To Pastor Fr. Binh Ta, C.Ss.R. and Parochial Vicar Fr. Mark Scheffler, C.Ss.R. of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Parish, Seattle, WA
I was a visitor at Sacred Heart of Jesus this morning (Second Sunday of Easter), and I compliment you on a beautiful service and sanctuary. I found the first reading particularly inspiring because of discussions I’ve recently had with Catholic author Gil Bailie on his site, “The Cornerstone Forum.” Two things troubled me, however.When I sat down, I found a very disturbing tract in the hymnal rack in front of me. Titled “Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory,” it contains passages from the Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska. Her descriptions of Purgatory and Hell are graphic and frightening. She writes, for example, “There are caverns and pits of torture where one form of agony differs from another. … Let the sinner know that he will be tortured throughout all eternity, in those senses which he made use of to sin.” Her purgatory is “a misty place full of fire in which there was a great crowd of suffering souls.” She is obviously describing a literal fire, because she refers to the flames that were burning them.
I looked around and saw young people. Any one of them could have picked up this tract and read it. My question is, “Do you really want young Catholics—or indeed any Catholics—to see this kind of material when they come to Mass?” And what about visitors to your church? Do you think they feel welcomed when the first piece of literature they pick up threatens eternal torment?
I was also distressed to see that your parish was distributing the Prop 74 petition. When you consider that around 53% of Catholics in this country support same-sex marriage, circulating such a petition in church seems unnecessarily divisive and demonstrates misplaced priorities. Parishioners should not have to listen to anti-equality messages when they attend Mass. Moreover, Archbishop Sartain’s letter supporting the Referendum reveals a very confused grasp of the social justice issues involved. He offers homosexual couples “respect” with one hand while denying them equality with the other. Gay and lesbian couples in this state do not want to hear nostrums about respect when they are treated like second-class citizens. True “respect” requires equal access to the benefits (including the very name) of civil marriage.
I know that many Catholics in the Seattle Diocese share my disappointment that Sacred Heart of Jesus did not join St. Mary’s Cathedral, St. James Cathedral, St. Joseph’s Church, St. Louise, Christ Our Hope Church, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and St. Patrick’s in declining to participate in this anti-equality effort.
What an irony that St. Maria Faustina Kowalska’s lurid descriptions of Purgatory and Hell were available in your pews on the same morning that you circulated a petition to deny loving same-sex couples the right to a civil marriage.
Sincerely yours,
Doughlas Remy
April 20, 2012 at 5:02 am |
A Homily By Bishop Daniel Jenky: (Edited for Length)
To read his entire homily visit here: The Catholic Post.com
It Is Not Easy To Be A Christian
There is only one basic reason why Christianity exists and that is the fact that Jesus Christ truly rose from the grave. Meeting the Risen Lord had changed everything about these first disciples, and knowing the Risen Lord should also change everything about us.
You know, it has never been easy to be a Christian and it’s not supposed to be easy! The world, the flesh, and the devil will always love their own, and will always hate us. As Jesus once predicted, they hated me, they will certainly hate you.
But our Faith, when it is fully lived, is a fighting faith and a fearless faith. Grounded in the power of the resurrection, there is nothing in this world, and nothing in hell, that can ultimately defeat God’s one, true, holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
The Church Has Survived Many Attacks By Her Enemies
For 2,000 years the enemies of Christ have certainly tried their best. But think about it. The Church survived and even flourished during centuries of terrible persecution, during the days of the Roman Empire.
The Church survived barbarian invasions. The Church survived wave after wave of Jihads. The Church survived the age of revolution. The Church survived Nazism and Communism.
And in the power of the resurrection, the Church will survive the hatred of Hollywood, the malice of the media, and the mendacious wickedness of the abortion industry.
The Church will survive the entrenched corruption and sheer incompetence of our Illinois state government, and even the calculated disdain of the President of the United States, his appointed bureaucrats in HHS, and of the current majority of the federal Senate.
May God have mercy on the souls of those politicians who pretend to be Catholic in church, but in their public lives, rather like Judas Iscariot, betray Jesus Christ by how they vote and how they willingly cooperate with intrinsic evil.
As Christians we must love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, but as Christians we must also stand up for what we believe and always be ready to fight for the Faith. The days in which we live now require heroic Catholicism, not casual Catholicism. We can no longer be Catholics by accident, but instead be Catholics by conviction.
In our own families, in our parishes, where we live and where we work – like that very first apostolic generation – we must be bold witnesses to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We must be a fearless army of Catholic men, ready to give everything we have for the Lord, who gave everything for our salvation.
Remember that in past history other governments have tried to force Christians to huddle and hide only within the confines of their churches like the first disciples locked up in the Upper Room.
In the late 19th century, Bismarck waged his “Kulturkampf,” a Culture War, against the Roman Catholic Church, closing down every Catholic school and hospital, convent and monastery in Imperial Germany.
Clemenceau, nicknamed “the priest eater,” tried the same thing in France in the first decade of the 20th Century.
Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health care.
This Administration Is Going The Way Of Hitler And Stalin
In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama – with his radical, pro abortion and extreme secularist agenda, now seems intent on following a similar path.
Now things have come to such a pass in America that this is a battle that we could lose, but before the awesome judgement seat of Almighty God this is not a war where any believing Catholic may remain neutral.
This fall, every practicing Catholic must vote, and must vote their Catholic consciences, or by the following fall our Catholic schools, our Catholic hospitals, our Catholic Newman Centers, all our public ministries — only excepting our church buildings – could easily be shut down. Because no Catholic institution, under any circumstance, can ever cooperate with the instrinsic evil of killing innocent human life in the womb.
No Catholic ministry – and yes, Mr. President, for Catholics our schools and hospitals are ministries – can remain faithful to the Lordship of the Risen Christ and to his glorious Gospel of Life if they are forced to pay for abortions.
Now remember what was the life-changing experience that utterly transformed those fearful and quaking disciples into fearless, heroic apostles. They encountered the Risen Christ. They reverenced his sacred wounds. They ate and drank with him.
We Have Nothing To Fear
We have nothing to fear, but we have a world to win for him. We have nothing to fear, for we have an eternal destiny in heaven. We have nothing to fear, though the earth may quake, kingdoms may rise and fall, demons may rage, but St. Michael the Archangel, and all the hosts of heaven, fight on our behalf.
No matter what happens in this passing moment, at the end of time and history, our God is God and Jesus is Lord, forever and ever.
Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat!
Christ wins! Christ reigns! Christ commands!