As St. John once said, “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.” 1 John 3:14 Thus, love (not religious practices) is the only valid measure of knowing with certitude that a soul is on the pathway to heaven. Many a road to hell has been paved by souls who, when lead astray by the deceiver, believed they were on the way to heaven because of their awesome “religious practices.” These are souls that do everything right, including lots of church services, mortifications and rituals. Further, it can be ascertained that the pathway to Purgatory is also paved by souls who love, but have placed limits on their love. They may choose not to forgive certain people or not to love certain races, colors of people, gay people, weak people and the like. However, when we embrace all of humanity with no-limits-love we walk on a pathway that can bypass Purgatory and lead the soul direct to heaven. Blessed Mother Teresa is our modern model of such love. All of heaven is granted the soul in spite of its human weaknesses, failures and flaws that may still exist in it in this life. St. Peter sums it all up in this regard when he said, “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8____________
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It has come to my attention that many of you are Upset that folks are taking My name out of the season.
Take it from Saint Faustina, a poor sister at the end of her life, writing from her convent worn out and weakened by the intense pain and abandonment of a slow death from tuberculosis. The real suffering comes not from the poverty of a terminal illness, but from those whom we count on, we break bread with, but who are living religiously hypocritical lives by being unkind to the sick and broken. Apparently, it is here that the poor suffer the most.
And yet it often happens that some who have been hardened, habitual sinners arrive at perfection of this work sooner than those who have never sinned grievously. God is truly wonderful in lavishing His grace on anyone He chooses; the world stands bewildered before love like this . . .
The basis of all evil in the world has come from our lust for power. In the first murder of recorded history, Cain kills Abel because he chooses to have power over him. The entire world’s system depends on domination and control in order to have power over others. It is the basis of all wars and at the same time it is the basis of all division among friends, marriages and families.
In her book, Failing America’s Faithful, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (daughter of Senator Robert Kennedy) builds a strong case that historically in America, both the Catholic and Protestant church have long traditions of social justice, charity and serving the poor. Throughout the 1800s - 1900s, the Catholic Church took up the responsibility of social justice with the establishment of 100s of hospitals, orphanages, the work of Mother Cabrini, Dorothy Day and more. In the 1960s, the Protestant Church with the backing of many Catholics took on the issue of civil rights and the poverty of minorities in America. They stood strong with Martin Luther King Jr. (a Southern Baptist) who found support with the likes of the Pope Paul VI and the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy (Catholic).
Thomas Merton writes in the introduction to his book, The Wisdom of the Desert . . . “Society was regarded [by St. Anthony and the Desert Fathers] as a shipwreck from which each single individual man or woman had to swim for his life . . . These were men [the Desert Fathers] who believed that to let oneself drift along, passively accepting the tenets and values of what they knew as society, was purely and simply a disaster.”
Deut. 26:5-9. The Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, and imposed hard labor on us. Then we cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction and our toil and our oppression; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with great terror and with signs and wonders; and He has brought us to... this land flowing with milk and honey.
