An 87-Year-Old's Economic Survival Guide

Excerpted from Human Events:

...I turn to a recent conversation I had with my mother. I asked her, "How would you encourage the average American to weather the economic storms of today?"

Here's her advice, in her words:

-- "Lean upon God for help and strength. We didn't just have each other to lean on, but we had God, too. We all attended church and belonged to a faith community. Church was the hub of society, the community core and rallying point. Today people turn to government the way we used to turn to churches. It's been that way ever since Herbert Hoover's alleged promise of a 'chicken in every pot' and President Roosevelt's New Deal. Too many have abandoned faith and community. We trust in money more than God. And maybe that's a reason why we're in this economic pickle."

-- "Get back to the basics. Simplify your life. Live within your means. People have got to be willing to downsize and be OK with it. We must quit borrowing and cut spending. Be grateful for what you have, especially your health and loved ones. Be content with what you have, and remember the stuff will never make you happy. Never. Back then, we didn't have one-hundredth of what people do today, and yet we seemed happier than most today, even during the Great Depression.

-- "Be humble and willing to work. Back then, any work was good work. We picked cotton, picked up cans, scrap metal, whatever it took to get by. Where's that work ethic today? If someone's not being paid $10 an hour today, they're whining and unwilling to work, even if they don't have a job. The message from yesteryear is don't be too proud to do whatever it takes to meet the financial needs of your family.

-- "Be rich in love. We didn't have much. In fact, we had nothing at all, compared to people today, but we had each other. We were poor, but rich in love. We've lost the value of family and friends today, and we've got to gain it back if we're ever to get back on track. If we lose all our stuff and still have one another and our health, what have we really lost?

-- "Be a part of a community. Today people are much more alone, much more isolated. We used to be close with our neighbors. If one person had a bigger or better garden or orchard, they shared the vegetables and fruits with others in need. Society has shifted from caring for one another to being dependent upon government aid and welfare. That is why so many today trust in government to deliver them. They've forgotten an America that used to rally around one another in smaller clusters, called neighborhoods and communities. We must rekindle those local communal fires and relearn the power of that age-old commandment, 'Love thy neighbor.'

-- "Help someone else. We never quit helping others back then. Today too many people are consumed with their own problems and only helping themselves. 'What's in it for me?' is the question most are asking. But back then, it was, 'What can I do to help my neighbor, too?'...

Now that's conventional wisdom that should be shouted and posted in every corridor of government, every community across America, and every blog on the Internet.

Call me overly pragmatic, but I think a little practical wisdom and encouragement is what we all need about now. Mom always was good for that. She still is.

Obama Lied About Abortion Record

Newly discovered documents from the Illinois state archives prove Democratic presidential candidate Barack [Hussein] Obama has lied about his opposition to legislation requiring health officials to provide care to babies who survived abortion as an Illinois state senator.... [emphasis added]

...Now there’s documentation showing Obama did vote against a version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act that contained language to protect abortion rights identical to the bill that passed 98-0 in the U.S. Senate....

Conservative journalist David Freddoso said these documents are “absolute proof” Obama has distorted his position on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act....

The "Messiah" lied? Oh, no! All the talk of hope is but a screed of lies put forth to confuse the ignorant! With this advocate of infanticide there is no hope for the unborn - or for those born alive!

Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for July

VATICAN CITY, 1 JUL 2008 (VIS) - Pope Benedict's general prayer intention
for July is: "That there may be an increase in the number of those who, as
volunteers, offer their services to the Christian community with generous
and prompt availability".

His mission intention is: "That the World Youth Day held in Sydney,
Australia, may awaken the fire of divine love in young people and make them
sowers of hope for a new humanity".

Source: V.I.S. -Vatican Information Service

Answers-What's Your Moral IQ of the Virtue of Hope?

The Virtue of Hope

Questions can be viewed here.
_____________

1. Hope is a supernatural virtue by which we trust God will give us eternal life and the means to obtain it.

2. By making acts of hope, by diverting one's attention to something else, by praying, and by thinking of the sufferings and death of Our Lord.

