Briefly Mention the Car Accident That I Was In

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Sunday, 12-03-2017 (1st Sunday of Advent)

(Briefly mention the car accident that I was in).

Today’s Psalm says:“Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.” We are but clay and God is the Potter, and sadly today we live in a world where the clay cannot even see the Divine Potter’s Face. Advent is a time of Penance (as the color violent tells us) to restore whatever broken clay is present in our lives; it is also a time of hope for it prepares us for the Light of the World who will come in just a few weeks to dispel the widespread spiritual blindness in today’s society.

The Advent of Christ comes to usat each moment of our lives and will come for us definitively at our death, which will be the prelude toour particular judgment. You have to die in order to enter into eternity.

Now no one was as prepared for Christ’s coming as Mary was; therefore,She will prepare us in the best way possible for Jesus’ coming in our lives. We pray in each Hail Mary: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”What Jesus says to us in today’s Gospel is of the utmost importance. He says:“Watch, therefore; you do not know when the Lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight . . . or in the morning. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.”

Fr. Steven Schier:[1]

Father Steven Scheiershould have died on Oct. 18, 1985, in a collision while traveling back to his parish in the Diocese of Wichita, Kan. He suffered a major concussion and fractured vertebrae of the neck. Doctors gave him little chance to survive.

But he did . . . .

When judged, Our Lord went through his whole life, showing him sins unconfessed and unforgiven since his last confession.

Father Scheier could only answer, “Yes, Lord.” Although a priest, he admittedly was not very spiritual and had practically no prayer life.

The judgment was hell, to which Father Scheier agreed. He said the Lord was merely “honoring his choice.” But then he heard a woman’s voice pleading to spare his soul. He knew it the Blessed Mother.

He heard Jesus say: “Mother, he has been a priest for 12 years for himself and not for me; let him reap the punishment he deserves.” Our Lady responded, “But Son, what if we give him special graces and strengths and then see if he bears fruit? If not, your will be done.” Jesus replied, “Mother, he’s yours.”

In the 1990s, Mother Angelica (found of the famous Catholic network: Eternal Word Television Network: EWTN) had him as a guest speaker and he explained that during his judgment he couldn’t defend himselfagainst Eternal Truth. We may lie to others and ourselves, but not to God.

Some time after this experience, Fr. Schier was interviewed and he had some interesting things to say:

A lot of our priorities are mixed up. My priority should have been to save my soul and others . . . . investing in that future, not investing in happiness here on earth. If we run from the cross, there is a bigger one awaiting us.We have a heavenly Mother. Since then, she’s been everything . . . . His mother is the one who interceded for me . . . .

My mission is to let you know that hell exists . . . . But also his Divine Mercy exists. His love outweighs justice . . . .

When I look at the crosses, I look at the three on Calvary. The Blessed Mother said we can choose one of them. Remember the Bad Thief who cursed his suffering and the good thief Dismas? Which do we choose?

Advent leads us to the Christmas scene where Christ was bornin a poor, wooden manger, a symbol of His future Cross where He would later be crucified on. The Cross symbolizes death, but after the Lord of Life was died on it, death was defeated. Advent thus prepares us for death.

Minor Arguments:

Psychologists and Sociologists speak about something called the Normalcy Bias. This is a mental state which convinces a person that since nothing has ever happened before, it will never happen such as death.[2]Unlike the the past, our culture today is not used to dealing with the four last things: death, judgment, Hell, and Heaven. This probably explains in large part why there are so many psychological illnesses today; people today aren’t used to dealing with inescapable realities like death and so they fall into despair.A Catholic Psychiatrist, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, shows this attitude of of denying death, for example, in the “the City of San Francisco [which] has banned cemeteries within the city limits.”[3]He observes rather that frequent meditation on the four last thingsis actually“psychologically healthy.”[4]We need to be concerned about the coming of the Lord in our lives because Hell is a real possibility for all of us, but so is Heaven.

It’s interesting that when St. Faustina saw Hell she states“that most of the souls there are those who disbelieved that there is a hell.”[5] The renowned Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., one of the mentors of Pope St. John Paul II says, “It is possible to die in the state of mortal sin, even though the thought of such a death has not presented itself to the spirit. Many die suddenly, and we say, looking at their abuses of graces, that they have been surprised by death. They did not pay attention to warnings received beforehand.”[6]Even in one of St. Faustina’s visions of the two roads, she saw that many of souls that fell into the abyss of Hell, as she says, “fell blindly . . . . And their number was so great that it was impossible to count them.”[7]The moral of the story is that we die as we have lived.

