a dream of St. John Bosco, where he was suddenly told (in the dream) to take his boys and go up the mountain. Some boys were lagging behind and refused to come up the mountain (a symbol of God and prayer). St. John Bosco wanted to go back for them, but the angel told him to leave them behind. Don Bosco protested that the boys would be lost—but the angel said that they had been told enough times already. Don Bosco relucantly looked at them a final time, and sorrowfully left them behind. Sometimes patience can be a vice and an excuse for avoiding unpleasant action, which makes us hide behind a false charity.

The Danger of Presumption
We read, in the Gospel, the short simple account of Mary and Joseph's mistaken presumption, that Jesus was with the other spouse or with friends and acquaintances. He wasn't! They had presumed so, but they were dead wrong! Similarly, in today’s world there are many who think or ‘feel’ that Jesus is with them, with their spouses, families, friends and acquaintances—but they are dead wrong! When they are dead and gone, it is only then that they will see how dead wrong they were. The Israelites, the Chosen People of God, presumed that God was with them and that everything was ‘hunky-dory’--“But with most of them God was not well pleased” (1 Corinthians 10:5). St. Paul further explains:

"With most of them God was not well pleased"
“For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea.  And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea: and did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.  But with most of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown [by giving in to temptation and sin] in the desert.  Now these things were done in a figure of us, that we should not covet evil things as they also coveted.  Neither become ye idolaters, as some of them, as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.’ Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty thousand.  Neither let us tempt Christ: as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents.  Neither do you murmur: as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them in figure: and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:1-12).

Who Are You Going To Believe?
If there could be said to be an underlying sin, other than pride, that infests the modern world today, then a very serious case can be made out against the sin of Presumption.  It is an anomaly to see sin increasing in the world by leaps and bounds; to see Catholics falling-away from going to Mass, Holy Communion and Confession—while at the same time we see this insane presumption, epitomized by our ‘funerals in white’, with talk of everyone being ‘saved’ and going to Heaven “in a jiffy” or “in a flash”, whereas Our Lady is telling us that many souls are going to Hell (and that was back in the less sinful days of 1917!!). If we are so good that everyone is going to Heaven, why is Our Lady threatening us phrases like: “Woe to the inhabitants of the earth!  God will exhaust His wrath upon them, and no one will be able to escape so many afflictions together.  The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events.  Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God”? Someone has got it all wrong! Either we are wrong in presuming we are so good, or God is wrong in presuming that we are so bad! I know who I am likely to believe!

Presumption, besides being a sin against Hope, is ultimately also a sin against Truth, Justice and Charity.

Presumption Sins Against Truth
Presumption sins against Truth by holding that Heaven will open it gates to any sinner and to an unlimited number of sins. This is akin to Martin Luther’s statement of “Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly.” If God is universally forgiving, why does Christ say: “Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!” (Matthew 7:13-14). St. Alphonsus Liguori tells us: “The Devil brings sinners to Hell by closing their eyes to the [truth and] dangers of perdition. He first blinds them [to the truth], and then leads them, with himself, to eternal torments. If, then, we wish to be saved, we must continually pray to God in the words of the blind man in the Gospel: ‘Lord, that I may see!’ Give me light: make me see the way in which I must walk in order to save my soul, and to escape the deceits of the enemy of salvation” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons, Quinquagesima).

St. Alphonsus continues: “Place before your eyes the delusion by which the devil tempts men to sin and to persevere in sin, that you may know how to guard yourselves against his deceitful artifices. To understand these delusions better, let us imagine the case of a young man who, seized by some passion, lives in sin, the slave of Satan. ‘My son,’ I say to him, ‘what sort of life do you lead? If you continue to live in this manner, how will you be able to save your soul?’ 

"But, behold! The devil, on the other hand, says to him: ‘Why should you be afraid of being lost? Indulge your passions for the present: you will afterwards confess your sins, and thus all shall be remedied!’  Behold the net by which the devil drags so many souls into Hell [Presumption]: ‘Indulge your passions: you will hereafter make a good confession.’

"But, in reply, I say, that in the meantime you lose your soul. Yes; you cast your soul into Hell; because according to the present order of providence, for every mortal sin you commit, your name is written among the number of the damned. But you say: ‘I hope to recover God’s grace by making a good confession!’  And what if you should not recover it, what shall be the consequences? To make a good confession, a true sorrow for sin is necessary, and this sorrow is the gift of God: if He does not give it, will you not be lost for ever?” (St. Alphonsus Liguori, Sunday Sermons, Quinquagesima). 

“Be not deceived, God is not mocked!” (Galatians 6:7). “By this we know that we have known Him, if we keep His commandments. He who saith that he knoweth Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and then truth is not in him” (1 John 2:3-4).

Presumption Sins Against Justice
“It is presumption to commit sin boldly, pleading that God easily pardons sinners. Our confidence in God's mercy must always go hand in hand with our knowledge of His justice” (Catechism: My Catholic Faith, ch. 97). We must not tempt God by exposing ourselves to sin and its occasions, in the false hope that God will protect and save us; this is presuming on God's mercy. For in effect, we are offending God and expecting to be rewarded for it with the gift of Heaven! That is unjust! It is not only unjust, it is insane! It is a sin against Justice. The definition of Justice is giving another whatever is their due, whether it be a reward for good, or a punishment for evil. We can be sure of God's help and His reward of Heaven, only if we try our best to do His will. "He that loveth danger shall perish in it" (Ecclesiasticus 3:27).  "Unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish" (Luke 13:3).

This is well and thoroughly explained by God in chapter 18 of the Book of Ezechiel, leaving no room for presumption:

“The soul that sinneth, the same shall die. But if the wicked do penance for all his sins, which he hath committed, and keep all My commandments, and do judgment and justice, living he shall live and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done: in his justice, which he hath wrought, he shall live. Is it My will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways and live? But if the just man turn himself away from his justice, and do iniquity, according to all the abominations which the wicked man useth to work, shall he live? All his justices which he hath done, shall not be remembered: in the prevarication, by which he hath prevaricated, and in his sin, which he hath committed, in them he shall die.

“And you have said: ‘The way of the Lord is not right!’ Hear ye, therefore, O house of Israel: Is it my way that is not right, and are not rather your ways perverse? For when the just turneth himself away from his justice, and committeth iniquity, he shall die therein: in the injustice that he hath wrought he shall die. And when the wicked turneth himself away from his wickedness, which he hath wrought, and doeth judgment and justice: he shall save his soul alive.  Because he considereth and turneth away himself from all his iniquities which he hath wrought, he shall surely live, and not die. And the children of Israel say: 'The way of the Lord is not right!' Are not my ways right, O house of Israel, and are not rather your ways perverse? Therefore will I judge every man according to his ways, O house of Israel, saith the Lord God. Be converted, and do penance for all your iniquities: and iniquity shall not be your ruin.  Cast away from you all your transgressions, by which you have transgressed, and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit: and why will you die, O house of Israel? For I desire not the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God, return ye and live” (Ezechiel 18:20-32).

