|
|
|
Fear |
Healing |
Therapy |
Spiritual Counsels |
Books |
About CSF
The Demand for Spiritual Fruits |
The Eucharist |
The Passion |
Repentance |
A Holy Lifestyle
 RUE
Christianity is far more than a collection
of intellectual assertions; it demands a way of life that produces real
spiritual fruits. Therefore, if you
say you love Christ, and if you want to follow Him, and if
you are willing to do anything it takes to live a holy life, then
cling reverently to the following four fundamentals of Christian life. For
the sake of your own soul, shun any teaching that neglects these fundamentals.
Be wary, too, of any bishop or priest who advocates any teaching that neglects
these fundamentals.
The
Eucharist
The entire mystical basis of
Christianity is Christ’s real presence in this world. He came into this
world in the form of real flesh and blood, as an act of divine love, on a
mission to save us from our slavery to sin. And,
on the eve of the day when He would be tortured and crucified by His enemies,
He instituted the Eucharist, so that His
Church would never be without His Real
Presence.
“Jesus said to them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink His blood, you do not have life within you. . . .
Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me and I in him”
(John 6:53, 56).
Therefore, attend
Mass every Sunday and on every
holy day of obligation.
Wear modest and reverent dress clothing: for both
men and women, jeans, sneakers, shorts, shirts or jackets with sports or political
insignia, and visible tattoos are grave defilements of reverence; and for women in
particular, leggings, slacks, short skirts, bare shoulders, and low
necklines are all grave defilements of reverence. Also, women should
cover their heads with a scarf or chapel
veil before entering the church. Be careful to arrive on time (before the priest enters
the sanctuary); if you do arrive late, do not receive the Eucharist. When you enter the
church, look at the tabernacle and genuflect, saying silently, “My Lord and my God.” Do
not leave before the dismissal, and, when you leave, look at the tabernacle and genuflect,
saying silently, “My Lord and my God.”
 F YOU WANT to live a Christian
life, then adore and receive the Blessed Sacrament with
chaste purity of heart, making the
Eucharist the core of your life.
The
Passion
 When Christ shed His
blood for us, He fulfilled a triple purpose. First, He gave us
life—that is, freedom from our bondage to sin. Christ’s
death was a glorious mystery that reverberated from Heaven down to earth,
for “obliterating the bond [of Original
Sin] against us, with its legal claims, which was opposed to us, He
also removed it from our midst, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians
2:14). Second, this redemption worked in Christ’s
death was an example to us. It showed us, in a way that
no event in the world has ever shown before or since, how we, in our
hearts—the very hearts God has created—and through our own free
will, constantly injure others and defile, mock, and execute divine love
in every moment of our lives. Third, Christ died in order to be raised
again, to show us that God raises into His glory only those who, without
obstinacy or presumption, without cunning or intrigue, without strife or
schism, empty themselves of all their social
illusions in
humble, obedient service
to Him.
F YOU WANT to live a Christian
life, then meditate on Christ’s Passion, thinking His thoughts,
participating in His mission, and, by repeating
what He suffered, being filled with Him, over and over, day after day, praying
for the salvation of all (even your enemies),
persevering until the
end.
Repentance
Through the sacrament of
baptism we
promise to accept the redemption brought about by
Christ. In baptism, personal sins are washed away. But after baptism we can still
commit sin. Sin is essentially a rejection of our redemption, and that rejection
separates us from God. And so, to repair that damage and get back to God, we need
to repent our sins and pay for the mystical damage they have caused. Thus, through
the payment of repentance and penance, we can be purified—starting in this life and
then completed in Purgatory—of all that is not holy, so
that the desire for holy love will grow and overshadow
every other desire.
• |
The penance that we
do in this life is the willing enduring of suffering, very similar to the penance
done in Purgatory. But in this life the suffering is the graceful and uncomplaining
acceptance of all tribulations we encounter while still alive, whereby we can say,
“I accept this distress as reparation for all the obstruction of and damage to
God’s will that was done by my past sins. My graceful endurance of this suffering
signifies my love for God and is my voluntary expiation for my grievous offenses to
God.” |
|
• |
Note carefully that, contrary to popular
belief, the purifying, penitential suffering in Purgatory is not punishment.
In its psychological sense, punishment is a technique to decrease specific
behavior. After death, however, there is no need to decrease sinful behavior.
There is, though, a need to purge from all souls the
desire to sin which is spiritually
bound to all the sins the souls have committed through the course of their lives.
This purging of a desire and all the harm brought into the world through its associated
sins has been falsely called “punishment,” but it is properly called
purification. |
|
Thus, even though God forgives our sins
when we repent them while we are alive—that is, He constantly welcomes us back to Him
despite our sins—the stain of our sins must be removed from us after death in Purgatory
before we can endure the fire of His love in Heaven. In Heaven, any stain of impurity
will burn and torment a soul, so an impure soul will fling itself out of Heaven.
Yes, the purification process necessary to
remove the stain of our sins is painful suffering, just as Christ’s passion was painful
suffering. But the purification process of Purgatory is not arbitrary; the suffering is
as painful as it needs to be, and it takes as long as it needs to take, according to the
disposition of any particular soul. The “price” of a soul’s purification is penance
for all the accumulated spiritual damage caused by the sins that were committed by that
soul, and that penance is not something that can be evaded or simply dismissed. You can,
however, decrease the extent of your suffering after death if, before death, you follow
a spiritual life of holy penance that helps to make reparation for your sins and purge
from your heart the desire to sin. Then, depending on the price you pay in this life,
after death the remainder of the purging work will be done in Purgatory until your soul
becomes pure in its love for God.
But you can’t do any of this if you tell
yourself that the sins you are committing are not really sins! You can’t repent your
sins if you condone sin.
F YOU WANT to live a Christian
life, then recognize sin for what it is. Only the Catholic Church preserves
the teaching that tells us what
sin really is, so fidelity to the
tradition of Church teaching about sin, unless it is
absolute, is no faith at all.
Holy
Lifestyle
Every sin you commit after your
baptism will be accounted for, and you will
pay for them all, either in Purgatory or in hell,
depending on whether you repent or
not.
F YOU WANT to live a Christian
life, first repent and confess all of your past
sins and then do anything it takes thereafter
to avoid sin and remain pure of heart through surrender to the will of God. Well,
the only way to do this is to dedicate yourself to deep study
of the faith; to living in chastity,
humility, and modesty; to
praying constantly; and
to self-sacrificial service to others, in imitation
of Christ Himself through loving consecration to His mother, the Blessed Virgin
Mary.
|