Jesus is merciful and loves sinners and does everything in His Power to stop them from falling into Hell. Jesus told St. Faustina about sinners: “I use punishment when they themselves force Me to do so; My hand is reluctant to take hold of the sword of justice,”[8]but when they“bring all My graces to naught, I begin to be angry with them, leaving them alone and giving them what they want.”[9]The greatest punishment is for God to withdraw His Helping Hand from someone because he/she keeps sinning. St. AlphonsusLiguori, a Doctor of the Church, says God “numbers the graces which He dispenses, as well as the sins which we commit . . . . when sins reach a certain number, God pardons no more. Be attentive.”[10]

I learned recentlythat many of the firemen on that dreadful day, 9/11, received a general absolution shortly before they died. They were ready. As a Priest, I like to compare myself to an ER Doctor or Surgeon that prepares souls in the midst of warfor their death.

As a spiritual doctor, I’m also called to give spiritual counsel concerning the spiritual health of my patients. Sometimes, I need to warn patients and to tell them the truth, which sometimes they don’t like to hear; other times I give them words of hope. As Priests, we’re taught to celebrate each Mass as if it were our last. I try to impart this same mindset to souls when it comes to Confession and sin. Confess as if that were your last Confession; and look at each temptation to sin as if that were your last sin. I sometimes advise people who are struggling with some sin to think about praying to God that He would strike them dead before they commit that sin again, and this usually gets them thinking. I then sometimes tie this in with a story in the life of St. Rita of Cascia. After her husband was murdered, Rita’s “sons vowed revenge.”[11]We are told that “in her grief, she turned to God and besought him either to change her children’s hearts or to take them from this world before they could accomplish the vengeance they were plotting.”[12] “Rita’s prayer was answered. Within a year both sons died, and, though touched by natural sorrow, she thanked God for taking them away from the dangers of sin and the risk of eternal damnation.”[13]

As clay, we must not become hardened by repeated sin. If we do, God, the Divine Potter, cannot mold us into Saints.Every time we commit a sin, two consequences happen: a penalty which we must pay for and a deeper inclination to commit that sin again. The hardening of one’s heart can be compared to the hardening of arteries. Sin, ultimately, leads to self-destruction. Repeated sin will eventually make a Catholic stop caring aboutwhat God cares about. This can be compared to adultery. You leave your respective spouse for someone else whom you “think” you love.Mortal sin is spiritual adultery in the sense that your heart is in love (in a disordered way) with someone or something as if that person/thing were God.

Now as is obvious in today’s culture, sins of the flesh are the most common reason, according to Our Lady of Fatima, why most people go to Hell. They are the cause of so many of today’s societal problems. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, lust darkens the mind.[14]Sexual sins, just like any sin, can be forgiven in Confession; but the emotional and psychological damage that they produce remain long after the sins are forgiven and will still continue to affect those who partook in them, especially women. The numbers don’t lie. Sr. Lucia in one of her memoirs recalls a time in which she asked Our Lady during Her May 13th apparition about the state of the souls of two of her friends who had recently died. Her first friend was in Heaven. Sr. Lucia then asked Mary about her second friend Amelia and Our Lady responded, saying, “‘She will be in Purgatory until the end of the world.’”[15]The reason for this, according to one account I read, was that she committed “sexual sins of some sort.”[16]But thanks be to God she made it to Purgatory.

Our short span of time here on earth is really a kind of earthly Purgatory. If you think about it, even if you’re suffering because of your sins, the fact that you’re still alive is a sign that God loves you enough to give you more time to suffer so as to pay for your sins. “God is faithful,” as the second reading says, but the question is are we, as servants in the household of God,faithful to the work of taking good care of our souls while the Lord of the house is away?

Now let’s get one thing clear:God’s Mercy is unlimited; but our days are not. That is why the “sin now, confess later”binge attitude is a very dangerous attitude to live by for normallyyou die as you have lived. And anyone of us here could die suddenly at any time, even after this Mass.