Presumption Sins Against Charity
Jesus said: “If you love Me, keep My Commandments … He that hath My Commandments, and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me ... If any one love Me, he will keep My word … He that loveth Me not, keepeth not My words” (John 14:15; 14:21-24). Therefore, Presumption sins against Charity, for through Presumption a sinner refuses to keep then words and Commandments, but breaks them and tramples upon them. Where is the love in that? “He that keepeth His word, in him in very deed the charity of God is perfected; and by this we know that we are in Him” (1 John 2:3-5).

Hope Without Virtue Is Presumption
Only he, who carries out God’s will, can hope for the good things promised by Christ. “Not every one that saith to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he that doth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Hence the sinner can hope in God, only when he really repents and is willing to reform his life. Otherwise that hope is false—and that false hope goes by the alias of “Presumption”.

“Hope without virtue is presumption,” says St. Bernard. If the wicked do penance for their sins and do judgment and justice, God will no more remember their sins (Ezechiel 18:21). Manasses, King of Israel, led his people into idolatry and put the prophets to death. For this he was given over to his enemies and led in chains to Babylon. There he repented and promised amendment. God then set him free, and gave him back his kingdom, and Manasses destroyed the temples of the idols and did much good (2 Paralipomenon 33).

The just man may hope that God will provide for all his needs; yet he must exert himself to gain those things which he hopes for from God. Christ's words are: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all other things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33).

We are God’s servants. As St. John of the Cross says: “It is our affair to serve the Lord; it is His to provide for us.” No one who has been faithful to God’s commands has ever been abandoned by Him (Ecclesiasticus  2:12). “We are unjust to God if we do not place great confidence in Him,” says St. Augustine. “Cast all your care upon the Lord, for He hath care of you” (1 Peter 5:7). We must not, however, desist from exerting ourselves; we must use those gifts which God has given to us; for God will give us only what we cannot obtain by our own exertions. In the words of St. Charles Borromeo: “We must hope for the best and do our best.”

“To expect help and to do nothing,” says St. Francis de Sales, “is to tempt God.” We ought to employ the natural means at our disposal; St. Paul, for example, though he had the gift of healing sickness, recommended Timothy to take a little wine for the sake of his health (1 Timothy 5:23). And all this is true of any kind of necessity: “Help yourself and God will help you.”

Sword and Service
Though this mystery—the Presentation of the Infant  Jesus in the Temple—is part of the Joyful Mysteries, it also contains more that in its fair share of sorrow. In fact, all of the Joyful Mysteries have a kernel of sorrow within them—for it is not through joy and celebration that we are saved, but through sorrow and suffering. The joys are rewards for suffering. No work, no pay! Modern man foolishly likes to focus on the joyful things of God, while neglecting that which brings sorrow. They want to paid for doing nothing! It is much like the Protestant notion of salvation—“Just believe and you are saved!” But truth is, as the Catholic Church teaches: “Faith without works is dead!” (James 2:20).

Work Your Way to Heaven
The actual full passage is: “What shall it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath Faith, but hath not works? Shall Faith be able to save him?  And if a brother or sister be naked, and want daily food: and one of you say to them: ‘Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled!’ yet give them not those things that are necessary for the body, what shall it profit?  So Faith also, if it have not works, is dead in itself.  But some man will say: ‘Thou hast Faith, and I have works!’ Show me thy Faith without works; and I will show thee, by works, my Faith.  Thou believest that there is one God. Thou dost well: the devils also believe and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that Faith without works is dead?  Was not Abraham our father justified by works, offering up Isaac his son upon the altar?  Seest thou, that Faith did cooperate with his works; and by works Faith was made perfect?  Do you see that by works a man is justified; and not by Faith only? For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also Faith without works is dead” (James 2:13-26).

In the Service of God
The Faith of St. Simeon and St. Anna the Prophetess was vibrant. “Behold there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Ghost was in him. And he had received an answer from the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. And he came by the Spirit into the Temple. And when His parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, he also took Him into his arms, and blessed God, and said: ‘Now thou dost dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word in peace; because my eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples: a Light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel.’ 

“And His father and mother were wondering at those things which were spoken concerning Him. And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary His mother: ‘Behold this Child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted; and thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed.’

“And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser; she was far advanced in years, and had lived with her husband seven years from her virginity.  And she was a widow until fourscore and four years; who departed not from the Temple, by fastings and prayers serving night and day.  Now she, at the same hour, coming in, confessed to the Lord; and spoke of Him to all that looked for the redemption of Israel.  And after they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their city Nazareth. And the Child grew, and waxed strong, full of wisdom; and the grace of God was in Him” (Luke 2:25-40).

Eyes of Faith
With eyes of Faith, Simeon and Anna  saw, in the Infant Jesus, the anointed One of God. They were among the few: “For many are called, but few chosen” (Matthew 20:16).” “O foolish people and without understanding: who have eyes, and see not” (Jeremias 5:21). Simeon and Anna could see with eyes of Faith because they worked at their Faith. Tradition tells us that Simeon was one of the priests of the Temple—but the other priests were not given the grace of seeing God’s Chosen One in the baby brought to the Temple that morning: “For many are called, but few chosen.” Anna was assiduous in practicing her Faith: “who departed not from the Temple, by fastings and prayers serving night and day.”  She was a perfect example of what Our Lady was seeking Fatima—someone who prayed much; did much penance; and was frequently in the presence of God. Both Simeon and Anna were strong in the Faith and strong in their service of God and the practice of their religion.

Comatosed Faith of Today
The words of Our Lord and Our Lady, concerning Faith, are worrying: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8). “The Christian spirit will rapidly decay, extinguishing the precious light of Faith until it reaches the point that there will be an almost total and general corruption of customs ... The small number of souls, who hidden, will preserve the treasures of the Faith and practice virtue” (Our Lady of Good Success). “Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith little by little, even in those dedicated to God.  Rome will lose Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist. Several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls” (Our Lady of La Salette).

Most souls today, who are not yet among the majority of Catholics who have fallen away, have a comatosed Faith. Their Faith, or what remains of it, hangs by a thread—more by the merciful grace of God, rather than by any industry, effort, exertion on their part. If this is not our case, then thank God, remembering that “there but for the grace of God go I” — “Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12).

