"On the Remorse of the Damned"

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JMJ

Third Sunday after Epiphany

But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness: 

there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth

(Mt. 8.12)

IN the Gospel of this day it is related that when Jesus Christ entered into Capharnaum, there came to him a centurion beseeching Him to cure his servant, who lay sick of the palsy. Jesus answered: I will come and heal him. "No," replied the centurion, ”I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed." (v. 8.) Seeing the centurion’s faith, the Redeemer instantly consoled him by restoring health to his servant; and, turning to His disciples, He said: Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into the exterior darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. By these words our Lord wished to signify, that many persons born in infidelity shall be saved [through their faith in Him], and enjoy the society of the saints, and that many who are born in the bosom of the Church shall be cast into Hell, where the worm of conscience, by its gnawing, shall make them weep bitterly for all eternity. Let us examine the remorse of conscience which, a damned Christian shall suffer in Hell.


First remorse of the damned Christian, arising from the thought of the little which he required to do in order to save his soul.

A damned soul once appeared to St. Hubert, and said, that two remorse’s were her most cruel executioners in Hell: the thought of the little which was necessary for her to have done in this life to secure her salvation; and the thought of the trifles for which she brought herself to eternal misery. The same thing has been said by St. Thomas. Speaking of the reprobate, he says: “They shall be in sorrow principally because they are damned for nothing, and because they could most easily have obtained eternal life." Let us stop to consider this first source of remorse; that is, how few and transitory are the pleasures for which all the damned are lost.

Each of the reprobate will say for eternity: If I abstained from such a gratification; if in certain circumstances I overcame human respect; if I avoided such an occasion of sin such a companion, I should not now be damned; if I had frequented some pious sodality [the Scapular Confraternity or the Confraternity of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel]; if I had gone to confession every week; if in temptations I had recommended myself to God, I would not have relapsed into sin. I have so often proposed to do these things, but I have not done them. I began to practise these means of salvation, but afterwards gave them up; and thus I am lost.

This torment of the damned will be increased by the remembrance of the good example given them by some young companions who led a chaste and pious life even in the midst of the world. It will be still more increased by the recollection of all the gifts which the Lord had bestowed upon them, that by their co-operation they might acquire eternal salvation; the gifts of nature: health, riches, respectability of family, talents; all gifts granted by God, not to be employed in the indulgence of pleasures and in the gratification of vanity, but in the sanctification of their souls, and in becoming saints. So many gifts of grace, so many divine lights, holy inspirations, loving calls, and so many years of life to repair past disorders. But they shall for ever hear from the angel of the Lord that for them the time of salvation is past. The angel whom I saw standing, swore by Him that liveth for ever and ever. . . . that time shall be no longer (Apoc. x. 6).

Alas! what cruel swords shall all these blessings received from God be to the heart of a poor damned Christian, when he shall see himself shut up in the prison of Hell, and that there is no more time to repair his eternal ruin! In despair he will say to his wretched companions: The harvest is past; the summer is ended; and we are not saved (Jer. viii. 20). The time, he will say, of gathering fruits of eternal life is past; the summer, during which we could have saved our souls, is over, but we are not saved: the winter is come; but it is an eternal winter, in which we must live in misery and despair as long as God shall be God.

O fool, he will say, that I have been! If I had suffered for God the pains to which I have submitted for the indulgence of my passions - if the labours which I have endured for my own damnation, had been borne for my salvation, how happy should I now be! And what now remains of all past pleasures, but remorse and pain, which now torture, and shall torture me for eternity? Finally, he will say, I might be for ever happy and now I must be for ever miserable. Ah! this thought will torture the damned more than the fire and all the other torments of Hell.

Second remorse of the damned, arising from the remembrance of the trifles for which they lost their souls.

Saul forbid the people, under pain of death, to taste food. His son Jonathan, who was then young being hungry, tasted a little honey. Having discovered that Jonathan had violated the command, the king declared that he should die. Seeing himself condemned to death, Jonathan said with tears: I did but taste a little honey, and behold I must die (1 Kings xiv. 43). But the people, moved to pity for Jonathan, interposed with his father, and delivered him from death. For the unhappy damned there is no compassion; there is no one to intercede with God to deliver them from the eternal death of Hell. On the contrary, all rejoice at the just punishment which they suffer for having wilfully lost God and Paradise for the sake of a transitory pleasure.

