In God's Good Time, Not Ours

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Many readers have written to me over the years to tell truly heart rending stories about how the state of apostasy, betrayal and confusion that has been wrought by the conciliar revolutionaries has devastated their families. So many of those who have written are estranged from their closest relatives. Some have been divorced by their spouses or live, for all intents and purposes, separate lives from them. Several have not seen their own children for years because of the hatred of their spouses of the "old religion" that would force them to change their lives and to be considered "odd" by their family members and friends.

A few readers have written to express their frustration at being unable to convince their families and friends about the true state of the Church Militant on earth during this time of apostasy and betrayal. Some believe that the "right" article or the "right" book or the "right" argument will win the day once and for all.

Life, however, is seldom neat. Each of us is flawed as a result of the vestigial after-effects of Original Sin and our our Actual Sins. Each of us has specific temperraments (choleric, sanguine, melancholic, phlegmatic). Additionally, the prevalence of emotionalism and sentimentality in the world today is such that many people are easily swayed by the last person they have spoken with or the last thing they have read, swaying this way and that way as a tree branch in the wind. Others, as noted above, are fearful of what their families and friends will think of them if they come to the conclusion that the man in the white cassock who lives in the Apostolic Palace inside the walls of the the sovereign State of Vatican City is not a legitimate Successor of Saint Peter. Those who have some kind of prominence or financial support to lose might wait until there is a "right" time to publicly declare themselves in order to help others to recognize that the Catholic Church, the spotless and immaculate mystical spouse of her Divine Founder and Invisible Head, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, can never give us liturgies that are incentives to impiety or doctrines and teachings filled with ambiguities and that are, in many cases, complete contradictions of her perennial teaching.

Although we can give our family members and friends some information now and again, we must understand the nature of the human condition. No one likes to be "pushed" into a conclusion that they are unwilling to reach or, for whatever reason, unready to make. While we can offer a good natured reminder now and again when someone sends us a note or speaks to us about what the "pope" has said or done, the best that we can do is to plant a few seeds and then to water it with our prayers and sacrifices for them. Constant pushing and badgering does nothing to convince anyone about anything.

Yes, we might have to suffer some period of estrangement in this life from those who think that we are crazy, schismatic, disloyal or involved in some kind of heresy. Once we do come to a knowledge of the truth, however, we must embrace it, recognizing that it is only by the graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces, we have been able to do so and that we are not one tiny little bit better than those who denounce it for being "apostates."

One of the worst characteristics I have found among a handful of self-described "old sedes" is a haughty arrogance that leads them into saying that one has never been a Catholic until he "converts" to "sedevacantism," which has become a religion in and of itself in the minds of so many whose own righteousness leads them to forget the gentleness of the Divine Redeemer Himself in dealing with those who, acting in good will, were slow to respond to His preaching. The inartful phrase "sedevacantism" is merely a description of the fact that the Throne of Saint Peter (the sede) is vacant (vacante). It is not a religion. There are many wonderful, believing Catholics yet attached to the counterfeit church of conciliarism who are confused and bewildered by events and do not have the time to read and reflect as they are busy with their lives. Some of these good Catholics exhibit a far better grasp of the need to eschew worldliness and worldly fads and trends and are far, far better in adhering to authentic Catholic standards of modesty of dress and decency of deportment than is the case in some chapels where no concessions are made to the conciliar officials, especially those chapels where laxity is tolerated, if not encouraged, by the clergy as "no big deal."

Although I argued with relatives at a Thanksgiving Day meal in New Hartford, New York, on Thursday, November 25, 1976, a day after my twenty-fifth birthday, and with friends ten years later in my "conservative" Novus Ordo days, I listened as the arguments against the legitimacy of the conciliar "pontiffs" were made. I gave as good as I got. However, I did listen, listening yet again in the late-1990s in my "indulterer" days and then in the first five years of the first decade of the Twenty-first Century during the "resist but recognize" years.

It is very rare for there to be a "on the road to Damascus" "conversion." For many of us, ourselves included, the journey was moved along by the steady drumbeat of the forces of concilairism. As I have noted before in other articles, I responded as follows when a questioner at Sacred Heart Church in Akron, Ohio, asked me on Sunday, September 24, 2006, who was responsible for my coming to recognize the true state of the Church: "Benedict XVI." It was the currently reigning "pontiff" who pushed me into realizing that the conciliar church was counterfeit.