Seed of Faith
In Baptism, we received the seed of Faith—much like the men in the Gospel were given talents by their master. Some worked with their talents and those talents produced much fruit. One man buried his talent and did nothing with it.  This can be symbolic of those who do nothing much with their Faith—those who have Faith without works. They do very little for God—they live more for themselves than they do for God. God seems to be an afterthought in their lives; more like an insurance agent to whom we must reluctantly pay our dues or fees. Of these minimalists or comatosed souls, Our Lord says: “This people honoureth Me with their lips: but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8). These souls may want to go to Heaven, but they don’t want to pay the price of the ticket.

Some Seeds Are Fruitful, Some Seeds Are Fruitless
Not all seeds of Faith come to fruition, as the following parable explains:

“The sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And other some fell upon a rock: and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And other some fell among thorns, and the thorns growing up with it, choked it. And other some fell upon good ground; and being sprung up, yielded fruit a hundredfold. Saying these things, he cried out: He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. And His disciples asked Him what this parable might be. To whom he said: ‘To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to the rest in parables, that seeing they may not see, and hearing may not understand. Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. And they by the way side are they that hear; then the devil cometh, and taketh the word out of their heart, lest believing they should be saved.  Now they upon the rock, are they who when they hear, receive the word with joy: and these have no roots; for they believe for a while, and in time of temptation, they fall away.  And that which fell among thorns, are they who have heard, and going their way, are choked with the cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and yield no fruit. But that on the good ground, are they who in a good and perfect heart, hearing the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit in patience” (Luke 8:5-15).

Take Up the Sword in the Service of God
That bringing forth of fruit is done through suffering and since Mary brings forth the fruit of her womb, Jesus, she will have to suffer much. There is no Heaven without the Cross—for the Modernists and Liberals of this world, maybe—but not in reality. Theirs is a false dream that they dream as they skip along the broad road that leads downhill to the wide gate of perdition. Let us take up our daily crosses and see Jesus in them, as Simeon and Anna saw the key to Heaven in the babe they held in their arms. “The kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away” (Matthew 11:12).

Who Would Dare?!!
Who would ever dream or dare of preparing for the birth of such an important person—as Jesus Christ, the Son of God, undoubtedly was—in the way that God the Father prepared it for His Son? In the eyes of the world it would be termed as imprudence, carelessness, insensitivity, negligence, madness, cruelty! For a God, Who can do anything, to stand by and seemingly do little or nothing—is something incomprehensible to human reason! Yet, as God tells us: “’My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts” (Isaias 55:8-9). This birth, this party, this celebration, was not going to be one that would meet with approval in the eyes of the world—but then “God is not a respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34). Jesus Christ starts His visible life as He means to go on—at odds with the world and the world’s view of things.

God Made Mary Poor
Divine Providence made Mary what she was: “He that is mighty, hath done great things to me” (Luke 1:49). She can say with St. Paul: “By the grace of God, I am what I am; and His grace in me hath not been void” (1 Corinthians 15:10). With Job she can say: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done: blessed be the Name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). She is a masterpiece, without the stain of Original Sin, because God made her that way. She is poor, without the stain of greed or avarice, because God made her that way. She is a ‘poor masterpiece’ or a ‘masterpiece of poverty’ because that’s how God wants her to be! “He hath shown might in His arm: He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.  He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble” (Luke 1:51-52).

We read in The Mystical City of God, by the Venerable Mary of Agreda, of “her humble cottage and her poor little oratory” and we read of “her poor table and her humble meals.” Her clothing was also poor: “Her garments were humble and poor, yet clean, of a dark silvery hue, somewhat like the color of ashes, and they were arranged and worn without pretense, but with the greatest modesty and propriety.” And that she preferred to associate with poor and needy: “She hastened to find and visit the poor, infirm and afflicted, helping them and consoling them, and curing their sicknesses” (Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda, Vol. 2).

Magnifying God, Not the World, Nor Self!
Her focus was God, not the world—she truly loved God with her whole heart, her whole mind, her whole soul and her whole strength. She “magnified” God, seeking to get a better knowledge of Him; seeking to better love Him; seeking to make Him known and loved by others. It was God that gave her joy, not the world: “And Mary said: My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46-47).

God repaid this attention and love of Mary’s: “He hath regarded the humility of His handmaid” (Luke 1:48). Humility is what endears us to God—most people are trying to be somebody, God wants us to be a nobody! Jesus would say to Sister Josefa Menendez: “Do not worry, Josefa, about what you can and what you cannot do. You know very well that you can do nothing ... Josefa. I want you to be nothing, that I may be All … Little still implies some being, but, Josefa, you are less than that, you are nothingness personified!” (Words of Love, Fr. Gottemoller).

Our Lady, speaking to the Venerable Mary of Agreda, said: “I wish also that thou pay special attention to that which moved and incited me most to perform all acts of humility; namely, the thought that my divine Son came in the guise of humility in order to teach the world this virtue in word and example, to inculcate the hate of vanity and pride and rooting out its seed sown by Lucifer among mortals in the first sin. His Majesty gave me such a deep knowledge of how much He is pleased with this virtue, that in order to be allowed to perform only one of the acts mentioned by thee, such as sweeping the floor or kissing the feet of the poor, I would have been ready to suffer the greatest torments of the world. Thou wilt never find words to express the love for humility which I had, nor to describe its excellence and nobility” (Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda, Vol. 2).

Mary Was Hungry For God, Not the World!
He regarded the emptiness of her soul with regard to the world. She was not feeding her soul the banal and vain things of the world, she wanted to feed her soul with the precious things of Heaven: “Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Her “conversation is in Heaven” (Philippians 3:20). To the Venerable Mary of Agreda, she said: “Continue to exercise thyself in the contempt of all things belonging to human vanity, and esteem them as odious and execrable in the eyes of the Most High. Let thy thoughts always be of the noblest and thy conversation in Heaven and with the angelic spirits” (Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda, Vol. 2).

Heaven was her treasure—she was hungry for Heaven, not earth.  “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven: where neither the rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through, nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also” (Matthew 6:21).  Because she emptied herself of the things of the earth, and was hungry for God and the things of Heaven, God filled her soul: “He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty away” (Luke 1:53).

The Rich Man Wet Away Sad and Empty
A case in point where “the rich He hath sent empty away”, was the incident with the rich young man, who had asked Jesus what he had to do to be saved. Jesus said that the first level, or beginning of perfection, was to keep the Commandments of God—which the young man said he had kept since childhood. The next level of perfection was to empty himself of the things of the world, selling them, giving the proceeds as an alms to the poor and then leaving everything to follow Jesus—this made the young rich man suddenly turn sad and he left Jesus, for he had “great possessions”.

