We, created to be “like angels in Heaven"

Purity, prayer, contemplation, martyrdom : perfection of charity  (12th December)

My dear brethren,

Today is the feast of our Lady of Guadalupe, a first class feast of our Lady in Mexico. So we look again at our Lady!

Let us contemplate a very important aspect of Advent and Christmas: all those who approach our Lord Jesus Christ are pure and purified: our Lady more than any other, St Joseph, St John the Baptist, etc. Our Lady is the “Virgin of virgins”, that is the wholly pure one, the Immaculate, virgin in her body and virgin in her soul, untouched by sin in any way. St Joseph also is virgin, the virginal spouse of the Virgin Mother. St John the Baptist also is virgin, having led by the Holy Ghost to the desert in his youth. Later the Apostles too, who were not all virgin before (except St John the Apostle), yet as soon as they started to follow Christ, they left their wife (with her consent) and lived a life of perfect chastity. Even St Mary Magdalen, as soon as she came to Christ, stopped her life of sin and she lived a life of perfect chastity in penance for her past sins. Our Lord Jesus Christ is Innocence itself, Purity itself, and He purifies all those who come to Him, raising up their hearts from the mud of sin, cleansing them in the waters of baptism or through the tears of penance, and lifting them up to the heights of the pure heavens!

The necessity of purity to attain Heaven is taught by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself: “Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God” (Mt. 5:8). Thus the vision of God, which is the very essence of eternal beatitude, is reserved to the clean of heart. Already the psalmist said: “Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord: or who shall stand in his holy place? The innocent in hands, and clean of heart, who hath not taken his soul in vain, nor sworn deceitfully to his neighbour” (Ps. 23:3-4). On the contrary, the impossibility for the unclean to enter Heaven is very clearly taught by St Paul to the Ephesians: “For know you this and understand, that no fornicator, or unclean, or covetous person (which is a serving of idols), hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words. For because of these things cometh the anger of God upon the children of unbelief. Be ye not therefore partakers with them” (Eph. 5:5-7).

And again St. Paul says to the Corinthians: “Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor scoffers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God. And such some of you were; but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:9-11). You note how St Paul ends this passage: by showing how they were “washed”, cleansed as they came to Christ, cleansed by Baptism.

If we look at the modern world, we see very much such moral filth, impurities everywhere, pornography being made easily available. There is much need of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to heal all that. If one struggles and battles with such temptations, he needs to come to Jesus with great faith, and he will be healed. The healing will not in one day; but at first he will receive the grace not to fall into temptation, then to resist earlier and earlier until there will almost not be a temptation. But one must come to our Lord! Often time people in their temptation do think of Jesus, and put this holy thought aside: this is where sin starts! No! When in temptation the thought that such would displease Jesus comes to your mind, hang on to it: this is the rescue. And push away the bad thought by the contemplation of our Lord Jesus Christ: whether you contemplate Him as a little infant lying in the womb of His most pure mother, or whether you contemplate him as a little babe in the crib, or teaching in Galilea or even better on the Cross, such contemplation will clean up your mind and you will have a victory over that temptation.

Jesus loves purity; God is all pure and loves purity. In order to please him, we must be pure.
We can see in the Blessed Virgin Mary – all Immaculate – how much purity pleases God, and also how much purity our Lord Jesus Christ can give to someone who fully cooperates with grace! And our Lady is not only pure, she has received the grace to help us practice this beautiful virtue: those who are devoted to her will obtain from her the grace of purity. Many of you have become “knights of the Immaculata” by Fr Stehlin’s zeal: live as true knights of the Immaculata, rejecting absolutely anything that could stain your soul through her help.

The modern world is so wicked that some people put their pride in what is their shame: some corrupt people actually glory in their sin and have only contempt for purity. What foolishness! Putting their end in the lowest appetites, and neglecting the highest faculties of the soul, the spiritual faculties! Despising everlasting joys, spiritual joys, for the sake of very temporary and base superficial excitement! What foolishness! What crime against their Creator! God did not create us for this corruption;

He created us to be “like angels in Heaven”! (Mt. 22:30) Not only in Heaven, but even on earth, our Lord Jesus Christ gives to pure souls marvellous joys especially by giving Himself in the Holy Eucharist, the “bread of the Angels” (Ps. 77:25), the food for pure souls (the sinners cannot taste it, because receiving Holy Communion in the state of sin is a terrible sacrilege). The Holy Eucharist is the “Lamb of God”, born of the Virgin of Virgin: all in pure is the Holy Eucharist.

May our Lady of Guadalupe today obtain for us the grace to love purity, and to practice this beautiful virtue so that we may always be apt to receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, and one day the eternal reward promised to the clean of heart: the Vision of God! Amen.

Fr. F. Laisney (sspxasia)