Blogger Priest

Put bluntly, the counterfeit Jesus of posturing Christians has no power to save. He is not real.  Such souls will have a true existential shock when they encounter the true Messiah and Savior. Those who trust in the Lord are summoned to a transformation in Christ. Mentally configuring Jesus into our own alter ego is a backward act that serves no purpose other than self-deception. Of course, this false Jesus may have substance in that the demonic can masquerade as holy personages and deities. This assessment of idols extends back to the first martyrs. They suffered torture and death at the bloody spectacle of the arena for failing to worship the emperor and the pagan pantheon of gods. The associated bloodlust was a sure indication that the pagan deities had an association with the demons and the devil.  We must always be wary of a darkness that feigns being light.

Saints are made on earth, not in heaven.  We are molded by our actions and by the intervention of divine grace.  Actual grace helps us to behave as God’s children in this world, ensuring that we will be receptive and retentive of saving grace. Sanctifying grace makes us worthy of heaven and the beatific vision.  Finding an analogy in modern science fiction, numerous futurists predict as an alternative to terraforming planets, that a super science might seek to biologically augment human beings to accommodate planetary environments otherwise inhospitable for human life. While this is farfetched, it is our conviction that divine grace and the sacraments condition us for the sacred environment of heaven.  Humanity must be healed of original sin, weaned from concupiscence, and made able to breathe the air of eternal joy over that of proximate pleasures.  The mutable and mortal must give way to the perfect and immortal.  We must be reborn or made brand new. Similarly, the absence of grace will not only fail to sustain the new man but leave the natural man gasping for air. This world is passing.  Heaven is the only way to get off before it is too late.  The devil would prefer to leave us stranded. That is enough for him to steal souls. But the devil is not satisfied with inaction, he exploits human weakness and fear. He imposes vice over virtue. He would condition us for a habitation of bondage and darkness. It is somewhat ironic that we associate hell with fire because it is a flame that offers no illumination. It is a fire that blinds and casts all in the darkness of night. By contrast, our Lord calls us to a new beginning, a new day.   

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What is heaven? Heaven is where we find God. Sin reflects a prevailing failure to love, either in hatred or indifference. The damned would not want any part of this love, either here on earth or in heaven. God is not a cherished part of their life. They might readily manipulate others, but they refuse to really care for their neighbor. What do saints and angels do in heaven? They worship God as the Holy, Holy, Holy. By contrast, if so-called Catholics cannot tolerate an hour a week at Sunday Mass, then why would they want to spend eternity at the nuptial banquet for the Lamb of God?

Those who reject the testimony of Scripture, dissenting from the teachings of the Church, already have one foot in hell. We are obliged to accept what has been revealed by God. We must obey the commandments. None of us should cast ourselves outside the pale of Christ, the one who is the Light of the World. What the children of darkness presume as enlightenment is in truth error and eternal night. While it is true that saints need not always be right, just holy; there must still be an assent from Catholics to the foundational truths and values of the faith. Otherwise, one is saying, “Not Thy will, but my will be done.” This is a critical contradiction to the kerygma, itself. One does not have to have a degree in theology but one should appreciate the creed and the commandments. Dissenters will often fashion a caricature of Jesus that is in contradiction to the one who appears in the New Testament and in the constant preaching of the Church. What dissenters fail to grasp is that “their Jesus” stands neither on the firm foundation of Scripture nor of Tradition. Those who would abandon the barque of Peter must seek refuge upon the worthless driftwood or flotsam of human whim and proximate pleasures. Instead of the moral base grounded upon natural and divine positive law, values emerge from a sham individualism that has no rudder other than the media and politics of secular humanism. The guideposts are literally the deadly sins. The worst of the lot is arguably pride as it most earned the ire of Christ against the pharisees. It makes a place for the other six sins. It poisons communion with God.

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