Men Will Forget There is a God

From The Life and Revelations of Anne Catherine Emmerich, we find that the saint at one time disputed with God about two points: “…that He did not convert all the big sinners, and that He punished the impenitent with everlasting pains.” She told God that she didn’t understand how He could act this way, in view of His own promises of mercy in the Scriptures.

Her resolution to this dilemma was this:

…She soon saw that God is right; for, if He did convert all sinners or if the pains of Hell were not to last forever, man would forget that there is a God.

And don’t we see the truth of that now? Our priests and bishops do not often preach about Hell, and many people believe that all of us will go to Heaven, not matter how we’ve lived our lives on earth, because of God’s great mercy. They forget about contrition and penance!

So people don’t take the teachings of the Church seriously. They don’t consider the “big” sins to be sins any more – like cohabitation, homosexual “marriage”, artificial contraception. In fact, if people don’t consider these to be sins, we can only imagine how easily they justify “small” sins like lying, cheating, even stealing.  In fact, doesn’t it seem to you that the world is a pretty amoral place these days? “Who am I do judge?”

Anne Catherine Emmerich was asking these questions and seeing these truths 200 years ago. Things have not changed much over the course of the history of the Church, have they? Fallen human nature is a given, and it’s not just the laity who are susceptible to the dangers of that fallen nature – clerics have even greater susceptibility, in a way, simply because of the office they hold, and because satan will do what he can to subvert their holy purpose and turn them into his own pawns. In other words, there will always be a crisis in the Church.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t think the current crisis is to be dismissed lightly. On the contrary, I think it is one of the worst to come along. This is largely because of the ease of acquiring information – and misinformation. Lies and heresy are spread as easily as the truth via the internet. The news of what our prelates are up to also travels the globe in an instant, and we can be scandalized or uplifted hour by hour. The world is full of confusion, and satan and his gang are in ecstasy about that.

Still, we know Who wins, don’t we?

Keep fighting the good fight.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.