Although I had read articles on the websites of the Society of Saint Pius V and the Traditional Mass website associated with Saint Gertrude the Great Church before late-2005, coming to accept as early as late-2003 the possibility that the sedevacantist position might be the correct one, I realized by the end of 2005 that truth demanded an answer from me, which is when I began to read and study all the more. The rest, as they say, is "history." And though the times have been quite rocky in the past six years, to say the very, very least, truth must take us where it will and the difficulties experienced along those rocky roads are but small prices to pay in reparation for my many sins, which is whey they are accepted with joy and gratitude.

God frequently has to to grind us down to utter dust in order to get us to be grateful for being calumniated, mocked and reviled as we keep uppermost in mind the simple truth that the intentions of all hearts and the exact circumstances of all lives are made manifest to one and all only on the Last Day at the General Judgment of the living and dead. Those who keep that in mind, my friends, will withstand that whatever "pummeling" they might take from relatives and friends and, in the case of those who write or speak on these subjects, from critics in the public sphere will rejoice in the midst of their being ground to dust and thought ill of in the eyes of their fellow men as they pray fervently for those who have been chosen by God for all eternity to be the very loving instruments of their chastisement and purification and humiliation. Those who die in a state of Sanctifying Grace as members of the Catholic Church will be reconciled on the Last Day to spend all eternity in the glory of the Beatific Vision of God, the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost for all eternity. That's the only kind of "victory" that matters, not our own "vindication" about what we have said or written or done that has estranged us from relatives and friends and/or made us objects of public scorn and ridicule. Enduring with love and gratitude such scorn and ridicule may very well help us to win the victory over disordered self-love.

Occasionally, however, God does permit His Most Blessed Mother to shower us with consolations such as the nature of men require.

There are times, for example, when the conciliar revolutionaries themselves are the best witnesses in behalf of the true state of the Church. There have been numerous occasions when readers have informed me of some wedding or funeral staged according to the false, sacramentally barren rites of conciliarism that contained such egregious offenses against all that is holy that even their non-practicing relatives recognized that "this is not Catholic." Of all people, even Fidel Castro was startled by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's Novus Ordo extravaganza in the Plaza of the Revolution in Havana, Cuba, on Thursday, March 29, 2012, finding it not at all similar to the Mass of his youth, the Immemorial Mass of Tradition. 

Mind you, Castro's comments to Ratzinger/Benedict were made principally as a matter of curiosity, it appears, although it is still important to pray for his conversion to the true Catholic Faith before he dies. In the case of our own relatives and friends, however, occasions of Novus Ordo weddings and funerals that cause them to scratch their heads and express even shock and bewilderment do provide us with opportunities to give them a bit of information that they might not have been willing to accept in the past.

To make such moments bear fruit, however, we cannot pummel others with "I told you sos" or say "How'd you like the new religion, buddy?" We have to proceed with patience. People are free to accept or reject whatever it is will tell them. Coming to the conclusion that the man over there in the Vatican is not the pope is not an insubstantial step. We can provide a bit of information or a few links to pertinent articles from various sources, letting prayer and the graces sent to them through the loving hands of Our Lady work as they will. God works in His own good time, not ours. We do not look for "results" in this passing, mortal vale of tears. All we can do is to try, despite our own sins and failings, to be faithful to what we know is true and that even if disagreements, perhaps major,arise that inflame old passions we must remain calm in the midst of whatever storms beset us and to simply trust fervently in prayer, especially before the Most Blessed Sacrament and to the Mother of God.

Saint Paul reminds us that we must feed babies with milk, which is why "pummeling" or "badgering" others is likely to drive people away from the truth and why we must not look for results and without taking credit for any "conversion" as we are but instruments of God, mere mortals who might be given the consolation now and again of harvesting what others had sown. In the meantime, though, we must be willing to bear trials of fire, recognizing that all is indeed revealed on the Last Day:

[1] And I, brethren, could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal. As unto little ones in Christ. [2] I gave you milk to drink, not meat; for you were not able as yet. But neither indeed are you now able; for you are yet carnal. [3] For, whereas there is among you envying and contention, are you not carnal, and walk according to man? [4] For while one saith, I indeed am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollo; are you not men? What then is Apollo, and what is Paul? [5] The ministers of him whom you have believed; and to every one as the Lord hath given.

