He Is Like A Refiner's Fire

Yes, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.

But who will endure the day of his coming?

And who can stand when he appears?

For he is like the refiner's fire,

Do we really want this thing to happen? I mean Malachi tells us that the Lord is going to be like a refining fire.  You know, when you mine silver or gold a lot of things can contaminate the end product which makes it worth a lot less than it could be.  So the refiner builds a fire, not just any fire, but one that is so hot that it melts the gold or silver and burns away the imperfections in it. The end result is pure, uncontaminated, the best that it can be. 

I know that Protestants and even some Catholics do not believe that there is such a place as Purgatory. But this reading from Malachi, what else can it mean?  If we take the proposition that God is Holy and that nothing unclean or unholy can be around him, doesn't it make sense that He would put into place a way for the dross to be burned away so that his faithful child, one that died in His friendship, could prepare him or her self to be with Him in heaven?  But, did not the sacrificial death of Jesus redeem us fully and give us a ticket to enter the pearly gates?  Yes, Jesus died for our sins and they are all forgiven but what justice would there be, for example, if you were a thief and you stole and then you were "saved" and your sin was forgiven, the person you stole from would still be out the money unless you repaid him. 

Every sin we commit has two effects on our soul. In the case of a serious sin, also called mortal sin, it breaks the relationship between God and his child. In the case of a minor offense, called a venial sin, the relationship is not broken but there is an obstacle between Father and child.  The relationship is still there but there is, for lack of a better word, a bump that needs to be smoothed.  For us Catholics, we have the assurance that our sins are forgiven when we confess them and accept the mercy of God in the confessional.   The sin is forgiven for sure but the attachment to that sin, the temporal satisfaction required to remedy what we have done is still there.  We can satisfy this temporal satisfaction by prayer, fasting, giving alms while we live.  Now if we die and we have an unforgiven mortal sin on our soul, there is no hope for us, we will end up in hell with the devil.  If the mortal sin had been rectified in the sacrament of confession, but we never satisfied the temporal requirement to purge it from our soul, we will have to do so after death.  It is the same for venial sin.  The time for making up for temporal things is while we are on earth.  While we live we can sacrifice and do penance and satisfy the obligation.  Once we have died, we will need to go through the refiner's fire which we call Purgatory.   We ourselves will choose to go there for we will know that we are not ready for heaven.  Does this sound like a fairy tale?  Here is another example.  You and John were the best of friends, you went to school together and all through life you kept up your friendship.  One day you were called to John's bedside as he lay there dying.  He calls you close and confesses that in second grade he was the one that stole your pencil, the one with black lead on one side and red lead on the other.  He stole it because he wanted to annoy you. You cherished that pencil.  As he takes his last breath, you tell him how much you hate him for stealing that pencil.  Some years later, you die and you never gave up that hate for John for stealing your pencil.  John is now among the other saints in heaven in the presence of Almighty God.  If you were admitted to heaven with this hate on your soul, what would you do when you saw John for the first time in heaven.  Most likely you would at least have a bad thought or two about him and you would be causing hate to enter heaven and that is an impossibility.  What is God to do with you?  The sin is a minor matter and not worthy of hell, but He cannot admit you to heaven because you are attached to the sin and sin has no place in heaven.  God in His mercy allows you to choose to go to the refiner's fire, to have all of the dross burned out of your soul after which you will be allowed to enjoy heaven forever.   God is that merciful.   So, Purgatory is real because God's love for us and His desire for us to be with Him is real. 

Can you avoid Purgatory?  Sure you can and some of us do avoid Purgatory.  We can do this by living a worthy life, confessing our sins regularly and to do penance for them by sacrificing our time, talent, or treasure in doing some worthy cause.  You see, when you move out of yourself and see how others live, you can be more charitable and loving.  This will help you remove the residual stains on your soul.  God loves you so much that He sent His only Son to die for your sins.  He opened the doors of heaven for us so we can live in peace and security with Him forever. 

Economics of Heaven 101

Do not ignore this one fact, beloved,                                                     
that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years
and a thousand years like one day.
The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard "delay,"
but he is patient with you,
not wishing that any should perish
but that all should come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief,
and then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar
and the elements will be dissolved by fire,
and the earth and everything done on it will be found out.



Since everything is to be dissolved in this way,
what sort of persons ought you to be,
conducting yourselves in holiness and devotion,
waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God,
because of which the heavens will be dissolved in flames
and the elements melted by fire.
But according to his promise
we await new heavens and a new earth
in which righteousness dwells.
Therefore, beloved, since you await these things,
be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace.

There have been a lot of wise men and women in the Church that have taken 2 Peter's message to heart and lived a life where the economics of heaven is more important to them than the economics of earth. These fortunate people have a different view of the universe than most of us have. 

Let's take St. Francis of Assisi as an example.  He understood that the things of this world were temporary. He understood that he needed a certain amount of food and water and shelter in order to live and he spent as little of his life as possible in seeking this absolutely small amount.  Even the little bit that he allowed himself would be given away to someone who was in greater need of it.  On the other hand, Francis would not take a king's ransom in exchange for his relationship with Jesus.  He valued that more than anything that this world had to offer him.  St. Francis became St. Francis because he understood the value of things both temporal and eternal. 