After having eaten the pottage of lentils for which he sold his right of primogeniture, Esau was tortured with grief and remorse for what he had lost, and roared out with a great cry (Gen. xxvii. 34). Oh! how great shall be the roaring and howling of the damned, at the thought of having lost, for a few poisonous and momentary pleasures, the everlasting kingdom of Paradise, and of being condemned for eternity to a continual death!

The unfortunate reprobate shall be continually employed in reflecting on the unhappy cause of their damnation. To us who live on earth our past life appears but a moment - but a dream. Alas! what will the fifty or sixty years which they may have spent in this world appear to the damned, when they shall find themselves in the abyss of eternity, and when they shall have passed a hundred and a thousand millions of years in torments, and shall see that their miserable eternity is only beginning, and shall be for ever in its commencement? But have the fifty years spent on this earth been full of pleasures? Perhaps the sinner, living in enmity with God, enjoyed uninterrupted happiness in his sins? How long do the pleasures of sin last? Only for a few minutes; the remaining part of the lives of those who live at a distance from God is full of anguish and pain. Oh! what will these moments of pleasure appear to a damned soul, when she shall find herself in a pit of fire?

What hath pride profited us? or what advantage hath the boasting of riches brought us? All those things have passed away like a shadow (Wis. v. 8). Unhappy me! each of the damned shall say, I have lived on earth according to my corrupt inclinations; I have indulged my pleasures; but what have they profited me? They have lasted but for a short time; they have made me lead a life of bitterness and disquietude; and now I must burn in this furnace for ever, in despair, and abandoned by all.

Third remorse of the damned, arising from the knowledge of the great good which they have lost by their own fault.

The greatest pain in Hell is the loss of God, that sovereign good, who is the source of all the joys of Paradise. ”Let torments," says St. Bruno, ”be added to torments, and let them not be deprived of God." (Serm, de Jud. fin.) The damned would be content to have a thousand Hells added to the Hell which they suffer provided they were not deprived of God; but their Hell shall consist in seeing themselves deprived for ever of God through their own fault. St. Teresa used to say, that when a person loses, through his own fault, a trifle - a small sum of money, or a ring of little value - the thought of having lost it through his own neglect afflicts him and disturbs his peace. What then must be the anguish of the damned in reflecting that they have lost God, a good of infinite value, and have lost him through their own fault?

The damned shall see that God wished them to be saved, and had given them the choice of eternal life or of eternal death. Before man is life and death, that which he shall choose shall be given to him (Eccles. xv. 18.) They shall see that, if they wished, they might have acquired eternal happiness, and that, by their own choice, they are damned. On the day of judgment they shall see many of their companions among the elect; but, because they would not put a stop to their career of sin, they have gone to end it in Hell. “Therefore we have erred," they shall say to their unhappy associates in Hell; we have erred in losing Heaven and God through our own fault, and our error is irreparable. They shall continually exclaim: There is no peace for my bones because of my sins (Ps. xxxvii. 4.) The thought of having been the cause of their own damnation produces an internal pain, which enters into the very bones of the damned, and prevents them from ever enjoying a moments repose. Hence, each of them shall be to himself an object of the greatest horror. Each shall suffer the pain threatened by the Lord: I will set THEE before thy face (Ps. xlix. 21.)

If, beloved brethren, you have hitherto been so foolish as to lose God for a miserable pleasure, do not persevere in your folly. Endeavour, now that you have it in your power, to repair your past error. Tremble! Perhaps, if you do not now resolve to change your life, you shall be abandoned by God, and be lost for ever. When the Devil tempts you, remember Hell, the thought of Hell will preserve you from that land of misery. I say, remember Hell and have recourse to Jesus Christ and to most holy Mary, and they will deliver you from sin, which is the gate of Hell.

(A Sermon of St. Alphonsus Liguori - Bishop, Doctor of the Church)

Related posts: "The Wine of the Wrath of God," "Our Lady at Fatima: 'MANY souls go to hell...," "Our Lady, Vatican II Disorientation, 'Annihilation of Many Nations," "A Grain of Mustard Seed," Hell Exists, "Catholic Dogma on Hell: Part I, Part II"

"The Wine of the Wrath of God"

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JMJ

Second Sunday After Epiphany

In today's Gospel, we see the faith and prompt obedience of the servants who, following the advice of Our Blessed Mother, immediately carry out the orders of Jesus; they fill the pots with water and then pour the good wine from them. Not a moment of doubt, not a protest - they simply obey. And how Our Lord remedies what is failing!

