Traditional Thomistic Catholic

Tag: traditional catholic

  • Easter

         God did not make us to torture us as some people seem to think, because of all the “rules,” otherwise he would have just created hell and put us all there.  No, unfortunately, by his nature he is not only all good but all just.  In addition, he is rational just like He created us to be.  This world is not to train us to obey rules, but for us to learn and to want what is needed to live in peace with each other forever.  The one real law is to love, but to love God the most and to love your neighbor as yourself. If we truly choose to love God and our neighbor in this world, and want to follow his precepts, when we get to heaven God will heal the wound of original sin so that loving Him and our neighbor will be second nature.  But he will not force this on us.  If we do not want to love Him or our neighbor we will go to a place where everyone shares our desires – hell.  But, in my opinion, and there are some biblical hints, as covered in earlier blogs, the inhabitants of hell will make it that way, not God.

            God personally showed the world as Jesus Christ and his followers for the first approximately 300 years how if you hate for no reason, then you just torture people for no reason – in my opinion the very definition of hell.  People did this, made places hells on earth not God!  Those first Catholics showed why hell is so evil, and despite the fact slowly changed the world they were in from one of constant killing of those around you to bend them to your will and keep them ignorant so you can use them to a society filled with universities, orphanages and help for the poor so that mankind could learn better ways to help make their fellow man lead more productive and comfortable lives.         Easter is God’s demonstration that good eventually conquers evil and the first approximately 300 years of Catholicism shows that even though it may seem hopeless, God is with us, and that if we work to make it a reality, are patient as well as being willing to suffer and die for God/beliefs, good can conquer evil! Finally, He shows us graphically that death is not the end, that he has dominion over death and life after death is not a myth and no matter how badly our body is hurt, for his plan to instigate peace in this world, it will recover in the next, more glorious than we can imagine!

  • Gaining Benefit from Stations of the Cross When One Cannot Attend with their Parish Fridays in Lent

    The following is a quote from a book entitled “A Manual of Pastoral Theology: A practical Guide for Ecclesiastical Students and Newly Ordained Priests” by Rev. Frederick Schulze, D.D. published by B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis MO, copyright 1923, Fifth Printing 1954 with a library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 23-8326 in the section on Sacramentals with the appropriate approbations which I will show in the list of “Books to assist priests writing homilies and sermons” which should post sometime in August or September of this year of 2024.

    “It may be well to note that if a person, for some grave reason, is unable to go to the Stations, he can gain the indulgences by means of a crucifix specially blessed for that purpose.

        This is a privilege granted by Clement XIV and confirmed by Pius IX. It reads as follows: “all who are sick, or in prison, or at sea, or in heathen lands, or prevented in any other way from visiting the Stations of the Way of the Cross erected in churches or public oratories, may gain these indulgences by saying with at least a contrite heart and devoutly, the ‘Our Father,’ the ‘Hail Mary,’ and the “Glory be to the Father,’ each fourteen times, and at the end of these the ‘Our Father,’ the ’Hail Mary,’ and the ‘Glory be to the Father,’ each five times; and again one ‘Our Father,’ ‘Hail Mary,’ and ‘Glory be to the Father’ for the Sovereign Pontiff, holding in their hands the while a crucifix of brass, or any other solid substance, which has been blessed by the Father General of the order of the Friars Minor Observants, or else by the Father Provincial, or by any Father Guardian subject to said Father General.”

       At present the Holy See will give the faculty to bless such a crucifix to any priest who applies for it.  This crucifix (not merely a bare cross) cannot be sold or given away, because the privilege is of a personal character.  It may be of any size; but it does not seem to be proper to apply the indulgences of the Stations to a very small crucifix.

        Note. A writer in the Homiletic and Pastoral Review (March, 1927, page 597) sauys: “Those who are legitimately hindered from making the Stations in the usual way, can gain the indulgences of the Stations by holding in their hand a crucifix blessed for this purpose and saying twenty Our Fathers and Hail Marys – fourteen for the fourteen Stations, five in honor of the five holy Wounds, and one according to the intention of the Pope.  The inability to say the Stations to church need not be absolute.