“And behold one came and said to Jesus: ‘Good master, what good shall I do that I may have life everlasting?’ Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.’  He said to Jesus: ‘Which?’ And Jesus said: ‘Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’  The young man saith to Him: ‘All these I have kept from my youth, what is yet wanting to me?’  Jesus said to him: ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come follow Me!’  And when the young man had heard this word, he went away sad: for he had great possessions.  Then Jesus said to His disciples: ‘Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 19:16-24).

Poor Mary!
“Mary with her husband belonged to the poorest, humblest, and the most insignificant people in this world: they had wrought no public miracles or prodigies, nor had they attracted the esteem or reverence of any of their fellowmen” (Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda, Vol. 2).

“Humility, meekness, obedience and poverty, are the weapons of Our Lord’s warfare; far from Him are the empty show and vanity maintained by the riches of the world. He came disguised and hidden in the outward appearance of lowliness; He chose a poor Mother” (Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda, Vol. 2).

“It happened also, not a few times, that the heavenly Lady and her spouse found themselves so poor and destitute of means that they were in want of the necessaries of life; for they were most generous in their gifts to the poor, and they were never anxious to store up beforehand food or clothing, as is wont with the children of this world in their faint-hearted covetousness” (Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda, Vol. 2).

Our Lady Embraces Lady Poverty
“Our Lady blessed the Lord for this poverty, as far as it affected her, while she asked the Most High to supply the needs of St. Joseph, as being a just and holy man and well worthy of this favor of the Almighty. The Lord did not forget his poor entirely, for while He permitted them to exercise virtues and gain merits, He also gave them nourishment in opportune time. This His Providence provided in various ways. Sometimes He moved the hearts of their neighbors and acquaintances to bring some gratuitous gift, or pay some debt. At other times, and more ordinarily, St. Elisabeth sent them assistance from her home; for ever since Mary had stayed in her house, this devoted matron insisted on sending them a gift from time to time, which the humble Princess always acknowledged by sending in return some work of her hands” (Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda, Vol. 2).

Our Lady explains: “I and my holy spouse, Joseph, were poor, and at times we suffered great wants; but none of them were powerful enough to engender within our hearts the contagion of avarice. We concerned ourselves entirely with the glory of the Most High, relying wholly on His most faithful and tender care. This was what pleased Him so much; since He supplied our wants in various manners, even commanding the angels to help us and prepare for us our nourishment. I do not wish to say that the mortals should yield to laziness and negligence; on the contrary, it is just that all should labor; and doing nothing is also a great and very reprehensible fault. Neither leisure nor solicitude must be disorderly; nor should the creature trust in his own strength; nor should he smother the Divine Love in anxiety; nor seek more than is necessary for a temperate life. Neither should he fear that the Divine Providence will fail to supply what is necessary; nor should he be troubled, or lose hope, when the Creator seems to delay His assistance. If men would observe this rule of action nobody would be without the assistance of the Lord, Who is a true Father, and neither would the poor be led into sin by poverty, nor the rich by prosperity” (Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda, Vol. 2).

Temptations to Avarice
Seeing her great poverty, Satan dispatched devils, with instructions that they “were to tempt her, who was the most poor of human kind, to the sin of avarice. They offered to her great riches, gold, silver, and most precious gems and in order that these might not seem empty promises, thy placed before her a great quantity of these riches, although they were only apparent; for they thought that they could exert greater influence on her will by actually presenting these objects before her. They accompanied this offer with many deceitful words and told her that God had sent her all this for distribution among the poor. When they saw that all this had no effect upon her, they changed their tactics and urged, that since she was so holy, it was a great wrong that she should remain so poor. It was more reasonable that she possess these riches, than that they remain in the hands of wicked sinners, for this would be an injustice and a disarrangement of the Divine Providence that the just be visited with poverty, while God’s wicked enemies abound in riches and affluence. In vain the net is spread before the eyes of the bird in its flight, says the wise man.

“This was true of all the temptations of our sovereign Queen; but the malice of the serpent was much more preposterous in regard to this temptation of avarice, for this Phoenix of poverty was so far removed from the earth, and winged her flight so far above that of even the seraphim, that such a vile and contemptible snare was entirely in vain. The most prudent Lady, although she possessed divine wisdom, never undertook to argue with these enemies, as in truth nobody should; for they battle against the manifest truth and will not admit defeat, even when they must acknowledge its effects. The most holy Mary made use of some words of the Holy Scriptures and repeated them with serene humility” (Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda, Vol. 2).

Boy, Are We Tempted!
For us today, the temptations to avarice are immense—never has the world offered so much as it offers today. We are dazzled by its ‘treasures’ and we fall for their seductions, that draw us away from time with God to spend time with and among these false idols. Our Lady predicted that this would be the cause of the loss of many souls: “The love of carnal pleasures will be spread all over the earth … People will think of nothing but amusement … there will be unbridled luxury which, acting thus to snare the rest into sin, will conquer innumerable frivolous souls who will be lost” (Our Lady of Good Success & Our Lady of La Salette).

Worldliness, human respect, pressure from family, relatives and friends—try to make us “keep up with the Jones’.” The sheer weight of numbers skipping down the broad road to the wide gate of pleasurable perdition (Matthew 7:13) is greatly overwhelming and we feel powerless to resist. But resist we must! Just as Our Lord resisted Peter, when Peter tried to talk Jesus out of the road of suffering. We must say to our family, relatives and friends, what Jesus said to Peter: “Go behind Me, Satan, thou art a scandal unto Me: because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men” (Matthew 16:23). Our Lord warned that “a man's enemies shall be they of his own household. (Matthew 10:36), adding “He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew 10:37).

Joseph Sad to Be Poor!
When Joseph discovered that Mary was to be the Mother of God, he said: “Is it possible, that in thy most chaste arms I shall see my God and Redeemer? That I shall hear Him speak, and touch Him, and that my eyes shall look upon His divine face? That He shall live with us, and that we shall eat with Him at the same table, and that we shall speak and converse with Him? Whence comes to me this good fortune which nobody can ever deserve? O how much do I regret that I am so poor! Would I possessed the richest palaces for His entertainment and many treasures to offer Him!” (Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda, Vol. 2).

Our Lady answered consolingly, yet with a fraternal correction: “My master and spouse, there is abundant reason that thy desires extend to all things possible for the reception of thy Creator; but this great God and Lord does not wish to enter into the world in the pomp of ostentatious riches and royal majesty. He has need of none of these, nor does He come from Heaven for such vanities. He comes to redeem the world and to guide men on the path of eternal life; and this is to be done by means of humility and poverty. In these He wishes to be born, live and die, in order to destroy, in the hearts of men, the fetters of covetousness and pride, which keep them from blessedness. On this account He chose our poor and humble house, and desired us not to be rich in apparent, deceitful and transitory goods, which are but vanity of vanities and affliction of spirit, and which oppress and obscure the understanding.” (Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda, Vol. 2).