[6] I have planted, Apollo watered, but God gave the increase. [7] Therefore, neither he that planteth is any thing, nor he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. [8] Now he that planteth, and he that watereth, are one. And every man shall receive his own reward, according to his own labour. [9] For we are God's coadjutors: you are God's husbandry; you are God's building. [10] According to the grace of God that is given to me, as a wise architect, I have laid the foundation; and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.

[11] For other foundation no man can lay, but that which is laid; which is Christ Jesus. [12] Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble: [13] Every man's work shall be manifest; for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. [14] If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. [15] If any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. (1 Cor. 3: 1-15.)

In other words, we can plant seeds and then be at peace, recognizing that it might just very well be within the Providence of God that someone else other than ourselves might be the human instruments of bringing around a certain person about the true state of the Church Militant on earth at this time or about this or that difficult situation. A "fresh face," if you will, one that does have the "baggage" that we carry, especially with our family members who remember us when were "different" or more worldly or, God forbid, profane or, in other words, more like themselves or when we have had to change positions when we have been convinced of being wrong, something that makes us appear "unreliable" or "unstable" in their yes. All that matters is the the salvation of the souls of others. Nothing else. Nothing else at all.

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori described the scene that will take place at the General Judgment on the Last Day:

7. "The judgment sat, and the books were opened. ”(Dan. vii. 10.) The books of conscience are opened, and the judgment commences. The Apostle says, that the Lord”will bring to light the hidden things of darkness." (1 Cor. iv. 5.) And, by the mouth of his prophet, Jesus Christ has said: ”I will search Jerusalem with lamps." (Soph. i. 12.) The light of the lamp reveals all that is hidden.

8. ”A judgment," says St. Chrysostom, ”terrible to sinners, but desirable and sweet to the just." (Hom. iii. de Dav.) The last judgment shall fill sinners with terror, but will be a source of joy and sweetness to the elect; for God will then give praise to each one according to his works. (1 Cor. iv. 5.) The Apostle tells us that on that day the just will be raised above the clouds to be united to the angels, and to increase the number of those who pay homage to the Lord. ”We shall be taken up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ, into the air." (I Thess. iv. 16.)

9. Worldlings now regard as fools the saints who led mortified and humble lives; but then they shall confess their own folly, and say: "We fools esteemed their life madness, and their end without honour. Behold how they are numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the saints." (Wis. v. 4, 5.) In this world, the rich and the noble are called happy; but true happiness consists in a life of sanctity. Rejoice, ye souls who live in tribulation;”our sorrow shall be turned into joy." (John xvi. 20.) In the valley of Josaphat you shall be seated on thrones of glory.

10. But the reprobate, like goats destined for the slaughter, shall be placed on the left, to await their last condemnation. ”Judicii tempus," says St. Chrysostom, ”misericordiam non recipit." On the day of judgment there is no hope of mercy for poor sinners. “Magna," says St. Augustine, "jam est poena peccati, metum et memoriam divini perdidisse judicii." (Serm. xx. de Temp.) The greatest punishment of sin in those who live in enmity with God, is to lose the fear and remembrance of the divine judgment. Continue, continue, says the Apostle, to live obstinately in sin; but in proportion to your obstinacy, you shall have accumulated for the day of judgment a treasure of the wrath of God “But according to thy hardness and impenitent heart , thou treasurest up to thyself wrath against the day of wrath” (Rom ii. 5)

11. Then sinners will not be able to hide themselves but, with insufferable pain, they shall be compelled to appear in judgment. "To lie hid” says St. Anselm, “will be impossible to appear will be intolerable." The devils will perform their office of accusers, and as St. Augustine says, will say to the Judge: “Most just God, declare him to be mine, who was unwilling to be yours. ” The witnesses against the wicked shall be first, their own conscience. "Their conscience bearing witness to them, ”(Rom. ii. 15); secondly, the very walls of the house in which they sinned shall cry out against them”The stone shall cry out of the wall," (Hab. ii 11); thirdly, the Judge himself will say "I am the judge and the witness, saith the Lord." (Jer. xxix 23 ) Hence, according to St. Augustine, "He who is now the witness of .your life, shall be the judge of your cause. ” (Lib. x. de Chord., c. ii.) To Christians particularly he will say: "Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida; for if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, they had long ago done penance in sackcloth and ashes”(Matt. xi. 21.) Christians, he will say, if the graces which I have bestowed on you had been given to the Turks or to the Pagans, they would have done penance for their sins; but you have ceased to sin only with your death. He shall then manifest to all men their most hidden crimes. "I will discover thy shame to thy face. ” (Nahum iii. 5.) He will expose to view all their secret impurities, injustices, and cruelties. ”I will set all thy abominations against thee”(Ezech. vii. 3.) Each of the damned shall carry his sins written on his forehead.