In this letter, we are being reminded that what we see as delay on God's part, is not delay, but His patience with us.  He wants all of us to be with Him in heaven.  God wants all of us to understand a little better every day the economics of His Kingdom.  If everything that we have is going to end up as ashes, then why covet everything material so greatly?  This does not mean we have to eschew all of the things on this earth.  We are entitled to keep ourselves clothed, fed, warm, and dry but we are also called to do what we can to help others achieve their own basic comfort level as well. Is it okay for me to have an abundance while you have nothing?  Sometimes it is, especially if you have been given the chance to upgrade your circumstances through work and you have decided it was beneath you.  But, on those occasions where you are not at fault, you have every right to expect some assistance from those that have more. 

This can be a complicated subject but I think that I can break it down into one simple concept.  Share what you can with those that need it the most.  If you do this then your economics will not be found wanting when the Lord returns for us.  

 The souls in Purgatory need your help today. Please, pray for them.  Not everyone who dies goes directly to heaven, one or two of us might need some time to release the attachments to sin that we did not release fully on earth.  Death does not qualify you for heaven, holiness does.  Is it possible that as they are you might someday be?

View from the Watchtower - JW and the Catholic Church

For near is the day of the LORD                 

in the valley of decision.
Sun and moon are darkened,
and the stars withhold their brightness.
The LORD roars from Zion,
and from Jerusalem raises his voice;
The heavens and the earth quake,
but the LORD is a refuge to his people,
a stronghold to the children of Israel.

You have to admire their pluck.  I mean the way that they stick to their spiel when time and time again they have been proven wrong just because the sun rose and set as it had done so many times over the many millenniums.  Of course, I am speaking about the Jehovah's Witnesses (JW), an organization that specializes in predicting the end of the world.  Each time they predict a date, they have been wrong. They are not a  Christian religion as they deny the divinity of Christ stating that Jesus, in reality, is St. Michael the Archangel. You have to admire them in some respects.  The believers commit a lot of time to pursuing converts.   They go out in pairs and go door to door looking for people ripe for conversion into their strange doctrine.  They come prepared with Biblical proof of all they say, of course, the Bible they use, The New World edition has been edited so that their beliefs are proven.  They rope in the innocent and uneducated, namely Catholics.  While an educated Catholic can point out very easily where the Watchtower Society, based in the religious heart of the world, Brooklyn New York, goes off of the rails. most of the JW converts come from parishes like yours and mine.

The problem we have in the Catholic Church is that we have a lack of Catholics that are able to see through the poorly thought out theology of the Watchtower people or any of the Protestant sects for that matter. Can you imagine that some Catholics who have gone on to get advanced degrees in nuclear engineering or doctorates in any one of a thousand subjects have no more than a seventh-grade education in the most important subject of all, their religion?  Why is that?  It is a sad but true fact that many Catholics are easy prey to the whiles of the Witness team or Mormon missionaries, or Bible Thumping Evangelists that comes to their door because they left the study of their religion after they were confirmed usually in middle school or high school.  

I imagine each of us can come up with a reason or two why it is not possible for us to learn more about our Catholic faith.  First and foremost, there isn't enough time in the day for me to get all of the things done that I need to.  That's a load of bull droppings.  If you had time to watch TV in the evening, you had time to spend learning something new about your religion. The Witnesses, the Mormons,  spend hours each week with their door to door ministry and for the JW's  each Kingdom Hall reports the hours spent tilling the soil for converts each week. Those that don't spend enough time going door to door or who do not have enough results to show are given a good talking to.    And some of us Catholics say we are too busy, right...hand me the potato chips and could you turn on the Notre Dame game?

Okay, here is what I really want to say to you on this Saturday.  If a seventh grader knows more than you about being a Catholic, how does that make you feel?  Our young people today take their religion more seriously than you might expect.  In our parish, every year, we see a class of teens come back from a week-long mission trip, helping the less fortunate and they come back energized with zeal for the Lord and they have seen for themselves how good it feels to follow the ways of God and to help those that need it most.  They experience a closeness with the Lord that fills them with the desire to have more and to help more.  Then, what happens, they start hanging around the older Catholics, the ones that just put in their appearance, the ones that come late to mass and leave early and they determine by watching you that being a Catholic doesn't really make much of a difference and they slowly either drift away from the church or they are snared by Protestant evangelizers who know how to reel in a healthy catch of Catholic youth and save them from Rome and get them to believe in Sola Scriptura and Once Saved Always Saved, two indefensible doctrines that lull people into a way of life where sin doesn't play a part anymore. 

Look, you just have to get up off of your dead sit upon and become more knowledgeable about Christianity, the Church and its history and why it matters that you are a Catholic and not a Baptist or Presbyterian or God forbid a Jehovah's Witness.  