Finding More Poverty in Bethlehem
Before the journey to Bethlehem, for the birth of her Son, Mary said to Joseph: “We will make this journey as poor people in the Name of the Lord: for the Most High will not despise poverty, which He came to seek with so much love.”

“Mary and  Joseph departed from Nazareth for Bethlehem alone: poor and humble in the eyes of the world. None of the mortals thought more of them than what was warranted by their poverty and humility. But O the wonderful secrets of the Most High, hidden to the proud, and unpenetrated by the wisdom of the flesh! They did not walk alone, poor or despised, but prosperous, rich and in magnificence. They carried with them the Treasure of Heaven, the Deity itself.”

“It was nine o’clock at night, when Joseph, full of bitter and heartrending sorrow, returned to Mary and said: “My Lady, my heart is broken with sorrow at the thought of not only not being able to shelter thee as thou deservest and as I desire! For I cannot offer thee  any kind of protection from the weather, or a place of rest—a thing rarely or never denied to the most poor and despised in the world. No doubt Heaven, in thus allowing the hearts of men to be so unmoved, as to refuse us a night-lodging, conceals some mystery. I now remember, my Lady, that, outside the city walls, there is a cave, which serves as a shelter for shepherds and their flocks. Let us seek it out; perhaps it is unoccupied, and we may there expect some assistance from Heaven, since we receive none from men on earth” (Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda, Vol. 2).

Our Lady answered: “My spouse and my master, let not thy kindest heart be afflicted, because the ardent wishes, which the love of thy Lord excites in thee, cannot be fulfilled. Since I bear Him in my womb, let us, I beseech thee, give thanks to Him for having disposed events in this way. The place, of which thou speakest, shall be most satisfactory to me. Let thy tears of sorrow be turned into tears of joy, and let us lovingly embrace poverty, which is the inestimable and precious treasure of my most holy Son. He came from Heaven in order to seek it, let us then give Him an occasion to practice it in the joy of our souls; certainly I cannot be better delighted than to see thee procure it for me. Let us go gladly wherever the Lord shall guide us.”  The holy angels accompanied the heavenly pair, brilliantly lighting up the way, and when they arrived at the city gate they saw that the cave was forsaken and unoccupied” (Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda, Vol. 2).

Counsels of Our Lady
“Above all be anxiously careful to relieve the needs of the poor, as far as is possible; enrich them with the temporal goods, so lavishly given to thee by thy God; show a like generosity to the needy, knowing that these earthly goods are more theirs than yours, since we are the children of the heavenly Father to whom all things belong. It is not proper, that the child of a rich father should live in superfluity, while his brethren live in poverty and need” (Mystical City of God, Venerable Mary of Agreda, Vol. 2).

“I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world.  It is time they came out and filled the world with light.  Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children.  I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days.  May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ.  Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see.  For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends” (Our Lady of La Salette).

Rich in Possessions, but Poor in Grace and Merit
St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that one soul in a state of grace, is worth more than all the material wealth of the universe. Our Lord tells us: “For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Therefore, He says, “No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will sustain the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat: and the body more than the raiment? Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not you of much more value than they?  And which of you by taking thought, can add to his stature by one cubit?  And for clothing, why are you solicitous? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they labour not, neither do they spin. But I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these.  And if the grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, God doth so clothe: how much more you, O ye of little faith? Be not solicitous therefore, saying, 'What shall we eat: or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed?' For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:24-33).

You’d Better Believe It!
“Without Faith it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God, must believe…” (Hebrews 11:6). “And Jesus saith to them: Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?” (Matthew 8:26). “Jesus said to them: ‘If you have Faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, “Remove from hence hither!” and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you!’” (Matthew 17:19).

Zachary Did Not Believe
“There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zachary, and his wife was Elizabeth. And they were both just before God, walking in all the commandments of the Lord without blame.  And they had no son, for Elizabeth was barren, and they both were well advanced in years.  And it came to pass, when he executed the priestly function before God to offer incense in the Temple of the Lord. And there appeared to him an Angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

"But the Angel said to him: ‘Fear not, Zachary, for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John!’ And Zachary said to the Angel: ‘Whereby shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years!’  And the angel answering, said to him: ‘I am Gabriel, who stand before God: and behold, thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not be able to speak until the day wherein these things shall come to pass, because thou hast not believed my words, which shall be fulfilled in their time!’” (Luke 1:5-20).

Apostles Did Not Believe
It was not just Zachary who did not believe—we see the Apostles disbelieving Our Lord's resurrection: "He appeared to the Eleven, as they were at table: and He upbraided them with their incredulity and hardness of heart, because they did not believe them who had seen him after He was risen again" (Mark 16:14).

Some Just Don't Want to Believe!
"And as soon as it was day, the ancients of the people, and the chief priests and scribes, came together; and they brought Him into their council, saying: 'If Thou be the Christ, tell us!' And He saith to them: 'If I shall tell you, you will not believe Me!'" (Luke 22:66-67).

So it is today! Some will not believe because they do not want to believe, because believing would mean a massive change of life and massive sacrifices. So they concoct their own twisted modified version of religion, based quite a bit on human reasoning and compromising with human passions. They convince themselves of its value, but it is not of God and will not lead to God. Protestantism is a case in point, but there are also twisted and deformed versions of Catholicism that will also lead to perdition.

God or Man
A frightening lesson for us and a humiliating lesson for Zachary! “God is no respecter of persons!” (Acts 10:24).  Zachary was a priest of God. He kept all the commandments without blame. Yet he was severely punished by God for simply doubting God, or being uncertain about how all this could happen—for he said to the angel: “I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years!”

He was only saying the truth! That is true! However, he was also thinking NATURALLY and that is a BIG MISTAKE with God. God’s ways are not our ways, nor are God’s thoughts our thoughts (Isaias 55:8-9). As Jesus said to His Apostles: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26), which is nothing else than what the Angel Gabriel said to Our Lady: “Because no word shall be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).

Have Faith!
St. Elizabeth, the spouse of the unfortunate and disbelieving Zachary, praised the Faith of Our Lady, saying: “Blessed art thou that hast believed, because those things shall be accomplished that were spoken to thee by the Lord” (Luke 1:45). This echoes the words of Jesus to the two blind men: “Then he touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith, be it done unto you!’” (Matthew 9:29).

