“But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which flourishes today but tomorrow is thrown in the oven, how much more you, O you of little faith!”
Today it flourishes but tomorrow it is thrown into the oven. The short and fleeting existence of the grass spoken of by our Blessed Lord is not sadly much different from our own existence. God loves and cares for us more, as our Lord is trying to make clear, but our time on this earth is also very short and for most of us, far shorter than we would imagine.
For the Christian, the thought of the shortness of our life should not be a reason for sadness or despair: after all, the reason for our existence is in order to be with God in eternal happiness.
However, achieving this final goal is not guaranteed. Despite the hope of the bishop of Rome, Our Lady told the chilren at Fatima that many souls go to hell. Many of the saints have had visions in which hell was far from empty. Saint Teresa had a vision of hell but was unable to actually see the flames through all the mitres and birettas.
And so the reality of the shortness of our lives: and the truth that none of us knows whether today will be our last day, is a cause for the Christian to be sober and alert to whether the Lord will find him ready for heaven, or whether he has turned away from the path of salvation through mortal sin – a choice for separation that God will respect for all eternity.
Holy Mother Church reminds us very clearly this Sunday, that our eternal salvation is not something we can achieve by our own strength but only with divine grace: we prayed in the Collect of the Mass: “since all mortals fall without You, may Your help keep them from danger and guide them to salvation.”
How common it is to hear people say something similar to “I do not need to go to Mass, I try to be a good person” The truth is, nobody goes to heaven for being a good person – you are only permitted to the wedding feast if you are wearing a wedding garment, and that garment is the state of grace given to us at baptism, lost through mortal sin, and restored and maintained by the sacraments Christ has given to His Church.
In the Epistle, Saint Paul warned the Galatians clearly, people who do these things will not enter the kingdom of God: immorality, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, witchcraft, enmity, contention, quarrelling, divisiveness, murder, drunkenness and such like.
A couple of years ago we saw bishops carrying in a statue of a pagan goddess into the basilica of St Peter in Rome, and the Pope taking part in a pagan ceremony in the papal gardens; idolatry and witchcraft practised on top of the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles by those who claim to be their successors.
Archbishop Vigano in the last few days has named one of the cardinals as being linked to freemasonry – a sect which at its centre is devoted not only to the destruction of the Church but ultimately to the worship of the devil. Whether or not Archibishop Vigano is correct, or whether or not you believe him, we now have abudant evidence from a variety of sources, both secular and religious, that several cardinals and bishops, many very high in authority in Rome, have been members of Freemasonic lodges. One of these freemasons was, as perhaps we all know, the person who fabricated the Novus Ordo Mass which is succeeding in its aim of protestantising our Catholic worship and destroying the faith of millions.
And so, rather than accepting the innovations of modern Rome, who try to tell us that living in mortal sin should not stop us from receiving Holy Communion, or that all people worship the same God with different names, let us stay faithful to the Truth handed down to us from the apostles. The traditional Catholic faith is the only way to salvation and so we must fight to protect that faith for our families and for the generations to come. “No one can serve two masters” is Jesus Christ truly the master of every area of my life? Do I allow my earthly desires: for comfort, for ease, for pleasure to sometimes take the place of master?
Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart will obtain for us all the graces we need to put aside everything that may endanger our faith or lead to our losing the state of grace. Without Her we can do nothing, we confidently ask for her motherly help.