        “Conditions: (1) The twenty Our Fathers; (2) an act of contrition or saying the vocal prayers with a contrite heart; (3) meditating on the Passion. When several are together and wish to make the Stations, with only one blessed crucifix between them, one may hold the crucifix, whilst all are saying the prayers together, or per modum chori, but all must do their own thinking or meditating on the Passion.

       “Leo XIII granted a modification of this privilege to those who are so seriously ill as to be unable to satisfy the ordinary conditions and to say the twenty Our Fathers.  They may gain the indulgences by making (1) an oral act of contrition, and saying the versicle ‘Te ergo quaesumus,’ etc.; (2) They must, at least in their heart, join in there Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glory be to the Father, whilst they are said aloud by somebody else; and (3) they must meanwhile think on the Passion Christ. This one condition of meditation on the Passion is never dispensed from or with, and the Station crucifix must be held by the sick person’s hand.” “

    Once again the above quote is from a book published in 1923 and though it is conceivable some changes have been made, it is not likely and if in doubt you should ask your local traditional Catholic priest.

  • Truth and the Necessity of Being in Christ’s Church the Catholic Church

               The truth is the truth and Christ says you must be in his church and the church clarifies that we must believe in all the first 1.5 thousand years of the church taught (Christ – as a person of the one nature of God in the Trinity, is the origin of all things and the end to which all things in the universe gravitate toward – the Alpha and the Omega (Revelations 22:12-13), the first cause, the non-contingent being upon which all things that exist depend upon to continue to exist, Christ is the same now and forever  (Hebrews 13:7-6)).  The reason for the first millennia and a half is because that’s approximately how long it was from Christ’s birth to the start of Protestantism, the first heresy that was not stopped with regard to Christianity. It split Catholicism into approximately, at last count at least 20,000 different belief systems or at least arguably separate “denominations.”  Why do I say split Catholicism and not split Christianity?  Because what people now call Catholicism (excepting the modernist heretics in the highest levels of the Catholic church, possibly stretching to the top from some things we’ve heard this year – 2022, and recent years with this bishop of Rome).

               If we don’t internalize the truth or “habitize” (this new word meaning make into habits) the original truths of Jesus Christ preserved through his blessing in the Catholic Church, the church and subsequently heaven can’t be a perfect society God designed it to be.  That is why Christ says we must become perfect as His father in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48). There is only one Truth. Only Christ’s church sees the Truth clearly. I say Christ’s Church because it’s not what just the pope says, or some bishop says or some priests say, or even what some of the laity or Deacon says or the way any of them interpret the bible.  Its how Christ’s Church tradition or the true body of Christ on earth with him as the head and the pope as his vicar interpret it in the one thousand five-hundred-year aggregate. What has been determined earlier can never be changed, clarified yes, but not subtracted from or added to.

              That is the problem introduced by Protestantism, every protestant can add or subtracted whatever they want from the dogma, but mostly they do it for convenience because they want to justify abortion, justify unnatural sex acts, justify any sex outside of marriage, justify contraception, justify the treatment of workers to make more money or justify oligarchs pushing socialism/communism (though not calling it that as in the United States, some people calling it progressivism) saying they are making things better for the “little guy” while all the while pushing their agenda at the “little guys” expense.  Unfortunately, our secular society has declared war on religious society as can be seen by how they are trying to eliminate God from the political conversation by taking or at least trying to take God’s name and his precepts out of everything (e.g. taking down monuments to the 10 commandments, trying to take the word “God” out of the pledge of allegiance, trying to take prayer out of schools even religious ones).

               It was once said by the Greek tragic dramatist Aeschylus that “In war, truth is the first casualty.” We saw the truth in this in the period from 2016-2022 with the Russian collusion hoax perpetrated on General Flynn and president Trump and the hiding of the Hunter laptop story that might have changed the trajectory of the 2020 election.  All these things were done to the profit of the liberal progressives and to the detriment of the world (think the Ukraine war) and the American people. But we as Catholics believe Christ and therefore his precepts and the way He lived is the Path of the Truth, Christ being the living embodiment of the Truth (John 14:6).