Faith opened their eyes so that they could see—Faith will open our eyes also, so that we will see what others fail to see: “As it is written: ‘God hath given them the spirit of insensibility; eyes that they should not see; and ears that they should not hear, until this present day’” (Romans 11:8). But do we really want to see? Our Lord asked the blind men if they really believed He could perform the miracle they desired:

“Jesus passed from thence and there followed him two blind men, crying out and saying, ‘Have mercy on us, O Son of David!’  And when he was come to the house, the blind men came to Him. And Jesus said to them, ‘Do you believe, that I can do this unto you?’ They say to him,  ‘Yes, Lord!’  Then Jesus touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith, be it done unto you!’ And their eyes were opened” (Matthew 9:27-30).

They believed. Human reasoning did not come into it—human reason would have said, “This is impossible!” Faith, however, replies: “With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

Blinded by the World
For those who prefer to look for materialism and worldliness, rather than look to the things above—the things of Faith—God will “let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see“ (Romans 11:10) and “He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted” (John 12:40). They then become spiritually blind, of whom Our Lord says: “Let them alone: they are blind, and leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the pit” (Matthew 15:14). As Our Lady speaks of the blindness to the Faith, that worldliness and lukewarmness bring, at La Salette:

Faithlessness Foretold
“The priests (the punished Zachary was a priest too) by their love of money, their love of honors and pleasures, the priests are asking vengeance, and vengeance is hanging over their heads.  Woe to the priests and to those dedicated to God who, by their unfaithfulness and their wicked lives, are crucifying my Son again!  … The devil has bedimmed their intelligence.  They have become wandering stars, which the old devil will drag along with his tail to make them perish ...

"Lucifer, together with a large number of demons, will be unloosed from Hell; they will put an end to Faith little by little, even in those dedicated to God.  They will blind them in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of Hell; several religious institutions will lose all Faith and will lose many souls.  Evil books will be abundant on earth and the spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening of all that concerns the service of God.”   (Our Lady of La Salette).

To the Venenrable Mary of Agreda, speaking of the lack of Faith and reverence in the Holy Eucharist, Our Lady says: "I tell thee, that, just as in the primitive Church there were so many, who were saved by it [the Holy Eucharist], now there are countless souls, who damn themselves through it. This damage is done, because the children of the Faith are following darkness, love vanity, covet riches, and nearly all of them seek after vain and deceitful pleasure, which blinds and obscures the understanding and covers up the light with darkness, which knows no distinction between the good and the bad, and penetrates not the truths of the evangelical doctrine" (The Mystical City of God, Vol. 4, chapter 7).

Peter’s Lack of Faith
“God is no respecter of persons” says St. Peter (Acts 10:34) and Peter himself experienced this first hand, when he also was too natural in his thinking and tried to persuade Our Lord that suffering and dying was not the way to go:

“From that time, Jesus began to show to His disciples, that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the ancients and scribes and chief priests, and be put to death, and the third day rise again. And Peter, taking Jesus, began to rebuke Him, saying: ‘Lord, be it far from Thee, this shall not be unto Thee!’  Jesus, turning, said to Peter:  ‘Go behind Me, Satan! Thou art a scandal unto Me: because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men!’” (Matthew 16:21-23). God is no respecter of persons—even when it comes to those in the highest positions, as was the case with St. Peter.

Poor Peter!
Peter would again take the naturalistic and excessively human path on the night of Our Lord’s arrest in Gethsemane. He draws his sword and (fortunately) cuts-off the ear of Malchus—it’s a good job he was such a poor swordsman, missing at such close range, for he could have killed Malchus with a well-aimed blow! Hopefully he was a better fisherman than he was a swordsman!

Here again, Jesus publicly rebukes Peter: “Then Jesus said to him: ‘Put up again thy sword into its place: for all that take the sword shall perish with the sword!  Thinkest thou that I cannot ask My Father, and He will give Me presently more than twelve legions of angels?  How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that so it must be done?’” (Matthew 26:52-54). Poor Peter… “Thinkest thou…?” He was thinking, but too naturally—he saw things, not with the eyes of Faith, but too humanly. Jesus was seeing things and thinking things through supernaturally; Peter was doing it naturally.

Grow in Faith
St. Peter had to learn how to grow in his Faith, for it let him down on many occasions. After the arrest of Jesus, comes Peter’s triple denial of Our Lord, which betrays lukewarmness and a weak Faith.  Our Lord had earlier said: “Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy Faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren” (Luke 22:31-32). 

Peter failed several times, but he recovered and went on to become the Abraham (our father in Faith) of the New Testament (the Rock of Faith).

Faithless World
“Without Faith it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God, must believe…” (Hebrews 11:6). “And Jesus saith to them: Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?” (Matthew 8:26). 

Let us make no bones about it—or Faith is weak! If it was strong, then we would not be experiencing the ever growing apostasy that we face today—which was also predicted by Our Lady at Quito, La Salette and Fatima. The Faith is the foundation of the rest of the Temple of God. Upon Faith rests Hope and Charity (a love of God). We cannot hope in things we know nothing about; nor can we love things we do not know. Today there is plenty of ‘faith’ in science, in medicine, in technology, in money, in skill and industry—but how much Faith is there in the soul? Jesus said: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8).

Human or Divine
Without Faith—no matter how much money you have, or how many possessions, or how much skill or human knowledge you have—you cannot please God!

Let us thank God for our Faith—when so many are losing it all around us! “For all men have not Faith” (2 Thessalonians 3:2). The best way to thank Him is to live the Faith; to use the gift He gave you and not put on the mantelpiece or bury it: “Watch ye, stand fast in the Faith” (1 Corinthians 16:13). “Try your own selves if you be in the Faith; prove ye yourselves” (2 Corinthians 13:5). “I have kept the Faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).

Let us nourish our Faith—by reading, listening and learning about the many different facets of the Faith! “Faith then cometh by hearing; and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).

Let us strengthen our Faith—by constantly begging, like the Apostles in Scripture, “And the Apostles said to the Lord: ‘Increase our Faith!’” and the man who cried out, begging help with his Faith: “And immediately the father of the boy crying out, with tears said: “I do believe! Lord: help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:23).

Let us fight for the Faith and fight using our Faith: “Fight the good fight of Faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). “Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in Faith!” (1 Peter 5:8-9). “In all things taking the shield of Faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one” (Ephesians 6:16). “For whatsoever is born of God, overcometh the world: and this is the victory which overcometh the world, our Faith” (1 John 5:4). “Here is the patience of the saints, who keep the commandments of God, and the Faith of Jesus” (Apocalypse 14:12). “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the Faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).

Fight, Ye Children of Light!
Your Faith is your foundation! It needs maintenance! Maintenance takes time! Modern man has little or no time to maintain and strengthen his Faith. There are too many other things to attend to. Yet, as Scripture says, "Be not deceived, God is not mocked” (Galatians 6:7). “Without Faith it is impossible to please God." (Hebrews 11:6). Jesus said: “The Son of man, when He cometh, shall He find, think you, Faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8).  “And Jesus said to them: ‘Where is your Faith?’” (Luke 8:25). Will we be able to say: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the Faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).