Do you understand, have you any idea what-so-ever what a great gift you have been given by being born or converting to be a Catholic?  We are part of the Church that was built by Christ to last until He returns for us on the last day when in God's eyes the time of harvest is nigh.  There is nothing better on this whole earth than to be part of God's kingdom and that Kingdom is not owned by the Watchtower Society, it is owned by the people of God in the Catholic Church. 

We have so many things that other denominations do not have.  We have most of all the Real Presence in the Eucharist that we can receive daily in many places.  Can you imagine what a JW would do if he or she had that same closeness to Jesus as we have available to us?  They would be unstoppable!  They would go door to door armed with the love of Jesus and not leave a house until they either converted the person or were physically kicked down the stairs with their New World edition Bible hitting them in the head as they bounced off the curb at the side of the street. If such power would be available to a JW, why does it not manifest itself in us, the heirs and true adopted sons and daughters of the Great King?  Light the fire in yourself and watch it spread to those around you.  Do it NOW. 

To do today:  Pray for the poor souls in Purgatory. 

Welcome To Gehenna

"You have heard that it was said to your ancestors,

You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.

But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother

will be liable to judgment,

and whoever says to his brother,

Raqa will be answerable to the Sanhedrin,

and whoever says, 'You fool,' will be liable to fiery Gehenna."

Welcome to Gehenna!  How do we interpret this passage of scripture?  I think it is relatively simple.  Jesus says that if you hate your brother, well, you can go to hell.  But, the news is even worse than that.  You may not hate your brother, you might just be angry with him, or you might call him a fool. In either case, you would become a citizen of Gehenna.  

The listeners did not have to think metaphysics when they heard these words of Jesus for they could go to Gehenna any time of the day or night that they wanted to.  Gehenna lay outside of the walls of Jerusalem and was a place where the, using the polite term, garbage was burned.  The fires burned day and night just under the surface the process of decay aided by the worms, flies, and maggots continued both day and night.  To be sure, Gehenna was not a place that the local Chamber of Commerce put into their brochures as an enticement to visit the city. 

As nasty as this place is, it is the place we are invited to move to by Jesus if we just call our brother a fool.  It is not easy to be a follower of Jesus, it never has been, and it never will.  What He proposes runs counter to the way we think.  When we are offended by someone, our natural self-wants to go on the offensive and strike back at the person or persons that have offended us.  

In order to avoid Gehenna, we must wage a war not against those who offend us but against that part of our soul that is reaching for the sword.  Our war should not be against our brother but against ourselves and the defects in our nature that cause us to respond with hate instead of love. 

This is not easy nor is it natural for us to do.  Yet, throughout our life, we should learn to practice forgiveness of those who offend us because there is no good neighborhood or good neighbors in Gehenna. 

One Plus One Is One

And I have given them the glory you gave me,

so that they may be one, as we are one,

Here is a stumper for you, explain the Trinity.  Is our God actually three Gods?  Those of you of ancient times might remember the Baltimore Catechism's definition of who are God actually is.  Do you remember?  Well, the answer is that The Trinity is Three Divine Persons in one Divine Being. There, we got that figured out now don't we?  Or do we?   St. Patrick used to arrive at a village and the first thing (the story goes) he would do would be to find the meanest, strongest, bad boy living there and beat the tar out of him.  This got the citizens attention and then he took out a shamrock and used it to explain the Trinity, one plant, three leaves, all united.  Is that a true story? I don't know, but it sure is a good tale.  It makes one good point, that the Trinity is united, they are one even though they are separate and distinct.   The idea of three Divine Persons in One Divine Being is hard, no, impossible to get your hands around.  It is one of those things that we may never, in all eternity understand.  

The most important thing about the Trinity, as I said is that they are united, they are one.  Jesus prayed that all of His followers be of one mind but when we came to the fifteen-hundreds, we kind of messed that up now didn't we?  I am not going to get into a finger pointing session here because there was enough blame to go around.  Luther was too prideful and the Church didn't listen as well as she should have. 

Unity in our religions is something that we need to work towards.  The Catholic Church cannot move any closer to our separated Protestant brothers and sisters by changing doctrine that has remained unchanged since the Church was founded.  She can and should to try to attract her lost children back to her. We do not do that by pointing out the error of our brothers' ways and shaking our fingers at them. To do this would make us no better than old Jack Chick and his poison tracts. We must attract them by showing them what a real Christian community is like.  This is something that we have not been too good at since Luther banged a few nails into a church door.  

How do we do this?  We make the light of Christ brighter and brighter in our church communities that they cannot fail to see that we are different and that difference is the life of Christ in us shining out. We must open doors and windows.  We must be ready to be friendly and loving to those who might not really trust us because we bear the label Catholic.   The new evangelization is not new at all. It is something that we should have been doing all along.  You don't need to become a street preacher, you need not say even a word. You may let your actions do your talking for you.  What I suggest is that we take some time and look around and find a need and fill it.  Listen for the Lord to speak to you.  He is looking for men, women, and children to build his Church.  Enthusiasm will generate enthusiasm!   Love will generate love in return.  The hardest part is to start.  

That is all for today.  I hope I have given you something to think about.  God bless and don't be afraid to leave a comment.