Vae victis ..Woe to the Vanquished

Recently I visited a town renowned for its traditional blacksmiths; everything from machetes for farming to replicas of battle-ready medieval swords. The process is long and exacting; spring steel forged at high temperature and hammered repeatedly on the anvil into shape and its cutting edges prepared; tempered and quenched to harden the steel; and sharpening with grindstone and then assembled with hilt and pommel. 

All of which reminded me of a confessor I had many years ago. My last visit to him ended with a mysterious warning: “expect a lot of suffering”.  As a recent returnee to the Father’s house I was thinking more of unlimited ‘fatted calf’ barbecue for some time to come; but he spotted something else: a rusted chunk of spring steel that would need a lot of work. The only way for God to bring about change in the heart of man is really by means of suffering; there is no other way. 

And right on cue it began. I didn’t know the enemy would be given such a free hand (or have a couple of little helpers placed in my circle). I felt like an unarmed, bewildered Hobbit being overrun by an army of ugly violent Orcs as I underwent the beginner’s spiritual warfare training. Analogous to Prometheus having his liver torn out every day; my mind and heart were tormented by whatever deceiving spirit was let loose. The only relief I found were a few minutes per day at Mass during the consecration and a few minutes afterward. Whatever it was had to flee at that point it seems. I could only pray and cling to a God I barely knew (I never prayed so much, so hard or for so long) trusting that the horror would in fact end, which two years later it did. Delivered just as suddenly as it began, at His word, and the aggressors were finally vanquished. Vae victis ! I too had been forged, hammered, tempered, sharpened, hopefully a little more useful by then in the hand of the Maker.

“Where Faith Costs”

I have a photo of four Chinese Evangelists on my computer. They are all middle aged, ordinary looking chaps who have spent 47 years between them in prisons and labour camps held by the Chinese Communist government because they believe in Jesus. 

They are the product of a movement of the Holy Spirit in one of the nations most hostile to the Gospel message. And now, many in what is referred to as the House Churches (as they have no physical church buildings) have begun to send evangelists beyond China’s borders into the most untouched regions of the world still held captive in the grip of  Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. As they put it in an excerpt from the book ‘Back to Jerusalem’ :- 

“The Lord has been training Chinese Christians  for the past 50 years through imprisonment, torture, suffering and hardship. Thousands have been treated brutally in prison, thousands more have been sent out across the country as evangelists with nobody to rely on but God himself. They have seen numerous miracles and have come to a deep trust in Jesus that could not have been learned in any other way than through hardship and suffering….We have become soldiers of steel, tempered in the furnace of affliction. We do not fear what people can do to us.” 

If we contrast this with Churches in the free world we see a dismal picture; even in our own denomination we see  nit picking on religious practices like where your hands are during the Our Father,  where to receive communion ,  or whether we should revert back to the Latin Mass (or the silent minority who would like it in the original Aramaic) But how about the lost, does anybody care about them anymore ? 

How the western churches need a portion of this Spirit to revive their drooping fervour; but I wonder if any can pay the cost …perhaps Jesus will also supply the appropriate training to those with a heart for Him.

Healer of Souls

This week the relic of the Incorrupt heart of St (Padre) Pio was at Manila Cathedral on its way around the country.  Crowds, too numerous to count braved the weather in long queues to venerate the relic.

He is very much loved; a saint for our times as he was such a contradiction to the ways of the world.  It seems that his incredible gift of being able to read souls was matched only by his capacity to suffer; with both the stigmata and enduring the constant attacks of the devil. Perhaps that was the price of such a gift in that he had to suffer in order to set his penitents free from bondage, to obtain for them the gift of conversion.

One wonderful story, told by a lady who confessed to him, was about a hidden sin she had. She went to confession to him and after she had finished he asked if she had anything else she wanted to tell. She said ‘no’ and he asked her to return the next day. She confessed other sins and was asked if there was anything else ; again she responded ‘no’ and was asked to return the next day. On the last day, he mentioned the date and time when she had an abortion, and then he told her what her aborted son would have been had he lived, the destiny that was lost when his life had been extinguished. That revelation showed her the gravity of the sin and she was repentant and reconciled with God.

St. Pio reveals to us the gentleness and mercy of a God so much offended but always willing to forgive at the slightest opening of a repentant heart.

The wonderful thing about our saints though is that their mission does not end in death, it is ramped up a notch; the miracles abound all the more when they are born into heaven.

Purgatory, heaven & hell....a story from India

Set out below is an account of the experience of a priest who died and was shown Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. It is of course only his personal experience but there is nothing in it which is contrary to faith and I trust that some of you might find, as I did, that it was a warning and an encouragement.