St. Louis de Montfort, speaking of the fight, writes: “At the end of the world … the Most High with His holy Mother has to form for Himself great saints who shall surpass most of the other saints in sanctity … These great souls, full of grace and zeal, shall be chosen to match themselves against the enemies of God, who shall rage on all sides; and they shall be singularly devout to our Blessed Lady … They shall fight with one hand and build with the other. With the one hand they shall fight, overthrow and crush the heretics, schismatics, idolaters and sinners. With the other hand they shall build the temple of the true Solomon and the mystical city of God, that is to say, the most Holy Virgin. By their words and their examples they shall draw the whole world to true devotion to Mary. This shall bring upon them many enemies, but shall also bring many victories and much glory for God alone” (True Devotion to Mary, St. Louis de Montfort, §47-§48). 

Our Lady of La Salette, speaking of those devoted to her, says: “But the children of the Holy Church, the children of my Faith, my true followers, they will grow in their love for God and in all the virtues most precious to me ... God will take care of His faithful servants ... I call on the Apostles of the Last Days, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who have lived in scorn for the world and for themselves, in poverty and in humility, in scorn and in silence, in prayer and in mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering and unknown to the world.  It is time they came out and filled the world with light.  Go and reveal yourselves to be my cherished children.  I am at your side and within you, provided that your Faith is the light which shines upon you in these unhappy days.  May your zeal make you famished for the glory and the honor of Jesus Christ.  Fight, children of light, you, the few who can see.  For now is the time of all times, the end of all ends."

Fear Not, Mary!
“The angel being come in, said unto Mary: ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee! Blessed art thou among women!’ Who, having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said to her: ‘Fear not, Mary! For thou hast found grace with God!’” (Luke 1:28-30).

The same Archangel Gabriel had also caused a fear to appear in Zachary, the future father of St. John the Baptist: “There appeared to Zachary an angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense.  And Zachary, seeing him, was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him: ‘Fear not, Zachary, for thy prayer is heard!’” (Luke 1:11-13).

Fear is Powerful
Fear is a powerful thing—souls are saved because of fear and souls are damned because of fear! A soul might be moved to stay in a state of grace and keep the Commandments of God, through a fear of God’s punishments. Yet, on the other hand, a soul might be afraid to give up a certain life of sin, or be afraid to correct others, for fear of losing its friends, or through a fear of reprisals. Fear leads souls to Heaven as much as it leads souls to Hell. It all depends and hinges upon which fear wins in the end! The danger is that the stronger fear of the world, coming forth from our strong human respect, overcomes our weaker respect and weaker fear of God! God has plenty to say on this matter, as the following quotes show!

Our Lord’s Idea of Peace is Not Our Idea of Peace
God ways are not our ways: “’For My thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways My ways!’ saith the Lord.  ‘For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts!’” (Isaias 55:8-9).  This extends to God's notion of peace.

Thus Our Lord says: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, do I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid” (John 14:27).

“Think ye, that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, no; but separation. I came not to send peace, but the sword. I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against his father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother, the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's enemies shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me. Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven” (Matthew 10:32-37; Luke 12:51-53).

Seek and Fear God First!
Jesus Himself tells us: “I will show you whom you shall fear: fear ye Him, Who after He hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell. Yea, I say to you, fear Him” (Luke 12:5). “Let everyone fear his God: because I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 25:17). “Keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in His ways, and fear Him” (Deuteronomy 8:6). When we fall into the vice of human respect—which leads to be ruled by what men think, rather than what God thinks—then we create a false fear and an evil fear within us: “They have not called upon the Lord: there have they trembled for fear, where there was no fear” (Psalm 13:5). Sadly, there are many who tremble more before men than they tremble before God! “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve Him only: to Him thou shalt adhere” (Deuteronomy 10:20).

A False Fear that is Too Human
When we compromise the Truth and compromise our true Catholic principles of thought and action, we usually do so out of that terrible vice of human respect. We are afraid of what others may think! We are afraid of what others might say! We are afraid of what others might do! We are afraid of what might happen to us! We are afraid of reprisals, losses, afflictions, etc. So we slink away in silence and bury the Truth. As Our Lady of Good Success said at Quito: “In this supreme moment of need of the Church, those who should speak will fall silent.” Why? Because of human respect! But that silence does not pay! For “he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven” says Our Lord. “Fear the Lord, all ye His saints: for there is no want to them that fear Him” (Psalm 33:10). “Fear not: I will feed you and your children” (Genesis 50:21). “Hear, O Israel, you join battle this day against your enemies, let not your heart be dismayed, be not afraid, fear ye them not” (Deuteronomy 20:3).

Pontius Pilate knew the truth. He knew that Jesus was innocent. Yet out of human respect and fear of the Jews, who threatened him with the fact that he would be working against his 'boss' Caesar, if he sided with Jesus and released Him, Pilate bowed to the pressure of human respect, for fear of losing his job, and sacrificed the Truth in a most bloody way!

Banish the Fear of Human Respect
“And the Lord said: ‘Do not fear, but speak; and hold not thy peace!’” (Acts 18:9).  “Fear not, and let not thy heart be afraid” (Isaias 7:4).  “Be not afraid of sudden fear, nor of the power of the wicked falling upon thee” (Proverbs 3:25).  “His truth shall compass thee with a shield: thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night” (Psalm 90:5).

If God is with us, who can stand against us? The final victory will be that of Truth—and if stand for the Truth, we will gain the palm of victory—if not in this world, then for certain in the next. This world soon ends for every person, a few score years of life and it's over. Eternity never ends—it is in eternity that we seek and will find true happiness. As Our Lady of Lourdes said to St. Bernadette: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next!” 

Our lot in this world is, more often than not, to be hated: “And you shall be hated by all men for My name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved” (Matthew 10:22). “Let them be confounded that persecute me, and let not me be confounded: let them be afraid, and let not me be afraid: bring upon them the day of affliction, and with a double destruction, destroy them” (Jeremias 17:18). “He that feareth the Lord shall tremble at nothing, and shall not be afraid for He is his hope” (Ecclesiasticus 34:16).

God Will Avenge All Things
“‘Therefore’, thus saith the Lord the God of hosts: ‘O My people that dwellest in Sion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall strike thee with his rod, and he shall lift up his staff over thee in the way of Egypt. For yet a little and a very little while, and My indignation shall cease, and My wrath shall be upon their wickedness’” (Isaias 10:24-25).