To bring this reality home even more deeply, I want to recall that horrific shooting in Aurora, Colorado that occurred back in 2012 in which a young man went on a shooting rampage during the midnight premiere of the Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises” at the Century 16 movie complex.[17] He killed twelve people. In any case, I learned that one of the few survivors of that shooting, a beautiful young woman (who did not get injured), was caught in another shooting months later at a shopping mall, but sadly, this time, she was tragically killed.[18]Can you believe this! Also, one of the survivors of the recent Oct. 1st, 2017 Las Vegas, Nevada mass shooting also died a little over a month later (on Nov. 17th) in a hit-and-run car accident.[19]In fact, one of the victims of the Las Vegas shooting, I later found out, went to my High School about 15 minutes from here. In any case, let us pray for the eternal repose of their souls.

Reflecting on these experiences teach us to number our days in order that we may gain “wisdom of heart”[20]so that we can truly live as watchful and alert servants here on earth.

Nevertheless, with all this talk on being vigilant, we must also have unbounded trust in the Mercy of the Lord. God will chase a sinner to the very end.The following two cases happened during Holy Week of last year. In one of these cases, I had to attend to a dying person who was about an hour away. I got caught in really bad traffic and so I prayed to Our Lady to buy me some time. Eventually I got there, did everything I was supposed to do, and prayed, as I usually do for dying persons, a Chaplet of Divine Mercy trusting in Divine Mercy. About 3 minutes later, the person suddenly stopped breathing and died. This person died as she had lived, that is, a faithful, practicing Catholic; and so she died ready and peacefully with a Priest and many of her family and friends around her. That same week I had another sick-call and a similar scenario happened, except this time she died at the first part of the concluding prayer of the Chaplet, which says, “Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One. Have mercy on us and on the whole world.” She passed away so peacefully that I didn’t even see it coming. She died as she had lived, a faithful, practicing Catholic, with a Priest and a number of her family and friends around her.

But can you guarantee that you will die in such a manner? No.

Examine your life now. If you were to die after this Advent Mass, would Jesus find your soul worthy of His Mercy or His Justice?

If you need to get to Confession, don’t delay. Entrust yourself to Mary and She will, like she did with Fr. Steven Schier, prepare you for the coming of Her Son both now and at the hour of your death.

[1]The following block passages in bold from: Joseph Pronechen, “Wake-Up Call Changes Priest.” 08/19/2011.

[2]Wikipedia contributors, “Normalcy bias,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, (accessed August 23, 2016).

[3]Kheriaty, Aaron; Cihak, Fr. John. Catholic Guide to Depression (p. 158). Sophia Institute Press. Kindle Edition. Brackets mine.

[4]Catholic Guide to Depression. Kindle App version. Location 66%.

[5]Kowalska, Saint Maria Faustina. Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul, #741 (Kindle Locations 5430-5434). Marian Press. Kindle Edition.

[6]Garrigou-Lagrange, Reginald (2013-12-20). Life Everlasting and the Immensity of the Soul (Kindle Locations 709-715). Kindle Edition.

[7]Diary 153.

[8]Diary 1588.

[9]Diary 1728.

[10] A Sermon entitled “On The Number of Sins Beyond Which God Pardons No More.”

[11]

[12]

[13] Ibid.

[14]Aquinas, SummaTheologiae, II-II, q. 15, a. 4.

[15]Sister Maria Lucia of the Immaculate Heart. Fatima in Lucia's Own Words: The Memoirs of Sister Lucia, the Last Fatima Visionary (Kindle Locations 2863-2869). KIC. Kindle Edition. The addition of Lucia’s name mine.

[16]Donal Anthony Foley, “November draws us to the souls in purgatory – a place Our Lady of Fatima confirmed.” 11/01/2017.

[17]Dan Frosch and Kirk Johnson, “Gunman Kills 12 in Colorado, Reviving Gun Debate.” 07/20/2012.

[18] Kaylyn Green, “The Patrick Madrid Show: November 7, 2017 – Hour 1. Listen from about 6:30 – 9:00 minutes.

[19] See “Las Vegas shooting survivor killed in hit-and-run.” 11/25/2017. 3:26pm.

[20] Psalm 90:12.