On Sunday April 14, 1985, the Feast of the Divine Mercy, Fr Tom Maniyangat was going to celebrate Mass at a mission church in the north part of Kerala, and he had a fatal accident. He had a head on collision with a jeep. He was rushed to a hospital about 35 miles away but he died on the way.

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Fr Tom's soul left his body and he experienced death. He saw his body and the people who were carrying him to the hospital. He heard them crying and praying for him.He then met his Guardian angel. His angel said to him: "I am going to take you to Heaven, the Lord wants to meet you and talk with you." He also said that as part of that journey he wanted to show Fr Tom hell and purgatory. 

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This is how Fr Tom describes his visit to Hell and Purgatory Hell"First, the angel escorted me to hell. It was an awful sight! I saw Satan and the devils, an unquenchable fire ,worms crawling, people screaming and fighting, others being tortured by demons. I was told there are seven "degrees" or levels of suffering in the netherworld. Those who committed "mortal sin after mortal sin" in life were suffering the most intense heat. They had bodies and looked very ugly, so cruel and ugly, horrifying. They were human but like monsters: fearful, ugly-looking things. The angel told me that all these sufferings were due to unrepented mortal sins.Then, I understood that there are seven degrees of suffering or levels according to the number and kinds of mortal sins committed in their earthly lives. The souls looked very ugly, cruel and horrific. It was a fearful experience. I saw people whom I knew but I am not allowed to reveal their identities. The sins that convicted them were mainly abortion, homosexuality, sins of the flesh, euthanasia, hatefulness, lack of forgiveness and sacrilege.

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The angel told me that if they had repented they would have avoided hell and gone instead to purgatory. I also understood that some people who repent from these sins might be purified on earth through their sufferings. This way they can avoid purgatory and go straight to heaven. I was surprised when I saw in hell even Priests and Bishops, some of whom I never expected to see. Many of them were there because they had misled the people with false teaching and bad example.

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After the visit to hell, my Guardian angel escorted me to Purgatory. Here too, there are seven degrees of suffering and unquenchable fire. But it is far less intense than hell and there was neither quarreling nor fighting. The main suffering of these so is their separation from God. Some of those who are in Purgatory committed numerous mortal sins; but they were reconciled with God before their death. Even though these souls are suffering, they enjoy peace and the knowledge that one day they will see God face to face.I had a chance to communicate with the souls in Purgatory. They asked me to pray for them and to tell the people to pray for them as well, so they can go to heaven quickly. 

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When we pray for these souls we will receive their gratitude through their prayers and once they enter heaven their prayers become even more meritorious.

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Next, my angel escorted me to heaven passing through a big dazzling white tunnel. I never experienced this much peace and joy in my life. Then immediately the heaven opened up and I heard the most delightful music, which I never heard before. The angels were singing and praising God. I saw all the saints, especially the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph, and many dedicated holy Bishops and Priests who were shining like stars.

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And when I appeared before the Lord, Jesus told me: "I want you to go back to the world. In your second life you will be an instrument of peace and healing to my people. You will walk in a foreign land and you will speak in a foreign tongue. Everything is possible for you with my grace." After these words, the Blessed Mother told me, "Do whatever He tells you. [John 2:5] I will help you in your ministries."Words can not express the beauty of heaven. There we find so much peace and happiness, which exceed a million times our imagination. 

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Our Lord is far more beautiful than any image can convey. His face is radiant and luminous and more beautiful than a thousand rising suns. The pictures we see in the world are only a shadow of His magnificence. The Blessed Mother was next to Jesus; she was so beautiful and radiant. None of the images we see in this world can compare with her real beauty. Heaven is our real home: we are all created to reach heaven and enjoy God forever. 

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Back to Earth. 

As they were moving my dead body to the morgue, my soul came back to the body. I felt an excruciating pain because of so many wounds and broken bones. I began to scream and then the people became frightened and ran away screaming.One of them approached the doctor and said: "The dead body is screaming." The doctor came to examine the body and found that I was alive. So he said: "Father is alive. It is a miracle - take him back to the hospital."

The Language of God

Some years ago a University Chaplain, (who had a PhD in pure Mathematics) stated that ‘Maths was the language of God’ and leaned back in his chair with a smug grin. 

I can see now that he was onto something. But Maths, as any high school student knows, is merely one of the many dialects of His universal language...suffering. 

Suffering cannot be understood or avoided; it can only be felt and journeyed through. From the minor irritations that fill our days to the big stuff, cries out the message that we are not made for this place, that finding permanent happiness and fulfilment on earth is not really part of the plan, indeed any such attempt will be thwarted. 

Mother Teresa framed our future hope well with the statement that “in light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth, a life full of the most atrocious tortures, will be seen to be no more serious than one night in an inconvenient hotel”. 