If people scorn His attempts at salvation, and scorn your attempts to tell them the truth and persist offending Him by sin, they will pay the price: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). “Revenge is Mine, and I will repay them in due time” (Deuteronomy 32:35). “I, in the day of revenge, will visit this sin also of theirs” (Exodus 32:34). Which Our Lady puts in concrete terms at Quito, La Salette, Fatima and Akita, as the next paragraph shows.

Fearing the Consequence of Sin
“Nature is asking for vengeance because of man, and she trembles, with dread, at what must happen to the earth stained with crime. Tremble, earth, and you, who proclaim yourselves as serving Jesus Christ and who, on the inside, only adore yourselves! Tremble, for God will hand you over to His enemy” (Our Lady of La Salette). "If my people do not wish to submit themselves, I am forced to let go of the hand of my Son. It is so heavy and weighs me down so much, that I can no longer keep hold of it” (Our Lady of La Salette). “In order that the world might know His anger, the Heavenly Father is preparing to inflict a great chastisement on all mankind” (Our Lady of Akita). “The society of men is on the eve of the most terrible scourges and of gravest events.  Mankind must expect to be ruled with an iron rod and to drink from the chalice of the wrath of God” (Our Lady of La Salette). “If there are not souls who sacrifice and appease the Divine Justice, fire will rain from Heaven” (Our Lady of Good Success). “If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one never 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” (Our Lady of Akita).

Courage, Not Far
Jesus Himself told us: “I say to you, My friends: Be not afraid of them who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do” (Luke 12:4). “I said to you: ‘Fear not, neither be ye afraid of them: the Lord God, Who is your leader, Himself will fight for you, as He did in Egypt in the sight of all’” (Deuteronomy 1:29-30). Yes, terrible times are coming! Yet God will still be in total control—and all that He does, is done with a view to saving souls. “Thou shalt not fear calamity when it cometh. In destruction and famine thou shalt laugh: and thou shalt not be afraid” (Job 5:21-22).

Trust in God and Fear Not
“In God I will praise my words, in God I have put my trust: I will not fear what flesh can do against me” (Psalm 55:5). “For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they have comforted me” (Psalm 22:4). “If armies in camp should stand together against me, my heart shall not fear. If a battle should rise up against me, in this will I be confident. One thing I have asked of the Lord, this will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. That I may see the delight of the Lord, and may visit His temple. For He hath hidden me in His tabernacle; in the day of evils, He hath protected me in the secret place of His tabernacle.” (Psalm 26:3-5).

Our Lady echoes this in her apparitions: “The righteous will suffer greatly.  Their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise up to Heaven and all of God's people will beg for forgiveness and mercy and will plead for my help and intercession. God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will” (Our Lady of La Salette). “The small number of souls who, hidden, will preserve the treasure of the Faith and practice virtue will suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom. Many of them will succumb to death from the violence of their sufferings, and those who sacrifice themselves for the Church and their country will be counted as martyrs” (Our Lady of Good Success).  “And then Jesus Christ, in an act of His justice and His great mercy, will command His Angels to have all His enemies put to death.  Suddenly, the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ, and all those given over to sin, will perish and the earth will become desert-like.  And then peace will be made, and man will be reconciled with God.  Jesus Christ will be served, worshiped and glorified.  Charity will flourish everywhere” (Our Lady of La Salette).

Fearful Vision of St. John Bosco
St. John Bosco had a dream where he saw “an innumerable fleet of ships in battle array ... These ships are armed with cannons, with lots of rifles, with incendiary materials, with other arms of all kinds, and also with books, and they advance against a ship very much bigger and higher than themselves (the Church) and try to dash against it with the prows or to burn it or in some way to do it every possible harm. In the midst of the immense expanse of sea, two mighty columns of great height arise, a little distance the one from the other. On the top of one, there is the statue of the Immac­ulate Virgin, from whose feet hangs a large placard with this inscription: Auxilium Christianorum—"Help of Christians"; on the other, which is much higher and bigger, stands a Host of great size, proportionate to the column, and beneath is another placard with the words: Salus Credentium—"Salvation of Believers."

“The supreme commander, on the big ship, is the Sovereign Pontiff. All the captains come aboard and gather around the Pope. They hold a meeting, but meanwhile the wind and the waves gather in storm, so they are sent back to control their own ships. There comes a short lull; for a second time the Pope gathers the captains together around him, while the flag-ship goes on its course. But the frightful storm returns. The Pope stands at the helm, steering the ship towards those two columns. All the enemy ships move to attack it, and they try in every way to stop it and to sink it: some with writings, or books, or inflammable materials, of which they are full; others with guns, with rifles and with rams. The battle rages ever more relentlessly; but their efforts prove useless, and they waste all their labor and ammunition; while the big ship goes safely and smoothly on its way. Meanwhile, the guns of the assailants are blown up, the rifles and other arms and prows are broken; many ships are shattered and sink into the sea. Then, the frenzied enemies strive to fight hand to hand, with fists, with blows, with blasphemy and with curses. All of a sudden, the Pope falls gravely wounded. Immediately, those who are with him run to help him and they lift him up. A second time the Pope is struck, he falls again and dies. A shout of victory and of joy rings out amongst the enemies; from their ships an unspeakable mockery arises.

“But hardly is the Pontiff dead, than another Pope takes his place. The pilots, having met together, have elected the Pope so promptly, that the news of the death of the Pope coincides with the news of the election of the successor. The adversaries begin to lose courage. The new Pope, putting the enemy to rout and overcoming every obstacle, guides the ship right up to the two columns and comes to rest between them. Then a great convulsion takes place. All the ships, that until then had fought against the Pope's ship, are scattered; they flee away, collide and break to pieces one against another. Some sink and try to sink others. Several small ships, that had fought gallantly for the Pope, race to be the first to bind themselves to those two columns. Many other ships, having retreated through fear of the battle, cautiously watch from far away; the wrecks of the broken ships having been scattered in the whirlpools of the sea, they, in their turn, sail in good earnest to those two columns, and, having reached them, they make themselves fast to the hooks hanging down from them and there they remain safe, together with the principal ship, on which is the Pope. Over the sea there reigns a great calm”  (The above account of the dream was in the words of St. John Bosco himself).

Fearful story! Eh? As the Angel Gabriel said to Mary: “Fear not, Mary! For thou hast found grace with God!” and to Zachary: “Fear not, Zachary, for thy prayer is heard!” So does “Jesus say to [us]:  ‘Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?’ Then rising up He commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm” (Matthew 8:26). Let Jesus calm your fears. If you are standing up for the Truth and sincerely trying to do His Will, and are suffering the consequences of doing so, then fear not: “Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in Heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you” (Matthew 5:12).