Our Blessed Mother, seeing that the Orient from on high (that is, her Son) and the moon (that is, the Catholic Church) reflecting to the world the Sun's light were about to be eclipsed (cf., our post "The Great Tribulation") in the 1960's (cf., our post "Our Lady and the New Orientation in Rome"), intervened at Fatima and finally at Tuy to bring us heaven's prescribed last remedy. But Her warnings were to meet not only a cold Papal "noted"; the crucial request was to become an object also of a mock-consecration by the Holy See itself (cf., our post "When Mary Comes III") - but by the Holy See debilitated (cf., our posts "A Perilous 'Catholic' Voyage" and "The Great Tribulation") by the first Apocalyptic woe (cf., 9.3) of the smoke of the pit and the emerging swarm of locusts (the infiltrating revolutionaries: the Freemasons, cf., our post "A Perilous 'Catholic' Voyage," and Communists, cf., our posts "The Year That Was 1929" and "Upheaval") all emanating from the Synagogue of Satan (Apoc. 2.9; 3.9), cf., our post "Anti-Christian Conspiracy: Scriptural Truth and Historical Fact." The onslaught of the four winds (Apoc. 7.1), which, in Prophet Jeremias (49.36) means a great slaughter of the 'good' and the bad (cf., the messages of Our Blessed Mother at Akita in Japan) and the extirpation of a nation (cf., the "annihilation of many nations" in our post, "Our Lady, Vatican II Disorientation, and 'Annihilation of Many Nations'"), was inevitable.

However, before anything will be hurt, all who can still be trained, as has been traditionally done, by the Church into faithful servants of God must be sealed with the mark of God on their foreheads. Therefore there was the vision of the four angels and that angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the sign of the living God [the sign of the Cross, cf., the Hebrew thau of Ezech. 9.4] (Apoc. 7.1,2). These angels then are bishops* for we learn from St. Paul (2 Cor. 1.21,22) that "Confirmation was conferred by anointing and sealing besides the imposition of hands; probably just as it [has been traditionally] conferred" (Fr. H.B. Kramer, The Book of Destiny, p. 175). That this sealing of the foreheads with the mark of God refers to the Sacrament of Confirmation was confirmed by post-Apostolic writings.
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* Cf., the angels of Apoc. 3-2; the chief priests: a priest who has the perpetual Levitical unction (cf. Ex. 40.13; 1 Paralipomenon 15.3), is the angel of the Lord of Hosts (Malachi 2.7).
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the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (in golden traditional Roman chasuble)
and the four auxiliary Bishops after the  occasson of the 1988 Episcopal Consecrations

30th June 1988, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre consecrated four priests to become auxiliary Bishops who would not only continue the Catholic priesthood bearing the perpetual Levitical unction [which the Neo-Catholic Vatican could not guarantee - only priests who will preach 'Ecumenism', cf., Pope Paul VI in our post "Our 'Great Reversal'" - while the Archbishop was already ailing and would soon be gone] but also confer the traditional Rite of the Sacrament of Confirmation (for in the Neo-Catholic Rite of "sealing", the pastor may substitute something other than the required traditional matter of the Sacrament thus putting into question the validity of the Neo-Catholic 'Confirmation'). [And the] angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the sign of the living God;... cried with a loud voice to the four angels... saying... we sign the servants of our God on their foreheads (Apoc. 7.2,3). From the rising of the sun, that is, "he therefore comes in the name of Christ [the Sun, the Orient from on high] and with His authority" (Fr. H. B. Kramer, op. cit.). On their foreheads, thus there is no guile or deceit, no hypocrisy, no selfish desires, no vice of pride in them and they are of one mind with the ancient Church of Christ in her "Constantinian-Gregorian-Tridentine-'Triumphalist'" historical continuity - they have the interest of Christ and of His Church for a most vital one, the honor of Christ and of His Church for their business. As is written, to the righteous a light is risen up in darkness (Ps. 111.4, Ch. and v. according to the Sacred Latin Vulgate Bible); but, to those who do not have the interest of Christ and of His Church and seek primarily temporal welfare: in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying (2 Thess. 2.10). In all seduction of iniquity, that is, deceived; they believe they are in the light but following Satan [who] transformeth himself into an angel of light (2 Cor. 11.14), 'sealed' with the mark of the beast on their forehead, who think and believe as a 'Liberal Catholic' (cf., our post Vatican II & Freemasonry on 'Religious Liberty') and 'Modernist' (cf., our post Vatican II and Modernism) do; they say they are 'Catholics' in 'full' communion with the Pope? Thou hast the name of being alive: and thou art dead (Apoc. 3.1).

