The Living will envy the dead

In a TV ‘cop’ show I watched the other day, as they were about to introduce a new character they used the phrase – “He’s old testament” to let us know this muscled giant would dispense justice swiftly and squarely without compromise or any faffing around. And so he did. 

The God of the old testament, the one who flooded the earth in Noah’s day, poured fire from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah, rescued His people from the Egyptians and gave us the ten commandments has not taken early retirement. 

It is said that the Father, in this post Resurrection era, views the world through the wounds of His son. It is no less horrifying to Him but sees that the price of our iniquity has been paid by the sacrifice of the Son. And even though the state of the world is far worse now than ever in human history, His anger is held back by the merit of Jesus’ sacrifice. The purpose of that sacrifice was to cancel the debt, to make mercy & forgiveness available. For humanity’s part, we are required (as a minimum) to seek mercy and accept forgiveness and turn back to God. 

What happens when humanity stops turning back to Him, when a tipping point is reached where the sin is so great and the desire to repent or change is almost entirely absent? He sends a warning. I was reading about the approved apparitions in Akita in Japan in the 1970’s where Our Lady spoke to a Japanese nun about what would happen. One message reads “As I told you, if men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge, such as one will never have seen before. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity, the good as well as the bad, sparing neither priests nor faithful. The survivors will find themselves so desolate that they will envy the dead. The only arms which will remain for you will be the Rosary and the Sign left by My Son. Each day recite the prayers of the Rosary. With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and priests” 

It’s hard to imagine what ‘envy the dead’ might look like but surely it’s better to avoid it by heeding this and the many other heavenly warnings we are receiving. The local bishop called it an update on Fatima and if we pay attention to this and the more recent apparitions which point to the same end (although in our day with greater urgency perhaps) disaster can be averted or lessened. Some people wonder why so many apparitions of Mary in our days, it’s because she is pleading with us to change, to pay attention, to see how precious human souls really are and how tragic when lost for lack of prayer or vigilance. 

Maybe this time of year is a good opportunity to begin again.

Death Spiral

Japan’s finance minister, Taro Aso made an astonishing statement recently, to the effect that Japan’s elderly, infirm and others financially dependent on the government, should ‘hurry up and die’.

This was prompted by the rising cost of care for the elderly, the ageing population, and a very low birth rate. With little or no immigration and having fully embraced the western contraceptive culture, many analysts say that Japan, as a nation, is in an irrecoverable ‘death spiral’ facing extinction. The average age is already in the mid-forties, compared to say Arab countries where it’s in the mid twenties.

This hostility to the old, weak and vulnerable members of society represents a massive shift in Japanese culture over only a few decades. Whilst it never embraced Christianity in the mainstream; the values of the Japanese were always transcendent.

Their code of honour (Bushido) was one of respect for their elderly parents and ancestors, a sense of duty to protect the weak and helpless, self-discipline and a focus on the higher values and virtues. In the pre-war and ancient times traders and merchants were the least regarded in society.

Post World War II, Western ideas were embraced and led by industrialists who enshrined profit, production, technological achievement and economic might as the new values. Now as one of the most developed, richest and advanced nations, it is coming to realise that it sowed the seeds of its own destruction in its choices. The contraceptive culture, contains within itself the subtle command to ‘empty the earth’ in opposition to God’s command to Adam and Eve to ‘fill the earth’.

Now in a panic to save itself, the nation turns in on itself all the more, willing to sacrifice its old and helpless on the altar of the Yen, to postpone their inevitable fall.

Truly, the only remnant of Bushido in Japan resides, paradoxically, in the hearts of the countries Christians; they alone will fight for life, for the weak and vulnerable, and hold fast to the integrity and honour that once made Japan the cradle of Eastern civilisation.