              Now by being in Christ’s church – the catholic church, is not, like many in the church believe, just listening to, believing and following everything the clergy or even the pope says. The pope is the vicar of Christ he is not Jesus Christ.  We have an obligation, not to follow what the clergy says per se, but “every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4). The Gospel says in Matthew 16:18 “And I say to thee: That thou are Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” The gates of hell shall not prevail against “it” (that is the church) not “him,” (that is Peter). The misreading of this passage is what a lot of protestants rebel against. They think this passage puts the pope in the position of absolute authority.  What it does is put the whole church, as the body of Christ in authority.  That is why each Christian that wants to save their soul has to be Catholic with a well-formed Catholic conscience. If, as the current pope appears to believe, if a synod or group of cardinals/bishops decide something that makes it true despite at least one thousand five hundred Catholic dogma/doctrine to the contrary. The Truth is the same always no matter how much or who wants to change it.

               If like what happened with Martin Luther and Calvin continues to happen, splinter groups breaking off constantly so that now there are more than 40,000 separate “Christian denominations,” eventually it will truly be “believe whatever you want” which is what a non-Catholic contingent within the Catholic church called Modernists are essentially pushing.  In essence their concept of God is a pantheistic conception of an immanent God that is in some way part of this universe as opposed to a transcendent God that created the universe, can see everything in the universe and keeps it in existence but is in no real way a part of it. They have the idea that dogma and doctrine can evolve, like biological things, based on “the times.”  Assuming this Catholics would be “of the world” and not just “in the world” which Jesus Christ said we should not be (John 17:11-21). In this passage Jesus says we must be one in belief (from the way I interpret this passage) and in our relation to the world as the asks God the Father to keep us together and basically bless our mission to bring as many men and women back to him as possible.  As God is transcendent and outside this world so is our home heaven and its culture, true Catholic culture not the culture of Modernist worldly prelates who appear to be in many positions of power in the Catholic church in the 21st century.

                Unlike what many modernists seem to be saying, the truth is immutable.  It can never change. The meaning of what Christ said can never change. In John 14:6 “Jesus saith to him:  ‘I am the way, and the truth and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.”  This is the specific case of who the way we accept truth as coming from our father in heaven. In Matthew 23:9 where Jesus says: “And call none your father upon earth; for one is your father, who is in heaven.” he is referring to the authority of a father not actually calling someone father. In Hebrews 13:8, St. Paul in his letter to the Hebrews assures us that “Jesus Christ, yesterday, and today; and the same forever.” Christ is the Truth and as He never changes the truth never changes.  And since in John 10:30 Jesus Christ says I and the father are one, you can also trust in Jesus’ authority.

              You can refine truth but you can never say what was true yesterday is not true today. For divorced and remarried, modernist argue that for some reason they can worthily receive communion. Mark 10: 8-9, in regard to marriage, says “. . . and the two will become one flesh.’ Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” If you disobey this command of God on purpose, which is mortal sin, are you still worthy to receive the real body and blood of Jesus Christ, that was sacrificed to make the infinite reparation for the infinite offense of Adam and of all men that sin, before stopping the sinful behavior and submitting one’s self to the tribunal of confession which God has established to carry out acceptable reparation (penance) ruled by the judge empowered by God as duly delegated executer of his justice? (John 20:23)

              Men and women of today in the church that see how corrupt heretical prelates are trying to infuse their corruption in the church are obligated to call them out and follow Jesus Christ’s and the example of his church which has had the same dogma supplemented by infallible doctrine (not all doctrine is infallible or non-changing especially in the case of displine e.g. fasting rules) for almost 100 generation, almost 2 millennia transmitted not only through Holy Scripture but through Holy Tradition which has enshrined those Holy scriptures in the way the common Catholic has lived their lives through Catholic culture.

              If we in the church disagree, we are obligated not to leave the church but to work to correct it by working to get rid of not only the bad dogma/doctrines (like trying to get rid of the Latin mass which pope St. Pius V said could never be abolished in his papal bull Quo Primum) being pushed on the church but by exposing the bad prelates and their heresies to the benefit of the souls striving for heaven. Who would disagree that if United States of America had let the south secede from the union that the United States would have become so much less than the defender of the moral high ground that it is from almost its inception to today in 2022?