3. No, because he does not trust that God will help him through this trial.

4. Yes, because she must co-operate with the means God gives her for her salvation.

5. Probably not, because she is just exasperated, and she doesn't sin­cerely mean this.

6. Margy would have no interest in living with God in heaven.

7. Yes, but this would be only natural hope.

8. Such a person would not have the virtue of hope because he does not place his trust in God's help.

9. Yes, implicitly, because he does not trust in God's help, but he would also sin against whatever virtue the sin violated.

10. Yes, because he doesn't trust that God will give him the grace to forgive his enemy.
_________________________
Adapted from The Queen's Work Magazine, February 1946

What's Your Moral IQ of the Virtue of Hope?

Allow ten points for each question. One hundred per cent means that you are a moral theologian; 90, you know the law; 80, you are about average; 70, you'd better join a study club.
___________________

1. What is hope?

2. What are the best ways of overcoming temptations against hope?

3. Does Will, who intends to deny his Faith only for a few minutes in time of persecution, have the virtue of hope?

4. Does Betty, who neglects her duties of going to Mass and the sacra­ments because she claims it's just not her nature to be interested in religion, sin against hope?

5. Does Aunt Mary sin against hope when she says: "I wish I was never born"?

6. How is it possible for Margy to sin against hope by seriously desiring to live forever on this earth?

7. Would it be an act of hope to trust that a friend would help us in time of need?

8. It seems that a person would have the virtue of hope if he wanted to get to heaven entirely by his own efforts. Is this true?

9. Would Keith, who committed a sin in order to save his life, sin against the virtue of hope?

10. Would a person who would say: "I can never forgive him" sin against the virtue of hope?
_________________________

Answers next Monday...

Adapted from The Queen's Work Magazine, February 1946

Gospel for Friday after Ash Wednesday

Optional Memorials of St. Jerome Emiliani, priest; St. Josephine Bakhita, virgin
Old Calendar: St. John of Matha, confessor

From: Matthew 9:14-15

The Call of Matthew (Continuation)

[14] Then the disciples of John (the Baptist) came to Him (Jesus), saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?" [15] And Jesus said them, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast."
____________________

Commentary:

14-17. This passage is interesting, not so much because it tells us about the sort of fasting practised by the Jews of the time--particularly the Pharisees and John the Baptist's disciples--but because of the reason Jesus gives for not requiring His disciples to fast in that way. His reply is both instructive and prophetic. Christianity is not a mere mending or adjusting of the old suit of Judaism. The redemption wrought by Jesus involves a total regeneration. Its spirit is too new and too vital to be suited to old forms of penance, which will no longer apply.

We know that in our Lord's time Jewish theology schools were in the grip of a highly complicated casuistry to do with fasting, purifications, etc., which smothered the simplicity of genuine piety. Jesus' words point to that simplicity of heart with which His disciples might practise prayer, fasting and almsgiving (cf. Matthew 6:1-18 and notes to same). From apostolic times onwards it is for the Church, using the authority given it by our Lord to set out the different forms fasting should take in different periods and situations.

15. "The wedding guests": literally, "the sons of the house where the wedding is being celebrated"--an _expression meaning the bridegroom's closest friends. This is an example of how St. Matthew uses typical Semitic turns of phrase, presenting Jesus' manner of speech.

This "house" to which Jesus refers has a deeper meaning; set beside the parable of the guests at the wedding (Matthew 22:1 ff), it symbolizes the Church as the house of God and the body of Christ: "Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, but Christ was faithful over God's house as a son. And we are His house if we hold fast our confidence and pride in our hope" (Hebrews 3:5-6).

The second part of the verse refers to the violent death Jesus would meet.
___________________________
Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland. Reprinted with permission from Four Courts Press and Scepter Publishers, the U.S. publisher.

The Church's Diplomacy Has a Fixed Star: That of the Magi

In the new year address to the diplomatic corps, Benedict XVI took stock of the Vatican's politics in the world. But to the faithful, at the Mass of the Epiphany, he said much more. He preached his theology of history – and here it is...

by Sandro Magister

40 Days for Life Campaign

In its "News from the trenches," California Catholic Daily has an encouraging story:

...California Catholic Daily presents an interview with Wynette Sills, a veteran sidewalk counselor and co-director of the 40 Days for Life Campaign in Sacramento. Wynette is a Catholic wife and mother of three. She and her husband, Ed, are organic farmers north of Sacramento....

