Forgotten Truths To Set Faith Afire!

      (Image Source: Wikimedia Commons )     I am sure many lost souls in hell right now would cry out to preachers and writers if they could: Oh, why did you not tell us more about the horrors of hell? Why did you not strike such fear into our hearts by your realistic description of hell that we would have made greater efforts to avoid it?...Why did you spare our feelings in a matter of such eternal moment? Oh, why did you not make hell a thousand times hotter than you did, then perhaps we would not be here today?  Father Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S.    [This is just one of 1200 thought-provoking and faith-building quotations you will find in Forgotten Truths To Set Faith Afire! - Words to Challenge, Inspire and Instruct ]   

(Photo©Michael Seagriff) "What St. Paul taught was all the truths and precepts of Christ, even the most demanding ones, without silencing or watering down any.   He spoke of humility, of self-denial, of chastity, of detachment from earthly goods, of obedience…And he did not fear to stress that one had to choose between serving God and serving Baal, because it is not possible to serve the two together. He taught that after death all had to undergo a woeful judgment; that no one can bargain with God; that one can only expect eternal life if one has kept God’s laws; that seeking pleasures by breaking these laws one can only expect eternal damnation…Never did the Preacher of truth think he had to omit these things because   they might seem harsh to his listeners, especially in view of the corruption of the times…Since when does a doctor give useless medicine to his patients, being afraid to prescribe useful ones?" Pope Leo XIII    

Today we Dominicans joyfully remember our beloved sister, St. Catherine of Siena.  (Image source: Wikimedia Commons ) What a treasure St. Catherine of Siena is! One does not become a Doctor of the Church by being fearful to express, teach and live God's Truth in its entirety.  How ill-advised we are to discount, ignore or try to nuance the wisdom God has shared over the centuries through such faithful servants as she.  Less likely would we be to commit this error if our primary concern was the salvation of souls. No wonder those who wish to only tickle our ears and destroy our consciences ignore these great spiritual writers, abandoning God's Truth for a less demanding and counterfeit one. The following words  Jesus shared with St. Catherine in the 14th century are clear and unambiguous directions to his shepherds - not only those living then but for those among us today. May we and they be given the grace, humility and wisdom to hear and...

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons ) Not only must we have a prayer life, before we can go out and preach, but our preaching, our witnessing to Christ, must flow from our life in God through contemplation.  Father William Hinnebusch, O.P. 

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons ) Zeal for the salvation of souls is of so great a merit before God, that to give up all our goods to the poor, or to spend our whole life in the exercises of all sorts of austerities cannot equal the merit of it. There is no service more agreeable to God than this one. To employ one's life in this blessed labor is more pleasing to the Divine Majesty than to suffer martyrdom. Would you not feel happy if you could spend large sums of money in corporal works of mercy? But know that he who labors for the salvation of souls does far more; nay, the zeal of souls is of far greater merit before God…than the working of miracles.  St. John Chrysostom

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons ) How can we answer to ourselves for the souls who have in our times lived and died in sin; the souls that have been lost and are now waiting for the judgment, seeing that for what we know, we were ordained to influence or reverse their present destiny and have not done it? Blessed John Cardinal Newman