Now, Bishop Fellay, one of the four auxiliary bishops of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X founded by Archbishop Lefebvre and the Fraternity's current Superior General, has gotten rid of Bishop Richard Williamson for the latter proved to be staunchest against the Society being dragged by its head - having long been sold to the idea that ninety-five percent of Vatican II is acceptable - into a privileged niche in the Neo-Church. It is as if only one were left trying to hold the onslaught of the four winds and so we are brought to the scene where the Lamb of God is already standing with His faithful servants whose foreheads bear the seal of the mark of the living God (Apoc. 14.1) - the scene of judgment (cf., Jude 1.14-15). The destruction of Babylon - the pseudo-Church drunk with the wine of ecumenical fornication, Catholic nations who have apostatized (cf., 2 Thess. 2.3), cities where enormous sins as blasphemy, impurity, fornication, and homosexuality abound and daily committed (cf., our post "... 'Annihilation of Many Nations'") - is imminent. Meanwhile, Bishop Williamson is flying... having the eternal gospel... saying with a loud voice (Apoc. 14.6):

God reserved the good wine for His faithful House and City. But the time is, that judgment should begin at the house of God. And if first at us, what shall be the end of them that believe not the Gospel of God? (1 Pet. 4.17) They also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mingled with pure wine in the cup of His wrath... (Apoc. 14.10)

Related posts: "On the Number of Sins Beyond Which God Pardons No More", "The Time of God's Visitation". See also, "Gloria Olivae" (on the last Pope of our end-times period - to be followed by the triumph of the Catholic Church through the "Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary": a "period of peace" according to Our Lady of Fatima) and "Poenitentiam Agite!/Do Penance!" (on our fundamental recourse)

"Quo Vadis... Petre?"

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JMJ

Whither goest thou... Peter?"

On the Feast of the Epiphany, Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, was quoted by the Catholic News Agency (CNA) to have told those who gathered at St. Peter's that the Magi represent “the civilizations, the cultures, THE RELIGIONS [that are] on the path to God, in search of his reign of peace, of justice, of truth, and of liberty.”

"The RELIGIONS [that are] on the path to God..." Peter is yet again wandering afar off (Mt. 26.58: Jn. 19.25-27), searching for another cave where a middle ground for contradictories could, in all its logical absurdity, be subjected to further ecumenical discussions! Truly, the Word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two edged sword (Heb. 4.12). Is not the Catholic Religion the path to the true God, as was the consistent teaching of the Chair of the Truth? The Eternal Word made flesh would later claim that He Is the Way, the Truth, and the Life so that no man cometh to the Father, but by [Him] (Jn. 14.6) - the same singular position He shares with that Church He built on the rock, Cephas, and which continues in its "Constantinian-Gregorian-Tridentine-'Triumphalist'" historical reality, constituting her to be the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. 3.15) so that those who would refuse to hear THE Church - not Churches - (Mt.18.17) He condemns to the lot of the heathens [who] sacrifice to devils" (Mt. 18.17: 1 Cor. 10.20) for all the gods of the Gentiles are devils" (Ps. 95.5 - the Sacred Latin Vulgate Bible & the DRV): non-Catholic creeds therefore can never be "on the path to God."

The Wise Men following a divine light made their way into that cave which is the Catholic Church - for in there the Lord and Savior is truly, really, and substantially present, enthroned, on the HIGH ALTAR not as a respectable one that deserves a nod or a bow but as the Sovereign King of kings and Lord of lords (Apoc. 19.16), holding absolute dominion not just over individual minds and hearts but also States in their constitutions and laws (for the kingdom is the Lord's; and He shall have dominion over the nations, Ps. 21.29), to be adored on bended knees (cf., Phil. 2.10). The Holy Gospel for the Feast of the Epiphany proclaims: Where is He that is born King... For we are come to adore Him" (Mt. 2.2) - the SEARCH for the true God has its definite TERM or END but which terminus is denied, repudiated, and balked at in the apostasy which is the 'Order' of the 'day'. The Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain things. The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord, and against His Christ: Let us break their bonds asunder, and let us cast away their yoke from us (Ps. 2.1-3).