             The biggest reason that supports that The Catholic Church is the one true church of Jesus Christ is supported, using Holy Scripture in the Bible, is one of the four marks (one, holy, Catholic – universal, and apostolic) Christ’s true Catholic Church of Jesus Christ is that it’s apostolic (the fact that every priest and bishop can trace who he got his sacrament of “holy orders,” making him a priest is from someone who can trace the linage of their “holy orders,”) back to an apostle.

             But why is this important? In The Acts of the Apostles (commonly referred to as jus Acts) Chapter 8 of the New Testament of the Bible, we see Simon the magician trying to buy the power to bring the power of the Holy Ghost on to followers apparently to have them as followers for his own benefit. We see only the apostles have this power and transfer it as they will given the power by Jesus Christ on Pentecost.  So not anyone can be a priest or bishop of Christ passing on his teachings and having the extra ordinary power of the sacraments and recognition of Christ’s special followers associated with it.

             In the same chapter 8 of Acts verses 27-38 it appears to me to make clear only these specially selected followers of Christ have the power, given good intention on their part, to accurately interpret scripture.  Specifically in Acts 8:29-30 the apostle Philip says and the eunch replied: And Phillip running thither, heard him reading the prophet Isaias, and he said: Thinkest thou that thou understandest what thou readest? Who said: and how can I, unless some man shew me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him.” What is trying to be conveyed here is that a true apostle of Christ must teach another wanting to be a follower of Christ to insure the correct meaning is passed on, to that follower.

             Part of why the current modernists in the church have gotten things so wrong is that they reject the whole concept of sacrifice and that God should have it or even wants it. I see these prelates as the type who would complain, if dying of thirst in the Sahara Desert and suddenly came upon a refrigerator with and icy cold 1 liter bottle of water, they would complain that there was not a lemon in it for flavoring!!! They would prefer life to be simply a celebration, reminiscent of the festival of Bacchus without being overtly lewd – at least for the time being, instead of a life of sacrifice and discipline to improve the lot of our fellow man, as we relive every time we offer the holy sacrifice of the mass.

              Before Christ came to show us what God wanted, people sacrificed animals they could have eaten, sacrificed beautiful virgins they could have married, sacrificed children who could have further the civilization, mutilated themselves through cutting and giving their blood to the gods instead of staying completely whole and healthy. Jesus Christ made the perfect sacrifice himself and basically asked his people, Catholics, to participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the un-blooded, co-participatory act with Calvary where He returns truly, body, blood, soul and divinity to feed us.  We as Christs followers are to follow his example of sacrifice to control ourselves to the benefit of others, to visit prisoners, feed the hungry, fight poverty, fight injustice and fight senseless violence.  Our sacrifice is to help our world see Christs as it savior, and enthrone him as King of our mortal world, emplacing His supernatural virtues of faith hope and Charity to bring the world, through Catholic culture, as close to heaven as possible and to save as many souls as possible, preferably all.

            My point in this discussion was that Catholics should work to expel both heterodox dogma and their conspiring prelates and that Christians must come back together accepting Christ’s precepts to once again have one, holy, Catholic and apostolic church to function as a catalyst to bring the world together to accomplish what the elitist, communistic and masonic United Nations cannot – lasting world  peace.

  • The Blueprint for Hell and Who Will Create It. Hint: God Will Not Create It.

