#wdtprs

The Church teaches authoritatively about matters of faith and morals.  She is pretty clear about the important issues.  If you act in a way that is contrary to what the Church teaches, you are not a good Catholic.  If you know what the Church teaches and you persist in acting against what the Church teaches, you are a bad Catholic.  You are in peril of Hell.

If you are really poorly formed, through no fault of your own, and you have acted out of ignorance, you are still on a slippery slope, but you may be less culpable for your objectively errant acts.

While you breathe, there is hope!  When you die, you will no longer have any chance to change your fate.  That’s will be it.

That WILL happen.

If you take anything about the Four Last Things – Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell – seriously, you will seek to form your conscience properly according to the clearly expressed mind of the Church. The ultimate fate of your eternal soul depends on it.

If you recognize what you are going face, then you will examine your conscience and figure out if you are a good Catholic or a bad Catholic  – yes, there are good and bad Catholics – and then do something about it.  If you are in the state of grace, you will strive to remain good and faithful.  If you are in the state of mortal sin you will strive to correct your life, make amends, seek reconciliation and go to confession.

If, by seeking to form your conscience well according to the mind of the Church, you discover that you have been wrong about something, culpably or inculpably, you will make corrections.  If you don’t, you put your soul at risk of Hell.

“Friend, you have a bad habit here.  It is going to be hard to replace it and the Enemy and your own interior weakness from Original Sin are going to fight you.  When you say “No’ to yourself, you are going to begin to suffer.   If its a really rooted vice, you will suffer more and more.   Plan on it.   You have to be willing to suffer. Be aware ahead of time so that you will know what your PLAN is to face the suffering.  Maybe it will be a cold shower or more manual tasks.  Maybe gazing a a crucifix and kissing Jesus’ feet over and over.   You have to PLAN for the suffering and then plan NOT to come down from the Cross the Lord is sharing with you.  Be ready for it and it won’t surprise you, bad as it is.   Stay on that Cross.”

When the Lord ascended to heaven He did not lose touch with us His people in this vale of tears.  St. Augustine in s. 341 talks about Christ’s presence in every word of Scripture as Word equal to the Father; or as the mediator in the flesh dwelling in our midst; or Christ as the Head and Body together as in a spousal relationship, Christ and His Church intimately bound.

This means that Christ is not insensible to our sufferings.  Our faith in this unbreakable bond of Head and Body calls us to be clean and worthy of this saving intimacy.

You help them to be priests.  Fabricando fabri fimus… we become carpenters by doing carpentry.  Priests become priestly by doing priestly things.

Priests are ordained for offering sacrifice.  They do this mainly through sacred liturgical worship in its proper forms.  The main things they are for in the Church is celebration of the sacraments.  Anyone can do other things, but only priests can do certain things.  The main things that priests are really ordained to do are celebrate Mass and, in a routine way, hear confessions.

Priests who are not into all things liturgical, priests who are not into hearing confessions… what’s that all about?   The sanctuary and confessional, not the rectory, are the proper places for the priest.