Once we get to a point where we finally accept that suffering is interwoven into life on earth and cannot be separated from a meaningful existence, then we can begin to have peace.
We can attain this peace because we’re able to see that suffering is, in fact, not the greatest evil as the world would have us believe…hell is.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” some might say. “Isn’t hell just an antiquated product of the Medieval Catholic Church bullying its ignorant members into submission?“
Heaven isn’t inclusive?
It might seem this way if we listen to the modernists’ (inside and outside the Catholic Church) claim that being inclusive and welcoming is among the highest of virtues.
The trouble is, tolerance and inclusivity are not among the four Cardinal Virtues of prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude (courage) (CCC 1805-1809).
Why is that?
Well, for one thing, these cultural movements are no virtues at all. Jesus never said that we had to include everyone or assume that all would be welcomed into heaven.
He emphasized the opposite actually. Jesus spoke in veiled language using metaphors and parables that most people did not understand (see John 3:1-21, Mt 16:5-12, and Mt 13), and His disciples even had a hard time knowing why He did the things He did or what He was talking about.
Since most people rejected Him, Jesus said His followers would also largely be rejected, and many chose to walk away. Incidentally, this verse in John’s Gospel is John 6:66, the number associated with the devil and the anti-Christ.
With this in mind, Jesus did not want His disciples to beg, cajole or affirm those who rejected His teachings when they went out to the surrounding towns. In fact, He told them to shake the dust from their feet as they left the home of someone who refused to listen or treated them with hostility.
He also instructed them not to “cast their pearls before swine” or “give what is holy to dogs” (Mt 7:6).
Both passages imply that Christians are not to waste their time trying to convince anyone who is hostile to Jesus’ invitation to “repent and believe in the Gospel”— that it is actually counterproductive and even foolish to do so.
What’s more, God’s wrath will remain on those who reject it because the very next thing Jesus said after “shake the dust from your feet” was “It will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town” (Mt 10:15).
Yikes! That doesn’t sound like the “welcoming and inclusive” Jesus the world is trying to sell us.
These Scripture verses should rightfully put the “fear of God” into all of us–which incidentally, is considered one of the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit (CCC 1831) and the beginning of wisdom (Prov 9:10).
To offend or to defend?
So what is our main roadblock? Why do we buy into the lie that God is this great big teddy bear who welcomes all, doesn’t ask us to change, understands our weaknesses and glosses over our faults?
Well, it gets us out of having to put any effort into changing.
But it also robs us of the chance to practice compassion, and fosters a spirit of laziness, indifference, and cowardice instead of inspiring courage and fortitude.
The result? What we see today:
Our unwillingness to offend others has taken the place of our fear of offending God.
Therefore, what we get is backwards: we stop defending God out of fear of offending others. We become weak and soft, and frankly, downright cowardly. And when you get enough Christians doing this, we get an entire nation of cowards (I include myself in this assessment).
The great saints knew this, which is why we should hold them at such high esteem. They forgot their natural inclination for self-preservation and defended God at all costs.
How did they do this? They loved God without making compromises:
They prayed every day for their families and the world, and they stayed close to God through the sacraments. They spoke out against human atrocities of their time and worked against them by doing good. They saw Jesus in the ones who were being exploited, murdered and abused, and they did everything in their sphere of influence to help them. They befriended God and carried out His mission for their lives in unique and sometimes small and unnoticed ways in accordance with God’s plan for them.
Canadian saint, André Bessette, once said, “It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.”
What a great quote.
Hell on earth
When our focus is to avoid suffering at all costs instead of storing up treasure in heaven (Matt 6:19-21), we actually get the opposite effect–we get hell on earth.
The reason is our focus turns inward, and we attach ourselves to this world and lose sight of eternal life.
Which is exactly what the devil wants us to do.
Cheap love?
If there wasn’t more to life than just this world, why would Jesus even need to come save us from self-destruction?
If this is all there is, that would cheapen His love for us, and render each of our lives as worthless and a complete waste.
Thankfully the truth is, we don’t come cheap.
Yet how did we treat the truth? We distained it, mocked it, tortured it and nailed it to a cross.
It is in Christ Crucified that God shows us that without suffering, there can never be authentic love. Jesus’ tears over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41) before undergoing His death helps us to understand that the true enemy is not suffering, but sin… And sin is a taste of hell.
I hope you’re having a fruitful Lent!
St. Joseph, Terror of Demons, pray for us.