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Á¦¸ñ On the Judgement Coming to Us (2014-11-06)
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        Be faithful to the time of Charity

  - On the Judgement coming to us (6th November 2014) 

 

My dear Brethren,
The month of November is the month of Holy Souls in Purgatory. There is a great truth of death connected with the dogma of Purgatory: the truth of the Judgement. Indeed there are two judgements, the individual judgement just after our death, and the general judgement at the end of the world, when our Lord Jesus Christ will ¡°come back to judge the living and the dead¡±. And this will be strict justice, as our Lord warns us: ¡°I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the Day of Judgment¡± (Mt. 12:36).

St Augustine beautifully says: who could have escaped the judgement of condemnation if the Judge Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ, would not have come first to save? Indeed, there are two comings of our Lord Jesus Christ, the first about 2000 years ago was the coming of Mercy, the second will be at the end of the world and will be a coming of Justice. Many times the Scriptures stress that these two attributes are inseparable in God: Mercy and Justice. Thus Tobias starts his prayer thus: ¡°Thou art just, O Lord, and all thy judgments are just, and all thy ways mercy, and truth, and judgment:¡± (Tob 3:2). And the psalmist sings: ¡°All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth (=justice), to them that seek after his covenant and his testimonies¡± (Ps. 24:10). Thus ¡°Mercy and judgment I will sing to thee, O Lord:¡± (Ps. 100:1). Not only God always acts with mercy and truth, but He wants us to imitate Him in this: ¡°I will shew thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requireth of thee: Verily, to do judgment, and to love mercy, and to walk solicitous with thy God¡± (Mic 6:8). And: ¡°Thus saith the Lord of hosts, saying: Judge ye true judgment, and shew ye mercy and compassion every man to his brother¡± (Zach. 7:9). Our Lord Himself says that ¡°judgment, and mercy, and faith¡± are ¡°the weightier things of the law¡± (Mt. 23:23).

Unless our Lord Jesus Christ came first to save the sinners, all men would have been put on the left on the last judgement, ready to be all condemned to Hell – even Our Lady would not have been preserved from original sin if her Divine Son would not have given her that grace, merciful grace of preservation from sin which He purchased for her by His Sacrifice on the Cross. We need this mercy of God, in order to be ready to give an account of our life to the Judge. The very fact that Our Lord came to save first will suppress any complaint on the part of the wicked: our Lord will tell them: ¡°I wanted your salvation more than you wanted it yourself; I died on the Cross for you, but you despised me and my words, you would not obey, you would not quit your sins, you would not repent! See my hands, my feet, my heart: what more could I have done for you and did not do? Why did you reject me?¡± My dear brethren, let us NOW listen to these loving appeals of our Lord Jesus Christ, NOW is the time of mercy, after death will be the time of justice! Now is the time to change our lives for the better, then is the time to give an account of our life. Now is the time to serve God faithfully, then will be the time to enjoy God for ever if we had served Him now, but to suffer everlasting privation of this Supreme Good if we have not served Him now faithfully. Now is the time of mercy, then will be the time of justice.
 
And St Augustine adds: ¡°God promised that in what day so ever you return to Him, He will forgive you; but He did not promise you a tomorrow!¡± Don¡¯t put off your conversion, one day we will have no more time!

In this present time of mercy, there is a beautiful Tribunal of Mercy: the Tribunal of the Sacrament of Penance! It is a real tribunal, because God¡¯s justice must be fulfilled even when He exercises mercy! In that tribunal of penance, the ¡°plaintiff¡± who has been hurt by our sins is God Himself and the accused is us.

There are attorneys on both sides: there is the ¡°attorney for the defendant¡±, who tries to convince us that we have not really done evil, that our sins are not so bad, etc., and that attorney for the defendant is clearly the Devil: he does not want us to repent, to detest our sins, and so he makes up all kinds of excuses. In that tribunal of mercy, there is an ¡°attorney for the plaintiff¡±, and that is us: indeed God gives us the opportunity to take at heart His rights against us, to plead for His rights thus detesting our sins and accusing our sins and punishing our sins: and these are the three acts of the penitent, we should detest our sins, we should accuse ourselves for these sins, and we should punish ourselves for our sins (satisfaction). St Augustine says: God detests your sins, if you detest them too, then you start to agree with God; God accuses your sins, if you accuse yourself for your sins, then you start to agree with God: the detestation and accusation of evil works is therefore the beginning of good works! The more we take at heart the rights of God against our own rights in this Sacrament of Penance, the more our sins will be healed and the punishment due for them will be remitted.

And in this tribunal, there is a judge: our Lord Jesus Christ, whose place is taken by the priest, who ¡°absolves you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.¡± See the power of the invocation of the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, power which comes from the Cross, where Our Lord paid in strict justice for our sins, thus satisfying for them all. And for all tribunal, there is a judge, our Lord Jesus Christ: He acts through his priest, who renders the judgement of mercy in the very name of our Lord Jesus Christ: ¡°I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.¡±

My dear brethren, let us love to use and to use well this Tribunal of Mercy: if we want to be safe at the tribunal of justice in the next world, we must make use of the tribunal of mercy in this world. Let us use it often, as the psalmist says: ¡°Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin¡± (Ps. 50:4).

People like to live in a clean house, and they clean their body regularly, yet they often leave their soul in the mire of sin. If we wash our body regularly, let us wash also our souls regularly! We don¡¯t wait to fall into the mud before we wash our body; we should not wait to fall into mortal sin to wash our souls in the sacrament of penance. As those who wash themselves frequently are much cleaner than those who do so rarely, so those who confess their sins frequently sin usually much less than those who confess rarely. It is a great scandal that today, many Catholic may spent years and years without confession, yet they fear not going to Communion every Sunday. It is not surprising after that that many Catholic today no longer live according to the truth of the Gospel: they compromise with sin, such as contraception, etc.

Let us become friends of God before the Judgement, so that we may look forward to it with peace. Those who are not ready usually see death coming with great fears. But those who faithfully use the means of sanctification that our Lord Jesus Christ has given to His Church, i.e. the Sacraments, and especially the sacrament of Penance and Holy Eucharist, they usually see death and judgement coming with calm and confidence.

May the Blessed Virgin Mary help us to consider these two attributes of God, mercy and justice, so that by being docile to His merciful love, we may be ready to appear in front of the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that we may go to Heaven for ever!
Amen.

 

 Fr. Laisney(sspxasia)