12. What excuses can save the wicked on that day? Ah! they can offer no excuses. ”All iniquity shall stop her mouth." (Ps. cvi. 42.) Their very sins shall close the mouth of the reprobate, so that they will not have courage to excuse themselves. They shall pronounce their own condemnation.

Third Point. Sentence of the elect, and of the reprobate

13. St. Bernard says, that the sentence of the elect, and their destiny to eternal glory, shall be first declared, that the pains of the reprobate may be increased by the sight of what they lost. ”Prius pronunciabitur sententia electis ut acrius (reprobi) doleant videntes quid amiserunt." (Ser. viii., in Ps. xc.) Jesus Christ, then, shall first turn to the elect, and with a serene countenance shall say: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ”(Matt. xxv. 34.) He will then bless all the tears shed through sorrow for their sins, and all their good works, their prayers, mortifications, and communions; above all, he will bless for them the pains of his passion and the blood shed for their salvation. And, after these benedictions, the elect, singing alleluias, shall enter Paradise to praise and love God eternity.

14. The Judge shall then turn to the reprobate, and shall pronounce the sentence of their condemnation in these words . ”Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire." (Matt. xxv. 41 ) They shall then be forever accursed, separated from God, and sent to burn for ever in the fire of hell. “And these shall go into everlasting punishment: but the just into life everlasting. ” (Matt. xxv. 46.)

15. After this sentence, the wicked shall, according to St. Ephrem, be compelled to take leave for ever of their relatives, of Paradise, of the saints, and of Mary the divine Mother. "Farewell, ye just! Farewell, O cross I Farewell, Paradise! Farewell, fathers and brothers: we shall never see you again! Farewell, O Mary, mother of God!”(St. Eph. de variis serm. inf.) Then a great pit shall open in the middle of the valley: the unhappy damned shall be cast into it, and shall see those doors shut which shall never again be opened. O accursed sin! to what a miserable end will you one day conduct so many souls redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. O unhappy souls! for whom is prepared such a melancholy end. But, brethren, have confidence. Jesus Christ is now a Father, and not judge. He is ready to pardon all who repent. Let us then instantly ask pardon from him. (On the General Judgment: Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent, Saint Alphonsus de Liguori.)

Our love of God will be so perfect on that Last Day that we will rejoice at the eternal damnation of our relatives who might have died sending themselves to Hell for all eternity as God makes manifest to all the just judgment that He rendered upon them at the moment of their deaths. We want to be on the "right side" of this farewell, my friends, and we want as many of our relatives and friends to join us if we do indeed cooperate with the graces sent to us by Our Lady and persevere to the point of our dying breaths in a state of Sanctifying Grace. Those who fought bitterly in this life or who were estranged for years, if not decades, will spend eternity together i the glories and perfect happiness of an unending Easter Sunday of joy in Heaven. Oh, what is your excuse for not distributing truly blessed Green Scapulars to your relatives and friends?

Pray hard. Sacrifice much. Suffer well. Pray for those from whom you are estranged and those who might be instruments of persecution and humiliation. Do all for the greater honor and glory of God as the consecrated slaves of Christ the King through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

All gets revealed on the Last Day. However, it might just within the Providence of God for there to be foretastes of the Last Day in this life as we are reconciled unto others if we use various opportunities with wisdom and prudence to plant a few seeds that might be harvested by others.

We cannot live our lives in anxiety. As noted three days ago in a republished article, Why Live in Fear With Saint Joseph So Near Now As Ever Before?

The path to Heaven can be trod only by those who are willing to bear the Cross and to lift it high in their daily lives seeking only to live in such a way that we will be ready at all times to die in a state of Sanctifying Grace as a member of the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order, as we pray as many Rosaries each day as our state in life permits.

It's the Faith that matters, the entire Faith without any compromises, now and for all eternity.

Aren't we willing to suffer some more for the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary?

 

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

 

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

 

Our Lady of Fatima, 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.

Saint Paul of the Cross, pray for us.

Saint Vitalis, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints