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I continue
to question why you stay in California. It seems every day I hear more and
more about what distressful things are coming out of that State. When I was
in school and first learning about government, I got the impression that
“Liberals” seemed to be people who care about the well being of
all other people. Now it just seems to me that “Liberals” are going
to great lengths to destroy the sanctity of all that will bring people to
greatness—be it on their own or with help. Anyway, I know you must hear
enough about the State and City you live in. I just can’t help to question
why you stay. You must feel so out of place.
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 hy did God put me in California,
especially right in the middle of San Francisco pride? Well, San Francisco
is my personal purgatory. It has been said that the price we pay for purgation
in this life is nothing compared to what we will have to pay in Purgatory,
so let us pay as much of the price now as possible. In living in the midst
of the depths of human depravity, I become more able to understand the depths
of divine mercy.
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The city is full
of wickedness and evil;
it is full of sin;
The streets of San Francisco are never free
from tyranny and deceit. |
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—See Psalm
55:11–12 |
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In fact, the world continues
in existence today only because of faithful souls through the ages who,
surrounded with depravity, have been praying for God’s mercy.
Yes, distressful things are coming
out of this state because California is infested with evil
spirits.
Moreover, not just San Francisco
in its pride, and not just California, but the entire world has largely abandoned
and deserted God’s grace. Inestimable sins today
wound the Sacred Heart of Jesus—sins committed
not just by the enemies of the Church but also by so-called Christians
who have grown lukewarm and indifferent to the true
Faith. Abortion, addictions, assisted suicide, child
abuse, contempt for the environment, divorce, eroticism, exploitation of
the weak and the helpless, hate and hostility, idolatry of entertainment
and sports, illegal immigration, immodesty, infanticide, lifestyles defiant
of chastity, pornography, prostitution, and all self-indulgence in general
warrant our chastisement by God.
We have turned so far from
aspirations to purity that we are on the brink of our own condemnation. When
we have fallen so far into spiritual blindness
as to elect UID politicians, who needs
terrorists to threaten us when we have more
and more disasters—hurricanes, tornadoes,
earthquakes, floods, fires, tsunamis, blizzards, oil spills, and economic
failures—to remind us that God has created this world and all we have
in it, and that self-indulgence is ultimately as meaningless as technology
without electricity? But will we listen?
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Let the nations
be judged in your presence.
Strike them with terror, Lord;
show the nations they are mere mortals. |
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—Psalm
9A:20–21 |
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Yet those devout souls who get
on their knees in penitential prayer help to ward off disaster,
praying and making sacrifices to obtain the grace
that the faithful may be spared from the chastisement, that the lukewarm
will repent their indifference and ignorance and be moved to
witness the true faith, and that the wicked will
be brought to conversion.
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Bishops and pastors
who remove kneelers from churches and demand that we stand during the Eucharistic
Prayer have missed the point. Yes, it can be shown through scholarly research
that, for liturgical celebrations, members of the early Church often prayed
standing, and that kneeling was considered to be a penitential posture. And
that’s all the more reason why today we should all be on our
knees through the whole Mass begging for
mercy for our sins and those of the whole
world. |
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And that’s why we have cities
like San Francisco, cities of the living dead: the agony of living in them
can teach us how to pray and beg for mercy. We have to learn that we cannot
ascend to the heights of divine love unless we are willing to understand
the depths of divine love. We have to smell the stench of sin, see its
ugly gloom hanging over us, hear its raucous din, and feel it pressing its
lust against us—and still know that God’s
love descends even to these depths, calling us out
of our depravity. Justice would like to see this city burnt to a cinder,
yet God tells us, “I do not desire anyone to be lost.
Pray for them all, even the most abhorrent and
wicked, that at least some might be saved.”
Yes, God is merciful, for all
of us have until the last moment of our lives the opportunity to repent our
sins. But after that last breath, it will be too late, and the wicked will
be swept away like weeds for the fire (cf. Matthew 13:30).
Therefore, without losing
patience or faith
we must pray constantly and make
sacrifices for the enlightenment and conversion
of all the countless souls lost in mortal
sin—thousands and tens of thousands of lost
souls everywhere you turn, on sidewalks and freeways, in busses and trains,
and even in churches and rectories. Where is holiness, if not in the prayers
of your own heart?
The following
advertisement is presented in compliance with the
San Francisco EOO (Equal Opportunity of Opinion)
Diversity Enhancement Ordinance BS7734:
No
advertising—no sponsor—just the simple truth . . .
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Read
an excerpt from a letter about repentance