One of the comments which stood out as an example of something for which we all should strive, is this:

Does the intensity of this kind of campaign take a toll on you?

Our whole family experiences a sacrifice in service to Him with regards to this Sidewalk Ministry, particularly prior to and during these "40 Day" periods. Yet, we persevere through prayer, knowing all that Christ sacrificed for our sake.

Sacrifice...Persevering through prayer...Recalling Our Lord's suffering and death for our salvation...

The Spirit of Christmas

From Laura's E-Blast
http://www.LauraIngraham.com
December 21, 2007

THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS

Megan pulled a three-ring binder out of her bag and showed me a photograph of herself and her husband. Young-they're both 21-with big smiles on their faces and obviously wildly in love. "That's what he looked like," she said with a somber face, "He was such a cutie-pie?always buying me little stuffed animals and writing the most thoughtful notes the entire time he was in Iraq." Then she showed me the photo of her husband receiving the Purple Heart on Wednesday from President Bush at Bethesda Naval Medical Center. As President Bush pinned the medal on Mike, he lay unconscious in the ICU, having suffered a traumatic brain injury caused by a piece of shrapnel that pierced his temple.

"This is my Mike now," she said, rubbing her eyes. He is completely blind and to alleviate a terrible cranial pressure build-up, doctors had to remove the front of his skull. Since being wounded several months ago, Mike has never regained consciousness and suffers from terrible seizures. "That's my guy," she repeated, before she went on to tell me about how they met and fell in love.

For whatever reason, I kept thinking about the fact that some person somewhere carefully assembled the IED that would eventually maim Mike and many others. They are often packed with nails, hunks of lead and screws to cause maxim human suffering. When they explode, the contents rip through flesh and bones, shattering countless dreams in the process.

How to comprehend this level of evil and the physical and emotional agony it causes? This young woman and her husband should be out buying their first Christmas tree together, going to parties, raising a glass to their future. When I asked what she was doing for the holiday she said, "I'll be here with Mike. I would never want him to be alone on Christmas." They had been married for about three months when Mike was wounded.

In these days before Christmas, Megan and other military wives and moms gave me a precious gift. They reminded me that true love requires sacrifice-sometimes seemingly unbearable, heart-wrenching sacrifice. They are living out their love in big and small ways. Many have moved thousands of miles to relocate to the hospitals where their husbands, wives, sons, and daughters are being treated. This takes an enormous emotional and financial toll, yet they do it for love. When they are not at the hospital bedsides of their wounded warriors, they sit for hours a day in waiting rooms across the United States, hoping for good news-or at least no more bad news. They pray with each other, cry with each other, and yes, even manage to laugh with each other as they hope for a day when they can return to "normal life." Yet for the families of our most seriously injured troops, they know they will have to get used to a "new normal," much different from the life they knew before.

As we are about to celebrate Christmas spending time with our families and friends, let us all do our best to live up to the true spirit of this season-and make it a time filled with love, faith, gratitude, hope, charity, and, yes - let's try for some peace on earth. Let us remember the military families and our wounded heroes who will spend this Christmas at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Brooke Army Medical Center, Bethesda Naval Medical Center and other medical facilities across the nation. As we rush around stressed out because we "haven't found the perfect gift" for so-and-so, these families hope and pray for gifts that cannot be wrapped up: a hand that squeezes back, a smile, the first step on a new prosthesis, or a positive medical report.

They need our prayers and support at Christmas and every day. Please give what you can to any of the wonderful organizations that support our bravest and their families.

Merry Christmas.