             In my second blog I posited that those in hell would create it themselves by their disobedient nature. I also tried to show how this is not an impossible outcome by the example of NAZI Germany and how it became basically a hell on Earth. Similarly, the godless communist philosophy of the former Soviet Union turned Russia in a hell on Earth. But those not acquainted with the Bible will say, God’s book, the Bible, never says anything close to: God will let the people He judges as not suitable for heaven create hell. Some will say, in fact, the Bible never even implies it. To that I would say take a look at Romans 1:16-32. They are as follows with commentary after each verse or group of related verses.
             Verse 16:
    “For I am not ashamed of the gospel. For it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and to the Greek.”
    Commentary: this indicates that what follows is for eternal salvation of all that believe – both Jew and gentile.
             Verse 17:
    “For the justice of God is revealed therein, from faith unto faiths it is written: The just man liveth by faith”
    Commentary: God’s justice is meted out, in the next world, in its fullness, but as we saw in my second blog, the lesson, as to what results in not following God’s law is seen to be true in this world, so that it can be extrapolated as a natural result, if the behavior discussed is carried into the next world. In other words, God lets us see, in this world, that what he says is true for human nature in general and, though Catholics know God is incapable of lying, so that those reading the gospels will know what He says is true.
            Verse 18:
    “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice:”
    Commentary: It does not say God’s wrath is visited on man from heaven, it says “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven.” I see this as meaning God built his eternal punishment into man’s choice to eat of the tree of good and evil in the garden of Eden. His and her pride in thinking that they could understand things better than God from the knowledge they gained would be their downfall. The Truth (John 15:6), God’s Word (John 1:1) – Jesus Christ who is synonymous with the example of his life, is the only way man has to keep from destroying himself, by creating his own eternal torment in hell. Those that hold themselves to the Truth and are loyal to the Truth are kind to each other, loyal to one another and God and show mercy as God shows mercy and thereby follow the Path and maintain the heaven established by the Truth. In heaven there is no need for police because each person polices his or her self. In hell there can be no effective police because everyone is corrupt, without fidelity to the law, without affection for their fellow man and without mercy for anyone.
           Verse 19 and 20:
    “Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them.”
    “For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable.”
    Commentary: As is pointed out in books such as C.S. Lewis’ Book Mere Christianity, God’s moral law, our sensitivity to injustice, the wrongness of going against the commandments (invisible to the eye) is written on our hearts (we know intuitively). We also have the reasoned facts that 1) God created us from nothingness 2) that He is all mighty and that 3) the success/stability of a society following his “rules” is the reasoned result of Him being all knowing and all good and in addition to “writing it on our hearts” revealed it in the Bible.       
           Verses 21-23:
    “Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts and their foolish heart was darkened.”
    “For profession themselves to be wise, they became fools.”
    “And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four footed beasts, and of creeping things.”
    Commentary: see the truth of this in Luther’s revolt against the Catholic Church and the wars it spawned and the thousands of martyrs that were killed because of accusations of disloyalty when certain countries went protestant. The stealing of cathedrals and universities built by the Catholic Church was also a result of the revolt. We also see the truth of this from the results of the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau which spawned the bloody the French Revolution and the Masonic order which arguably has done much to destabilize the Catholic Church as well as foment revolutions in Mexico etc.
             Verse 24:
    “Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their hearts unto uncleanness, to dishonor their own bodies among themselves.”
    Commentary: Read closely in the verse above that “. . .God GAVE them up to the DESIRES OF THEIR HEART” [emphasis mine]. People who are hellbent on uncleanness and dishonoring their own, bodies God let them have their wishes, He did not force it on them. Hell is created by the people that will be there, NOT BY GOD!!!. As one example we see those who do not accept God as creating them “male and female” (Genesis 1:27) and because of this, these young girls and young women are being cheated out of their self-worth and scholarships in things like swimming competitions by transgender athletes. They are discriminating again against women by forcing them to compete against biological men.
             Verse 25:
    “Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worship and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”
    Commentary: The creature in this context is clearly the devil. Because the devil is an angelic intellect and those in hell will be forced to worship him due to his cunning and lack of Gods push back in hell because all there, by definition, have rejecting God. Because those in hell chose to reject God in life he is giving them all their wish. The lack of the love of God  – the rejection of God, and by extension His precepts, is the cause of hell.
            Verse 26 [and foot note  for this verse from the TAN edition of the Douay-Rheims Bible]:
    “For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature.”
    [Footnote – “God delivered them up” Not by being author of their sins, but by withdrawing his grace, and so permitting them, in punishment of their pride, to fall into those shameful sins.]

    Commentary: These sins like abortion (murder destroying possible citizens of heaven) and against the natural law seen in the attraction of man to woman and stated as the first command by God after creation (Genesis 1:28 “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it. . .”), and the use of contraceptives.
             Verse 27:
    “And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error.”
    Commentary: The natural “use” of women is to work with God to produce possible citizens of heaven – children. Man to man sex cannot produce children and is for that reason is unnatural. Man to man attraction cannot necessarily be prevented, and is not in itself evil or bad, but the man-to-man interaction as with premarital heterosexual sex before marriage is something that will create hell. The thing in this life that they are most susceptible to is “. . .receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error.”  We can see from the CDC that this “recompense” can be, at least partially, Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) of not only HIV but also Syphilis and gonorrhea. There is also evidence that psychological anomalies seem to be connected to those engaged in same sex activities (for some information see the article explored in the abstract https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S135311319890133X, for an actual internet posted article more in depth mentioning possible secular remedies see https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01506/full  )  
            Verses 28-31:

    “And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient;”

    “Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers,”

    “Detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,”

    “Foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy.”  
    Commentary: Those in hell (this group also, as in above cases, include those who reject God on Earth and is essentially a warning to those to change their ways to save themselves not only on Earth but in the next life) “liked to not have God in their knowledge,” which is to say they did not want to think about God and by extension what He labeled as right and wrong. In delivering them up to a reprobate state He let them be and do what they wanted. “Inventors of evil things” includes things like novel torture, eliciting extreme fear, attacking a country in the vanity of national pride etc. to be “without affection” is to be without charity or love. To be “without fidelity” is to have loyalty to nobody and basically creates a world where nobody can trust anybody else. Finally, to be “without mercy” is, for example, to be able to torture or assault someone either sexually, physically, emotionally or mentally without pity or respite simply for one’s own pleasure or entertainment.
           Verse 32:

    “Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.”
    Commentary: This is why those that do not positively follow the commandments and hold others in their care or authoritative influence such as children, family, employees or political constituents are condemned also. If you do not, in justice, stop evil you cannot be expected to be spared it. There is an adage that “silence implies consent” but whether or not you are in authority if you do not stop evil or say something about it (i.e., stay silent), you allow it, and in essence consent to evil and its consequence of hurting others. In addition, you will likely, given enough time, probably subject to that evil. And remember time in hell is infinite.

           Just as God gives free reign to our desires here on earth He will give the same freedom in the afterlife, but those in hell will be on their own, rejecting God and is all knowing wisdom as our creator. God will not be in hell to judge or enforce justice, He lets the avarice, murderous intent and malice in hell, allow its inhabitants take care of their punishment. So, the way those in hell create its punishment lie, for the most part, in the lack of compassion there.  It is clear to me that this excerpt from Romans is a blueprint for not only hell in the afterlife but also to create a hell here on Earth.

           But in heaven, these types of things will not be a problem because original sin will be removed as to our revealed desire to have it removed in living our lives committing to follow all of  God’s law (consenting to God’s will without reservation in all things) and thereby giving our consent to change us, to heal the wound of original sin, to allow us to once again use our intellect to do the right thing. Things like concupiscence will be permanently remove or otherwise suppressed by our reason and intellect. In Mark chapter 12 verses 24 and 25 he speaks of God using his power to make those that rise in the glory of heaven “as the angels in heaven.” In our life we must trust God in all things and believe all Jesus Christ and Christ’s church requires us to believe and make our will one with His to desire all He wants for us..

           “Have confidence in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not upon thy own prudence.” (Proverbs 3:5 Douey-Rheims)

  • Human Weakness is part of why we can be happy

                In the catechism, as Catholics we learn that God made us .to “know love and serve him in this life and to be happy with him forever in the next life” If we think about it we can easily see that God specifically made us to be happy. What a normal person might see as a human “deficiency” (in comparison to God) only seems that way due to the fact that they don’t understand that to have all of God’s attributes we could never enjoy the most satisfying features of this life. What exactly do I mean by this?

                Let’s take the fact that God is all-knowing as a starter. If we were all knowing, we could never be surprised by, for instance, getting a brand new car for graduation.  We could not have a sense of humor since a sense of humor, as we see in the case of a comedians stand up performance or in a joke of a buddy, the thing that makes something funny is the unexpectedness of a different point of view or the use of a word or seeing a situation in an unexpected way or from a different point of view. Anyway how boring would life be for humans if we knew everything ahead of time? God expects everything since He knows all and “sees” all points of view.

                Next let us look at the fact that he is all powerful. If we were all powerful we could never have the exhilaration that is the result of accomplishment.  Our limitations mean that it is possible that we can fail at things.  When the Wright brother worked to invent the airplane, at the start they were not sure that they would accomplish that feat.  The fact is that when they did they experienced the thrill of accomplishment.