It was in one of her homes for the dying that I witnessed a most extraordinary transformation. My wife and I used to visit a lady who had been lifted from the streets by the sisters and brought into the home with terminal cancer. She had, what to me seemed, an unimaginably hard life; it was etched into her angry, weary face. 

At first she was disinterested in anything to do with God. Over the coming months as her pains worsened and the sisters and carers looked after her daily needs, she became more open to prayer. The wards encircle the chapel and the sanctuary lamp burns at the heart of the home. Bathed in constant prayer her heart softened, she opened up, told her story, wrote to people she would never see again to tie up loose ends. The last time we met she told my wife that she had offered her last days and all her sufferings to Jesus. She was peaceful and even smiled through the pain. 

She was following a well trodden path. Her saviour had gone ahead of her and beckoned her ‘follow me’, this is the way of the cross and from the cross into the light of eternity. (Rev 21:4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, [for] the old order has passed away.”)

Shackleton

The Pilgrim Road

The other day I had a test-drive in a lazy-boy chair; the soft leather aroma filled the air as my bones sunk into the sumptuous foam. It raises your legs as it reclines, and has an array of remote controls:-like Captain Kirk’s chair on the bridge of the Star Ship Enterprise. Unfortunately for the salesman, I suddenly remembered Sir Ernest Shackleton and his men fighting for survival in the Antarctic ice floes a century ago and called to mind a Japanese saying that “luxury is a menace to authentic manhood”.

The current generation of men seem bent on making life soft, convenient, safe and comfortable. Philosophies akin to the American dream point to an earthly paradise and rest after labour with the unspoken suggestion that a cure for sickness, old age and death can’t be far away now. Life’s meaning has become focussed on success, wealth and ease and the avoidance of all woes and challenges. Any obstacle or adversity or departure from the carefully crafted comfort zone is met with horror and ultimately disappointment. 

As a pilgrim people passing through life on the journey to our ultimate goal and destination, we have the opportunity to achieve a different kind of success. I read an insight that changed my thinking about my own trials and sufferings; that the difficulties we encounter are really a way that God initiates us into an authentic Christian manhood. He wants to see us reach our full stature as men and as sons and so will put us through whatever is necessary to achieve that. Even those things which happen to us, which can only be regarded as evil, can be transformed by grace (and time) and become our glory; “We know that all things work for good for those who love God”(Rom 8:28) We can resist this process or embrace it; but it will be lighter if difficulties are accepted as if from God’s hand because then we can prayerfully work through them in partnership.

Viewed from this perspective, and looking back on my own life, from childhood to the present, I can see how my heavenly Father led me through different challenges, trials and adventures; many I rather enjoyed, others are filed under ‘hideous abominations’ but in either case I grew through them, learned and relearned lessons, was hurt and healed and taken together it’s the hardships that form our characters the most. In time they are remembered fondly because of the fruit they bore and ultimately this toil is part of heaven’s price, and as we endure to the end our thrones await us!

Fruits of Medjugorje...

 
Battistina is definitely an Italian woman of our time. She is a 47-year old internet-based accountant. When her partner invited her to go to Medjugorje, she was not very interested. Then, one morning, on her car radio, she heard the song, often played by Radio Maria that had irritated her so much for years when she was looking for a program. Unexpectedly that song moved her deeply; her tears flowed continuously, without any apparent reason. She understood that the Blessed Mother was calling her. But I will let her tell her own story ...

"Since a pilgrimage to Medjugorje in July 2012, everything has changed in my life, nothing is like before! My conversion happened during the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. There were thousands of us outside around the Rotunda. Suddenly I found myself on my knees and I had the feeling that I was holding my living heart in my hands. I saw my entire life scroll down before my eyes. I clearly saw the good and the bad, and everything that seemed good at the time was becoming bad. I started to feel a great pain about my divorce.

How could I have broken a promise made in front of God? These words echoed in my mind, 'let no one split apart what God has joined together'. I then understood that my serenity was only in my mind because my heart was ice-cold. I had always felt I was on the side of the "righteous" and that I was a victim. Suddenly I saw how hard my heart was, I saw the suffering of my 4 children, what my father and my in-laws had endured, and I especially saw that I was not at all a victim.  Actually I had never forgiven anyone. When my oldest daughter, 9 year-old and in 4th grade, had insisted on doing her first Holy Communion, I had told her it made no sense; and my last child had not even been baptized! I saw all the New Age books that I had bought over the past 20 years. How could I have spent all that time reading and taking courses on self-development, things that only ended up pushing me away from God and my family?