Chiesa: Required Reading for Visitors to the Sistine Chapel: "Spe Salvi"

The Last Judgment returns powerfully to the fore. An outstanding book gives a new interpretation of Michelangelo's fresco. And Benedict XVI, with his second encyclical, throws new light on the ultimate destiny of man and the world

ROMA, December 7, 2007 – Benedict XVI wrote the encyclical "Spe Salvi," which is entirely his own work, between last winter and spring. But he decided to publish it at the end of the liturgical year, on the brink of Advent, when the readings of the Mass are opening the perspective of the Last Judgment.

An important part of the encyclical is dedicated to the Last Judgment. The self-criticism that the pope asks of modern Christianity also concerns this essential chapter of the Christian faith, which he believes has "faded" in favor of an individualistic vision of man's destiny.


The idea of the Last Judgment survives more in art than it does in faith. But even the artists – the pope notes – have not always expressed the full and authentic meaning of the Judgment in their depictions. They have emphasized the "menace" more than the "splendor of hope."

The figure of Christ as judge that Michelangelo painted in the Sistine Chapel is the most famous image of the Last Judgment in the world. In this, in effect, "Christ's gesture of condemnation not only shakes his entire muscular body, it also constitutes the fresco's animating force. It makes the entire painting tremble, even in its farthest removed corners. His right arm, raised in the act of condemnation, is the same arm that in the next act will hurl all evildoers into the depths of hell."...

"SPE SALVI," the Encyclical Letter

VATICAN CITY, NOV 30, 2007 (VIS) - Benedict XVI's second Encyclical, "Spe Salvi" which is dedicated to the theme of Christian hope, was published today. The document - which has an introduction and eight chapters - begins with a quote from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans: "spe salvi facti sumus" (in hope we are saved).

The chapter titles are as follows: "1. Faith is Hope; 2. The concept of faith-based hope in the New Testament and the early Church; 3. Eternal life - what is it?; 4. Is Christian hope individualistic?; 5. The transformation of Christian faith-hope in the modern age; 6. The true shape of Christian hope; 7. 'Settings' for learning and practicing hope: i) Prayer as a school of hope, ii) Action and suffering as settings for learning hope, iii) Judgement as a setting for learning and practicing hope; 8. Mary, Star of Hope."

The Holy Father explains in his Introduction that "according to the Christian faith, 'redemption' - salvation - is not simply a given. Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey...."

This article from the Vatican Information Service is continued here.

The Encyclical begins:

Introduction

1. “SPE SALVI facti sumus”—in hope we were saved, says Saint Paul to the Romans, and likewise to us (Rom 8:24). According to the Christian faith, “redemption”—salvation—is not simply a given. Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey. Now the question immediately arises: what sort of hope could ever justify the statement that, on the basis of that hope and simply because it exists, we are redeemed? And what sort of certainty is involved here?

Continued here...

Coming Next Friday, "Spe Salvi," Next Encyclical of Pope Benedict

VATICAN CITY, NOV 23, 2007 (VIS) - The new Encyclical of Benedict XVI, "Spe salvi," will be presented in the Holy See Press Office at 11.30 a.m. on Friday, November 30. The document will be presented by Cardinal Georges Marie Martin Cottier O.P., pro-theologian emeritus of the Pontifical Household, and by Cardinal Albert Vanhoye S.J., professor emeritus of New Testament exegesis at the Pontifical Biblical Institute.

A New Encyclical on the Horizon?

Catholic World News is reporting that Pope Benedict XVI is close to completing a new encyclical that will focus on the virtue of hope, as reported by the Polish newspaper Dziennik.

Dziennik says that the papal letter, which is about 70 pages long in its current draft form, is now being circulated among theologians for review and comments. The final version could be released before Christmas, the paper says.

More here at CWNews.com.

Pope completes second encyclical, a meditation on Christian hope (CNS)

The text, tentatively titled "Spe Salvi" ("Saved by Hope"), is about 65 pages, sources said Oct. 16. No release date has been set for the document.

Charity and more...

As an aside to the recent post on Mother Teresa, it seems that Divine Providence permitted me to read shortly thereafter, a letter from St. Pio da Pietrelcina (Padre Pio).
It concerns Christian perfection and the virtue of Charity among other things - well worth the read.

