Tuesday, April 28, 2020

God will turn the chastisement, if we turn from our sins.

St. Alphonsus de Liguori: Nine Discourses for Times of Calamities. Following are excerpts from the Eighth Discourse: “Prayers appease God, and avert from us the chastisement we deserve, provided we purpose to amend.”
  
Would that our prominent pro-abortion “Catholic” politicians, such as Cuomo, Pelosi and Biden, heed these words of St. Alphonsus! The darkness is upon us, and we see no real end to it, because there is no purpose of amendment, no turning from our nation's sins. One of the prayers taught by the Angel of Fatima is: O my Jesus, it is for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, and reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  Every abortion, every act of fornication, every act of sodomy is a sin against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

St. Alphonsus: “In order to be delivered from the present scourge, and still more from the eternal scourge, we must pray and hope. But it is not sufficient to pray and to hope: we must pray and hope as we ought. No one hath hoped in the Lord, and hath been confounded. [Ecclus. 2:11.] There never has been and never will be found any one to hope in the Lord and be lost, as the prophet assures us: He is the protector of all that trust in Him. But how comes it, then, that some persons ask graces and do not obtain them? St. James answers that it is because they ask ill. You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss. [James 4:3.] You must not only ask and hope, but ask and hope as you ought.

God is appeased by prayers, and led to withdraw the chastisement which we deserve, provided we purpose to amend. How can God think of hearing that sinner who prays to him that he may be freed from his afflictions, whilst he is unwilling to abandon sin, which is the cause of his afflictions? Thus do many act; they beg of God to deliver them from their afflictions; they beg of the servants of God to avert by their prayers the threatened chastisements, but they do not seek to obtain the grace of abandoning their sins and changing their lives. And how can such persons hope to be freed from the chastisement when they will not remove its cause? It is not God, then, who makes us miserable; it is sin. Sin it is which obliges God to create chastisements: Famine, and affliction, and scourges, all things are created for the wicked. [Ecclus. 40: 9.]

But some will say, we make novenas, we fast, we give alms, we pray to God: why are we not heard? How, exclaims the Lord! how can I hear the prayers of those who beg to be freed from their afflictions, and not from their sins, because they do not wish to reform. What care I for their fasts, and their sacrifices, and their alms, when they will not change their lives.

Some say we have our patron or some other saint who will defend us; we have our Mother Mary to procure our deliverance. How can the saints think of assisting us if we persist in exasperating the Lord? St. John Chrysostom says, of what use was Jeremias to the Jews? The Jews had Jeremias to pray for them, but, notwithstanding all the prayers of that holy prophet, they received the chastisement, because they did not wish to give up their sins. Beyond doubt, says the holy Doctor, the prayers of the saints contribute much to obtain the divine mercy for us, but when?—when we do penance. They are useful, but only when we do ourselves violence to abandon sin, to fly occasions, and return to God’s favor.

The emperor Phocas, in order to defend himself from his enemies, raised walls and multiplied fortifications, but he heard a voice saying to him from heaven: “You build walls, but when the enemy is within, the city is easily taken.” We must then expel this enemy, which is sin, from our souls, otherwise God cannot exempt us from chastisement, because he is just, and cannot leave sin unpunished. Another time the citizens of Antioch prayed to Mary to avert from them a scourge which overhung them; and whilst they were praying, St. Bertoldus heard the divine Mother replying from heaven, “Abandon your sins, and I shall be propitious to you.”

St. Augustine says: “He who created you without your help, will not save you without your help.” What do you expect, sinful brother? That God will bring you to Paradise with all your sins upon you? Do you continue to draw down upon you the divine scourges, and yet hope to be delivered from them? Must God save you while you persist in damning yourself? If we purpose truly to turn to God, then let us pray to him and rejoice; even though the sins of the entire world were ours, we should be heard, as I said to you in the beginning. Every one who prays with a purpose of amendment, obtains mercy.”


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