The pain was getting stronger and stronger and little by little I found myself with my face to the ground.  I told myself, 'Lord, let me die here, because I am not worthy of even lifting my head from the ground'. At that moment I felt something like a huge hug filled with love, and a joy that is not of this world. And I told myself, 'During 18 years I thought I had given my children everything, but actually I had not given them anything because I had not given them this. So if I stay here to pray for them for the rest of my life, would that not be better than anything that I could do if I went back home? If I, as a mother, the soul of the household, had cultivated prayer instead of cultivating useless things, my children would still have a united family today!'

I understood that when you make the decision to shrug off the cross of marriage, you are actually putting it on your children's shoulders.

Then I felt that I had to keep the promise of faithfulness in marriage, so I decided to make a vow of chastity. I offered this to God so that a thousand families would not separate. My life partner felt the same way. He also told me that we should consecrate ourselves completely. Some priests told me that the vow of chastity was not necessary, others that it was just something we had made up, but I was quite certain and determined because it seemed so little in comparison with the infinite mercy that I had received.

My children thought I had become crazy because I was going to church and hung up a crucifix in the living-room. My eldest daughter was very irritated by my enthusiasm, and she told me, 'So what about all the things you've been telling us for the past 18 years?' 'I am sorry,' I told her. 'I was mistaken!'

In November I went back to Medjugorje with my 4 children so that they too would have an understanding and wisdom. I was very hopeful that they would meet the Lord. I was watching them from a distance, and waiting I thought, 'But if I, their mother, with the little love I am capable of, am so happy to see my children pray, how much happier must our Heavenly Mother be? And how unhappy will she be for her children who get lost!

During the pilgrimage all of my children's hearts were touched. We started studying the Catechism together. Nine months later, the youngest, 10 years old, was baptized, and all my children received Holy Communion during the same celebration. This was the most beautiful day of my life! It was as if I could see them all being reborn at the same time. My partner and I stayed together for a year, living like brother and sister. But every day I was asking God to be able to understand what His will was, whether we should stay close to support one another, or be separated completely. I kept that doubt in my heart for a long time but little by little the Lord led our paths to grow apart because of work.

After my conversion, I contacted my ex-husband again. For nine years every telephone call had ended with yelling on both sides; so for a year we did not talk to each other, and he would communicate with me through the children. When I recognized my mistakes,I looked at his faults as the consequences of my own, and then my resentment disappeared. I was the one who should ask for forgiveness! Little by little I started to feel the deep bond of marriage, sealed by God, and to feel once again a spouse. Yet I did not understand it. I asked a priest if it was all right to feel that I was a spouse, even though my husband was bonded to another person and had a son. The priest answered that the sacrament of marriage was indissoluble before God.  

Now the love that I thought had been cancelled or even had never existed, I found it once again intact in the depths of my heart. I keep it in its purity and I pray every day for the conversion of my ex-husband and for all the families. I thank Jesus and Mary for the infinite grace that my family receives every day and I continue onward on this path of conversion."

Fr Stan Fortuna ... everybody got to suffer

Masai Evangelist

One day Joseph, who was walking along one of these hot, dirty African roads, met someone who shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with him. Then and there he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. The power of the Spirit began transforming his life; he was filled with such excitement and joy that the first thing he wanted to do was return to his own village and share that same Good News with the members of his local tribe.

Joseph began going from door-to-door, telling everyone he met about the Cross [suffering!] of Jesus and the salvation it offered, expecting to see their faces light up the way his had. To his amazement the villagers not only didn’t care, they became violent. The men of the village seized him and held him to the ground while the women beat him with strands of barbed wire. He was dragged from the village and left to die alone in the bush.

Joseph somehow managed to crawl to a water hole, and there, after days of passing in and out of consciousness, found the strength to get up. He wondered about the hostile reception he had received from people he had known all his life. He decided he must have left something out or told the story of Jesus incorrectly. After rehearsing the message he had first heard, he decided to go back and share his faith once more.

Joseph limped into the circle of huts and began to proclaim Jesus. “He died for you, so that you might find forgiveness and come to know the living God” he pleaded. Again he was grabbed by the men of the village and held while the women beat him reopening wounds that had just begun to heal. Once more they dragged him unconscious from the village and left him to die.

To have survived the first beating was truly remarkable. To live through the second was a miracle. Again, days later, Joseph awoke in the wilderness, bruised, scarred—and determined to go back.

He returned to the small village and this time, they attacked him before he had a chance to open his mouth. As they flogged him for the third and probably the last time, he again spoke to them of Jesus Christ, the Lord. Before he passed out, the last thing he saw was that the women who were beating him began to weep.

This time he awoke in his own bed. The ones who had so severely beaten him were now trying to save his life and nurse him back to health. The entire village had come to Christ.

This is one vivid example of what Paul meant when he said, “I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body.”