The first virtue required by the person who is striving for perfection is charity. In all natural things, the first movement, the first inclination or impulse is to tend towards the centre, in obedience to a physical law. The same thing happens in the supernatural sphere: the first movement of our hearts is a movement towards God, which is nothing more than loving our own true good. With good reason Sacred Scripture speaks of charity as the bond of perfect harmony.

Charity has as its close relatives joy and peace. Joy is born of happiness at possessing what we love. Now, from the moment at which the soul knows God, it is naturally led to love Him. If the soul follows this natural impulse which is caused by the Holy Spirit, it is already loving the Supreme Good. This fortunate soul already possesses the beautiful virtue of love. By loving God the soul is certain of possessing Him. When a person loves money, honours and good health, unfortunately, he does not always possess what he loves, whereas he who loves God possesses Him at once.

This idea is not the product of my own mind but is to be found in Holy Scripture where we read: He who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him (5). What does this scriptural passage mean to tell us? Does it not, perhaps, mean that the soul devoted to God out of love belongs entirely to God, while God gives Himself entirely to that soul?
. . .
It must be noted, however, that as long as we are wayfarers on this earth we can never be perfect, and hence we can never enjoy perfect peace. Trials and contradictions are so many and the conflicts by which the soul is harassed so numerous as to cause it agony at times, to the point at which life itself becomes unbearable. All this arises because the soul sees itself in danger of utter ruin.

Now, to stand up to such harsh trials the soul needs patience, a virtue which enables us to bear all adversity without giving in. Those who are striving for perfection must attribute great importance to this virtue unless they want their efforts to be completely wasted, for it is this virtue which maintains order in one's interior life.

Communists Remove Papal Letter to Chinese Church from Web

Several Chinese Catholic portals uploaded the letter in simplified Chinese after its publication, but government officials “convinced” them to remove it. All the same, the letter reached the community of the faithful through different channels.

Beijing (AsiaNews) – The Letter of Benedict XVI to the clergy and the faithful of the People’s Republic of China has disappeared from Catholic websites which featured it after its publication. Meanwhile, in China, it is impossible to open the Internet site of the Holy See.

This was confirmed by Chinese priests and lay people, official and otherwise, who manage the various portals. Some had uploaded the test in simplified Chinese as soon as it was published, but they received a visit from government representatives who “convinced” them to remove it.

It was only a matter of time before the Communist tyrants began another effort to deprive human beings of their God-given rights and freedoms. The fact that we engage in commerce with these murderers and oppresive dictators is indicative of our reluctance to fight oppression and slavery - as long as our desires and 'needs' for 'cheap' material goods are satiated...

The Priest at Prayer, June 27

The Third Part - Vices and Virtues

HOPE

Second Meditation - Priestly Motives

I. Once ordained a priest, what is there for me to hope for, apart from eternal life? The good things of earth? At my ordination I deliberately placed them out of my reach. And even in my enjoyment of those which my priestly condition does not forbid me, it is my personal experience, or the experience of others I know, or both together, that no sooner have my itching fingers begun to clutch them, no sooner have my thirsting lips tried to suck their sweetness, than their hollowness and deceptiveness have stood revealed and they have been true only to the name written upon their inmost nature: delusion, satiety! Even if they were something solidly good, how shortlived, how ephemeral, how frail they are!

But, whatever their nature, I solemnly renounced them when at my ordination I claimed the Lord for my prize and inheritance:

Dominus pars hereditatis meae et calicis mei, tu es qui restitues hereditatem meam mihi. (Ps. xv, 5)

With St. Augustine I said: "Let others make their choice of the good things of earth and of time for their enjoyment; the Lord is my lot. Let others drink of deadly pleasures; it is the Lord who fills my cup."

Am I going to retract that renouncement? Was it all a farce?

II. We priests bear a heavier yoke than the laity, and in like measure our difficulties increase, our temptations gather fury, discouragements multiply; our souls are ships braving wilder storms, their frail sides are lashed more mercilessly. There is but one anchor to hold fast and firm: the anchor of which the Apostle speaks: the anchor of hope, which is sure and immovable, reaching that inner sanctuary beyond the veil, where Jesus Christ, our escort, has entered already. (Heb. vi, 18-20.)