                There a few other “alls” that can be attributed to God like all-present, all seeing etc. but I will only cove one more, that is he is all-just, to make 2 points.  First, we can forgive someone for something they do not deserve forgiveness for (and if this were the end of their life and they were not Catholic, did not have perfect contrition for something they did or did not go to confession God would not forgive them because he is all-just), and because of this it may influence them to completely change their life (e.g. Alexsandro and Saint Maria Teresa Goretti).  I see this as part of why God came as Jesus Christ and Jesus formed his mystical body – the church, on earth.  We, as part of the mystical body of Christ, have the opportunity to save a soul from an eternity of horror and suffering.  This is how the mystical body allows God to give humans another possibility for mercy.  This is in addition the opportunity to appeal to our blessed mother to pray for help for us.  Unlike the myth that out lady can somehow let us into a back door to heaven directly, the back door she allows us is here on earth – an experience that will allow us to see the error of our ways on earth, help in our emotions to find true contrition and go to confession.   Second, If one is not in some way a part of the catholic church and/or fails to properly repent of a mortal sin, God is all just and will condemn that person to hell.  Am I saying God has no choice? No what I am saying is in the creation of the concept of justice God “locked in” His choices on what he would do at the instant of creation. How he created the world could have conceivably been different but this was the best way to create the world to maximize the happiness we could enjoy in heaven.  Maximizing the possible happiness of individuals in heaven is the reason God created everything the way He did.  Before God created us He knew us and for the benefit of all those in heaven He created the universe the way He did (Jeremiah 1:5).

               The fact is, as I read the bible, that God does not create the pains and horrors of hell, as I discussed in the previous blog. Now I did not say hell does not exist, because it does exist.  I did not say most people do not go to hell because our Lord said “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14 From the new international version of the bible) And therefore most people go to hell.  I also did not say hell is not as horrible as some, if not most, fear it to be because our Lord said “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off, it is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two hands and go into hell, into the unquenchable fire.” (Mark 9:43-48). It is my opinion, from reading the bible, that the unspoken truth is it is probably worst that you can imagine. If God had created it you could imagine that there might be an end to the cruelty and horror there.  But God neither creates it nor is he there to moderate it in any substantive way.  His only commitment to them is to keep them in existence.  Once again in my opinion, from reading the bible, is the ultimate irony for those in hell’s rejection of God is that God will create hell the same as heaven, with the only real 2 real differences being 1. God grants those in hell their response of “no” to repair of original sin in our beings brought to us by our redeemer whose face they spat in and 2. Their response of “no” to God to bring the order he tried to teach them in their earthly life.  Now, who then creates hell? Where does it come from? The people like Hitler, Stalin. Pol Pot that are there as well as the devil and his demons.  And like many people in 2021 America the people that “aren’t so bad” will not try and stand up for what is right and things will get worst.  But, you say how could they let it get so bad? How did Cambodia under Pol Pot get so bad? How did the Soviet Union under Stalin get so bad? They got so bad because there was ultimately no outside source of moral rightness – no God or ultimate immutable law giver i.e. ultimately no ultimate law.  In other words it was an anything goes society with no limits on what you could do up to and including murder and torture people at your leisure if you were powerful enough. Until these totalitarian governments were forced by there economies and dearth of people to collapse, they simply, In my view, continued to get worst.  Without good people, all of whom will be in heaven there will be nothing to keep hell from getting worst and worst into infinity and that is the unspoken truth, that all should be able to deduce, about hell.

              A perfect God on the other hand, unlike what Martin Luther proposed in his doctrine about humans being irretrievably rotten and Christ’s death covering over our sin with a white sheet, created us to be perfect.  Part of being perfect of course is having free will. Adam and eve had everything to make them happy and had only really one law: do not eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  In heaven people will have free will but they will become “as the angels in heaven (Mark 12:25). But this will be because in saying “yes” to all God wanted for us in life and “yes” to all his precepts, we give are complete and unqualified assent to “fixing” the wound of original sin any way He wants to and in so doing will make us like angels.  This being the case, since from all the bible passages I have seen, their appears to be no strife among the angels still in heaven, this means that there would be no strife among humans and no need for either police or soldiers. We could pursue our now ordered wants and desires anyway we wanted to and would always be mindful and practicing providing for the rights of all others, something that is totally foreign in our world.