"WHERE... TO ADORE HIM"? The Wise Men were once led by a divine light to where God was the least expected, so it is thus in this our period - in a 'cave'. Wheresoever the Body shall be, there shall the eagles also be gathered together... When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation... let them flee to the mountains (Mt. 24. 28,15,16)

Brethren, withdraw yourselves from every brother walking disorderly, and not according to the tradition which they have received of us... Yet dot esteem him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother (2 Thess. 3.6,15).

Related post: "A Perilous 'Catholic' Voyage"

"Lux Magna"

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JMJ

Feast of the Epiphany

The people that walked in darkness...

them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death...

have seen a GREAT LIGHT 

(Is. 9.2.)

God left the heavens to remake the hearts of men which, disordered by Original Sin in its desires and affections, have gone after those goods proposed to it by a mind darkened and prone to error as the first and the highest to which everything else must be duly subordinated - the spiraling chaos of the day. There is not any man just. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. All have turned out of the way: there is none that doth good... (Ps. 13.3: Rom. 3.10-12). The Savior and Eternal Word (cf., Jn. 1.1) made flesh (Jn. 1.14), in [Whom] was life and the life was the light of men and the light shineth in darkness" (Jn. 1.4), would put things in the right order: Why asketh thou me concerning good? One is good, God (Mt. 19.17).

God seeks the first and the center of everything - not the second or third place and not the peripheral; God seeks the whole and the entire - not a mere share. But the darkness did not comprehend It" (Jn. 1.5). Therefore, in varying degrees a great mass of people (the merrying unbelievers and pretended Christians) miss the full import of Christmas. And to this mass we are to add even those who were supposed to be marching under the banner of Sacred Tradition who, [j]ealous of their position to be at the first and at the center of restoration-'command', now have actually started arbitrating*, nay arrogating** things  which the fingers of the Divine Infant has traced and compassed; exaggerating their "[Theological] scaffolding" (Fr. Reginald-Garrigou Lagrange, O.P.) to be the whole and the entire edifice of the great Spiritual battle of the times!
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* Appallingly substituting their 'hierarchical' [or personal] expediencies for the requirements of the basic sense of justice and fairness and the canonical requirements in the conferment of the sacred Orders and in the  administration of Holy Communion: those who everyday stand before God at the foot of the altar praying "Judica me Deus..." while at the high altar "offer up [before the face of God] the Sacrifice of justice" (Ps. 4.6).

** Pretending to be the infallible Catholic authority - whereas in the 4th century the claim was simply to be "the voice of orthodoxy" - by whose words and emergency arrangement things should be established, delimited and circumscribed (but with it at the hub).
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Our Lord was found only by two classes: those who know, and those who do not know - but never by those who think they know. Divinity is so profound that it can be grasped only by the 'extremes' of simplicity and wisdom. There is something in common between the wise and the simple, and that is humility. The wise man is humble because he knows that regardless of how deep he digs, Divinity is always deeper; the simple man is humble, because he knows Divinity is so deep there is no use of him digging. But that self-wise inquirer, with a sophomoric mind stuffed with the pride of his little learning and of his sense of whatever vain little 'best' in possession, is so convinced of his knowledge (his little light)and position (his guiding light) that he will not dig because he thinks nothing can be deeper than himself.

There is only one way to discover God manifesting Himself - and that is by being little, which is another word for being humble. There is only one way in which we discover anything big, and that is by being little. There is only one spirit by which we can discover the immense God, and that is the spirit of little children. But the proud man, he is so big that he thinks there is nothing wiser than himself, and so self-sufficient that nothing could ever add to his sufficiency. He is so big - and indispensable - mentally, that to him everything else is little - and therefore 'disposable'.

Only the humble, simple souls, who are little enough to see the bigness of God in the littleness of a Babe (and the true God of our holy Catholic Tradition much bigger than Tradition itself), therefore, are the ones who will ever understand the reason of His Manifestation. He came to this poor earth of ours to carry on an exchange; to say to us, as only a good God could say: "You give Me your humanity and I will give you a participation in My divinity; you give Me your time and I will give you My eternity; you give Me your weary body and I will give you redemption; you give Me all your love, affections, and desires, I will give you My Heart; you give Me your nothingness and I will give you My All."

His law then must be our law. As He Who Is God descended even to the lowness of childhood, as the first step to everlasting triumph, so we must descend from our ignorant pride to the level of what we are in His eyes. The Great Light is risen upon us to dispel the darkness of our own, as always, little light. [Taken, with adaptations, from the addresses given by Abp. F. Sheen on December 24,31 in 1933.]

A most blessed Feast to all!

Related post: "True Humility"