How many times in my priestly life has my conscience made shipwreck through not casting this anchor of hope, but keeping it idle on deck like a piece of scrap iron?

III. It is a tragic thing for the faithful when their priests and instructors in the Faith fail to live by the hope of eternal reward. What will their practice of religion be like?

Either they will give up all practice of Christianity, because if there is nothing to hope for in another life the crucified Christ will appear an absurdity; or else, bypassing the pith and substance of every Christian act, hope of eternal life, they will debase practice to the level of empty, meaningless formula and vocal articulation, nothing more.

Or again, by a certain inconsis­tency, as illogical as it is frequent, they will give honour and have recourse to Christ and the Saints with Chris­tian prayer and belief, but in that same spirit with which the pagans of old invoked Mercury, the god of wealth and plunder, and Bacchus, the god of wine, and Venus, the goddess of lust; they will turn to Christ for pre­cisely those same boons and favours which were expected from the false gods of old.

Just think of it; asking a crucified God solely or in the first place for honours, pleasures, and riches! I only hope that my own example has not led them to it!

IV. Who is there who does not cherish the hope of some­thing this world can give? What is our life but a texture of a thousand colours being woven by the 100m of hope? A texture, however, which reality is all the time unravel­ling without mercy, breaking and scattering the strands in big handfuls along the roads and crossroads of our earthly existence.

Hopes of the past were my day­dreams: vigilantium somnia; money, prosperity, pleasures, appointments, dignities, honours: these are my dreams of the morrow. Tomorrow, that cruel god at whose shrine I have been slaughtering and sacrificing all my yesterdays; the god who, when he comes, brings instead of achievement a sneer and empty hands or hands full of bitter disappointment, and vanishes into thin air like the rest of my days.

It is God's command that we should keep on hoping. It is part and parcel of my inner nature that I should hope for something. Then why let this irrepressible energy run to waste? Why not divert my hope from possessions which shall never be mine, which are always ephemeral, and which even if they were permanently mine would still leave me hungering and empty as ever; and direct my longings, like a compass-needle, to the magnetic North of God and everlasting life? Hope is a force that was given me as a spur to goad me along the road which leads to eternal happiness.

Resolutions
1. I shall meditate more assiduously on the eternal life which awaits me, until I have pinned all my hopes upon it, like an anchor pinned to the bottom of the sea. My God, when wilt Thou grant me the grace to be able to say with all sincerity these words of the Psalmist: Ps. xxvi, 4:

"One request I have ever made of the Lord, let me claim it still, to dwell in the Lord's house my whole life long."

2. Not to be satisfied with a lifeless sort of hope, but ever to possess a hope vivified by charity; and therefore, to avoid grievous sin, which robs hope of its principle of life; even though it may not reject it altogether from my soul, it deprives it of supernatural energy.

3. If I am a prey to vice, especially sensual vice, to combat despair, vice's poisonous fruit. The greatest temptation for any sensual person is always either to believe oneself irrevocably lost on account of the appar­ent impossibility of returning to the path of Christian chastity, or stupidly to assume that God will somehow manage to save one's soul without any great effort on one's part. Oh, the danger of soft sensuality! Greater than we imagine!

4. To profess the tenderest love for Mary, the Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope.
_________________________
Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.

###
Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!

The Priest at Prayer, June 26

The Third Part - Vices and Virtues

HOPE

First Meditation - The Foundations of Hope

I. The Holy Spirit intercedes for us, with groans beyond all utterance; He asks for us to be given eternal life; He petitions the Father from the inmost sanctuary of our hearts, where He dwells by His grace. (Cfr. Rom. viii, 25-27)

And our Divine Redeemer Himself, how eagerly He exhorts us to lay up treasures for Heaven!

Are my ideas and aspirations in consonance with the pleadings of the Holy Spirit and with the Saviour's exhortation? To be honest with myself, are there not goods of this world which I desire with greater yearn­ing and towards which I tend with stronger impulse and in whose attainment I spend more energy than for eternal life?

