Seeing the Hand of God in the Chastisements of the Moment

As I am no longer able to edit commentaries once I have posted them because the Drupal software platform on which this site has existed since July 14, 2014, after ten years on the original Macromedia/Adobe Contribute platform, is no longer supported for purposes of installing core updates, this brief commentary is meant to serve as a codicil, if you will, to Revised and Expanded: Believing Catholics Pose No Threat to a Just Social Order as I meant to remind the very few readers of this entirely inconsequential website about the fact that castigations such as those meted out by the likes of the Southern Poverty Law Center and various governmental agencies are truly blessings as they are indications that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is still providing us with opportunities to make reparation for our sins. Deo gratias!

Moreover, we must remember that forgiveness of one’s enemies is a necessity if we want to save our immortal souls. There is, as I have noted so frequently on this site, no place in the heart of a Catholic for holding or nursing grudges or wishing ill for those we believe have injured us in some way or another. We must forgive as we are forgiven in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance, and we must seek to do good to those who have injured us, recognizing that there is nothing we can suffer from others that is the equal of what one of our least Venial Sins caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death and caused His Most Blessed Mother to suffer as those Seven Swords of Sorrow were plunged through and through her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

Christ the King Himself taught us to forgive our enemies and to do good to those who persecute us:

You have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you: that you may be the children of your Father Who is in Heaven, Who maketh His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust. For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have; do not even the publicans this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more? do not also the heathens this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your Heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5: 43-48.)

We must be perfect as Our Heavenly Father is perfect. We must forgive others. We cannot go about exacting vengeance or engaging in petty acts of vindictiveness against others. We must forgive as we are forgiven. It is that simple. Each of us deserves to be chastised for our sins. We should be grateful to the ever-merciful God that He sends us others to calumniate us and to speak ill of us just moments after they may have spoken feigned words of greetings to us through gritted teeth and pretended smiles that betrayed a spirit of inner contempt.

So what?

So what?

Our sins deserve far, far worse than anything we are asked to suffer in this passing, mortal vale of tears. None of us or our supposed “reputations,” which exist more in our own imaginations than they do in the objective order of things, are so important as to become arrogant and full of self-righteous sanctimony when our “pride” is wounded and especially when things we would rather not hear about ourselves become more widely known in this life as a preparation for the revelation of each of our private thoughts, words and actions on the Last Day at the General Judgment of the living and the dead. It will only be on that Last Day that the totality of our lives will be seen by others as we saw it at the Particular Judgment, which is ratified and made known to all at the General Judgment to manifest both the justice and mercy of God.

So many people plot and scheme and whisper behind closed doors (or endlessly on their cellular phones) to “protect” their nonexistent “reputations,” fearful that some ill word, whether true or not, will be spoken against them. Meetings are held where tales full of half-truth and lots of positivism are spun to seek reaffirmation from others for a “plan of action” to proactively attack those who know the truth about them and their constant self-seeking. To what end? To what good end? Doesn’t everything get revealed on the Last Day? Why all of the efforts to avoid a little chastisement in this life?

Indeed, much of the chastisement that comes our way could be avoided entirely if we only had more humility to say, “You know what? Boy, I’ve messed up a whole lot. I’ve done some very bad things. I’ve treated people badly. I’ve attempted to make others look guilty in a given situation when I’m the one at fault. You know what? I’m a stinker. Please forgive me.”

Yes, our persecutors and calumniators are really our best friends as they are being used by the good God as instruments to help us to be so purified of self and disordered self-love that we thank Him for helping us to be ground into nothing in the eyes of the "numbers," praying for a good and happy reconciliation for all eternity with Heaven with as those who have sought to persecute and/or speak ill of us even they, not realizing what it is they are doing, are just flat out wrong in their accusations. Everything does indeed get revealed on the Last Day at the General Judgment of the living and the dead. That's all that matters. Nothing else.

After all, Our Lord also said the following when discussing on the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount:

Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

[11] Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: [12] Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you. (Matthew 5: 10-12.)

What a joy it is be counted worthy despite one’s own sins to have others speak ill against us for the sake of the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is both humbling and encouraging to be the beneficiary of being so reviled.

Truth be told, of course, we really don’t deserve a better situation than this, especially if we consider how our sins have helped to bring on and to perpetuate the chastisements that are now upon us. We are very responsible for the state of the world-at-large and for the state of the Church Militant on earth, which is why we must plead with the Mother of God to help us to be reconciled unto her Divine Son, Christ the King, in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance by making a good, sincere, integral Confession on a regular basis, if at all possible in these times, and to cooperate with the graces received therein to amend our lives and to do penance for our sins, living more and more in more penitential manner as we withdraw from the world, assist more regularly at Holy Mass, spend time before Our King’s Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament, if this is at all possible in your area, and pray as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.

Let us keep close to the Divine Redeemer’s Most Sacred Heart through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother as we prepare to enter into our Lenten journey in the desert in just five days,

 If Our Lord shed His Most Precious Blood to atone for our sins, we had better be ready to forgive each other even in the midst of circumstances that find us on opposing sides of those with whom we should desire to spend all eternity in Heaven.

Vivat Christus Rex!

Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.