VERBUM SERAPHICUM

PAX ET BONUM !


MARCH + 2007 A. D.


AVE MARIA !

"If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor,
. . . and come follow Me." Matthew 19:21

Week I

The Shipwreck of This World



It was quipped by, I believe, Henry Cardinal Newman, that if there is one doctrine which is empirically verifiable, it is the doctrine of Original Sin: because its effects are visible on the front page of the newspaper each day.



Murders, Adulteries, Thefts, Scams, Wars, Plagues, Epidemics, Famines, Droughts, Storms, Accidents, Robberies, etc.. These are the daily stuff of newspapers and of the daily news.



With so much evil in this world, it is really amazing sometimes that there are so many contemporaries who believe, hope and sacrifice their lives for this world, and for what this world can offer.



They blithely deny the existence and effects of original sin to suit themselves. Because they believe it more convenient and useful to deny that there is good and evil, right or wrong, justice or injustice, unless it somehow benefits or harms their own persuits.



This is why the Saints often call this world a shipwreck. Like a ship, when in a violent storm, which has been dashed upon a reef, spilling its cargo, crew and passengers into the sea, with all the maelstrom of weather, chaos, panic, fear, frenzy that grips them all, it is no wonder that without any means of safety, such as a life raft or preserver or homing beacon, that all are easily lost.



And how rarely in the panic and rush of the moments which follow a shipwreck does any man have the sense to keep his cool and do anything about saving others: all rush in seeking what is necessary for themselves. à


There would be some point to it all, as there is in a shipwreck, if what each sought at least could guarantee their safety: thus in a shipwreck no one is at fault for swimming towards a life-raft or towards the rescue ship.



But in the world, there is much more chaos and confusion.



Because there is no salvation in any other than Christ, and no means of salvation but in the Catholic Church: and no way to obtain it but by faith in all that the Church infallibly teaches in faith and morals, and by repentance from all mortal sins and the habits of all mortal sins.



But if we consider our manner of daily living, apart from our reception of the sacraments and our life of prayer, then we can also say with confidence that there is no guarantee that we will save our souls, except one: that guarantee which Christ gave for those who spend their daily life in one profession.



Our Lord Jesus Christ declared:



There is no one, who has forsaken father, mother, brother and sister, home and property, for My sake and for the sake of the Gospel, who shall not receive in this life a hundred fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and homes, and in the world to come life everlasting.



And this profession is the religious life.



And so in the shipwreck of this world, so full of sin, vice, wickedness, conspiracy against the good, injustice, fraud, and fakery, there is one sure profession in which the days and hours and weeks and years of our life is most surely, yea, with divine certainty, worth every moment of it, if we but do it for Christ’s sake: and that is to be a Catholic religious by becoming a brother or sister, a monk or a nun, or what we Franciscans call a Friar.



Week II

What does God want of me?



This is the most important question we can ask ourselves; and it is a great question: I say “great” not because it is “great” in the sense that the commercial, Tony the Tiger says, “Great!!!”, but in the sense that the question is truly, crucial to our lives and our present and ultimate existence.



I wish I could give you to see what God is really like, in Himself, as the blessed see Him in Heaven. But though words cannot compare to that incomparable and unwithering joy, let me try to at least lay an image of it before you.



Each of us when we close our eyes, if we are not standing in the light, sees darkness. This is the darkness in which we think and conceive all our thoughts, because in that most inner place which we alone experience alone, there is nothing but our own thoughts there.



But this darkness and solitude is only temporary. Because for those who get to Heaven, or those damned, this darkness and solitude is torn away. Though what follows is much different: for the former, joy, for the latter, horrors unspeakable.



For the blessed, or those rare saints who have had the grace in life to see God Face to Face in vision, it is as if the veil which, unbeknownst to us, has been the cause of this darkness we each experience in our inmost self, has been at last, and for the first time, raised.



What is revealed therein, in the Beatific Vision, is nothing like what we experience in this world. But it is, if one can describe it with words, as if there is before us a vast and limitless light radiating in all direction, but diminished at no distance.



And this light is a Great Light; full not only of warmth, but of peace and to see it is perfect joy, a joy so intense, so profound, so encompassing, so lasting, so memorable, that if one were to see it but for a moment, in this life, by a great grace, one could never forget such a great Beauty, which God is.. à


And to see that Light, is not just to see, but to be filled in one’s entire being, body and soul, with such delight, such love, such longing, such desire, that to merely think and contemplate that Light, seen, is to be launched in an every increasing acceleration of love and desire toward God, with such efficacy and ease and speed, that if a saint were to receive this vision, without the Divine Hand holding him fast in his body, his soul would surely take flight to Heaven, and leave his body to die upon Earth.



And this is something like what it is to see God, and in particular, to see God the Father: so full of love, gentleness, goodness, and kindness to all who look upon Him in truth.



And if it was that one could see God thus, in contemplating the Father, one would be caught up in the contemplation of the Son, by necessity, because it is in comprehending Him as Father, that we comprehend His Son, who proceeds eternally from Him. And thus we would see, the Son, full of grace and truth, and this knowledge would be for us such a great delight, such a great cause of enjoyment, that no happiness, gladness, or joy in this world, produced at the sight of anything corporal, can compare: for we would understand in the Son all the perfects of God, all the perfections of Christ Jesus, all the beauties of the virtues, and every goodness and grace conceived by the Mind of God, and/or bestowed upon creatures.



And in the Son, if we contemplated Him thus further, we would of necessity see and behold, as it were most naturally, the Communion of the Saints, like sparks of fire in a great flame, united in a manner one cannot describe, while remaining each individual; for in Christ the Saints were predestined by God to reflect all the perfections He willed to reveal in His Son, Incarnate of the Virgin.



And in contemplating the Saints in Heaven we would see and understand that in each of them, in glory, there is the fullness of the Holy Spirit, according to the measure by which God decreed eternally would be theirs. And such a knowledge would fill us with a unquenchable desire to partake of their company, and thus to follow their lead, howsoever, and howsoever long it took, or whatsoever sacrifices we needed to make to obtain such a blessedness. And this is what God wants for each of us.