Why should I not expect to receive from my Father in Heaven what He so frequently and loyally promises, and so insistently begs me to take? But, have I imagined that He will give it me without even a thought on my part? without forcing myself to acquire it?

"The kingdom of heaven has opened to force, and the forceful are even now making it their prize." (Matt. xi, 12)

II. For God's part, we are so certain of heaven that, in the Gospel phrase, if we live in His grace we are already in possession of eternal life. Grace is the gift of the Holy Ghost, of the Spirit of God, of the Spirit of Christ, infused into our souls; it is a spirit of divine adoption, whereby God makes us His children and grants us full right to call Him Abba, Father. And, being children of God, we are also God's heirs, and co-heirs with Christ: heirs to God's estate, to Christ's kingdom, the kingdom of heaven. (Cfr. Rom. viii, 17) Moreover, the spirit of adoption, grace, confers upon us not so much a lawful claim to inherit as the inheritance itself, eternal life.:

And I give them life everlasting: and they shall not perish for ever.(John x, 28)

At the small cost of obtaining forgiveness of my sins and of remaining in His friendship, I can, thanks to my heavenly Father, possess even here below His Life, life everlasting.

Do I enjoy the moral certainty that now, at this very moment, I am the holder of so rich a treasure? Do I esteem it higher than all worldly goods? Do I use every precaution to safeguard it?

III. Another pledge of eternal life is given me, a pledge of still greater value: the Son of God Himself! O Father, Thy own divine Son, Thine only-Begotten Son, is given to the world to answer for the truth of Thy promises!

For God so loved the world, as to give his only-­begotten Son: that whosoever believeth in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting. (John iii, 16.)

Not content with delivering Him to us by the Incar­nation, the Father did not spare the Son, but gave Him up to death for our ransom. As Origen says: "His own He gave up to strangers, His own Son, for the sake of sons of adoption." Jesus signs the Father's promise for us in His Blood on the Cross. He remains our Divine Hostage in the tabernacle of our Altars, the pledge of our eternal peace.

Father in Heaven, what will it cost Thee to com­municate Thy happiness to us - Thy happiness which does not diminish or lose in the communicating - seeing that Thou gavest us the very Blood of Thy own Son, in Whom Thou hast all Thy delight?

Believing all this, as I do, am I still in doubt about God's promise? Do I still hesitate?

IV. There is still another pledge and earnest of eternal life, the pignus futurae gloriae, as I call it using the Church's words: the sacred Banquet wherein Christ is received.

"This is my body, given up for you; this cup is the new testament in my blood."

Certain people insist on drawing up their wills in their own handwriting, they do not entrust them to another's hand: a sign of the scrupulous and painstak­ing care they demand in the execution of their wills. But Thou, Lord, hast surpassed them all. Thou didst write Thy last will in Thy own Blood; or rather, it is Thy Blood Itself which constitutes Thy will on my behalf; not only Thy Blood on Mount Calvary, but, as it were, a fresh copy every day in the Sacrifice of the Mass. And this Blood of the New Covenant, this Will of Thine written in Thy Blood, is to be not merely handed over to me, but incorporated, by drinking, into my inmost being.

Hic calix Novum Testamentum est in meo sanguine. . . .

A testament that stands, that is valid, unchangeable, eternal.

And what dost Thou leave me, O Lord, in Thy will?

qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remis­sionem peccatorum.

The remission of sin, and Thy grace; and therefore, as a consequence, Thy own glory.

Could I ask of Thee, or couldst Thou possibly give me, a better guarantee? Lord, I hope, I trust, I have confidence, in Thee!

Resolution
I will not put my trust in the wealth of this world, nor in mortal man - a staff that easily breaks and splinters the hand which leans too heavily upon it; nor in my own earthly life - a fleeting shadow, a wisp of cloud that the breeze evaporates; nor in my own per­sonal worth, which is very meager; but in God alone. Yes, even in the affairs of ordinary daily life; but much more so when it comes to obtaining the grace of avoid­ing sin or of rising up from sin and of persevering and finally winning eternal life.
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Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.

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Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!