Apples & ...

Yesterday I wrote comparing the prize of heaven with a lottery, a prize which requires a little effort, which with more effort even increases.

Yet, there are those who would not only not do the minimum, but turn in the ticket in exchange for a mess of pottage, as Essau did.



Is this a good idea? The apostate one-time Dominican, Matthew Fox, certainly thinks so; he writes drivel like this so-called new cosmology, set implacably over and against the wisdom of Holy Scriptures, the Fathers, Doctors, and Traditions of the Church:

All flesh is holy, including the flesh of the universe, the flesh of the earth and its systems and human flesh – for they are one flesh deriving from the very same origin in the original fireball.


huh? Let's see where the light really shines:

"All the beauty of (creation), compared with the infinite beauty of God, is the height of deformity... All the goodness of the creatures of the world, in comparison with the infinite goodness of God, may be described as wickedness... Therefore, the soul that sets it’s heart on the good things of this world is supremely evil in the eyes of God. And, as deformity cannot attain to beauty and as wickedness comprehends not goodness, even so, such a soul cannot be united to God who is supreme goodness and beauty" St. John of the Cross, Ascent of Mt Carmel I, 4,4)

I sometimes think folks like Fox in seminary slept through or never read any doctrine, preferring to malign a false straw-man. anyway, St John of the Cross does not say creation is deformed or wicked, he is making a point about the contrast between the creature and creator, a point which seems entirely lost on Fox, who it seems would prefer to revel in the illicit sexual pleasures of the flesh, apparently finding virtue to difficulty and needing a justification to abandon it.

Be not deceived, says the Apostle, God is not mocked. For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. for he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall he reap corruption. (Gal 6:7) It would be a mockery of God to live in contempt of his laws, and afterward to reap remuneration and eternal glory. But God is not mocked. What we sow in this life, we reap in the next. For him who sows the forbidden pleasures of the flesh, nothing remains but corruption, misery, and eternal death.

Beloved Christian, what is said for others is also applicable to you. Tell me: if you were at the point of death, (abandoned) by the physicians, deprived of your senses, and in your last agony, with what fervor would you ask of God another month or week to settle the accounts of your conscience! God at present gives you this time: thank him for it, and apply an immediate remedy to the evil you have done; adopt all the means of finding yourself the grace of God when death comes; for then there will be no more time to acquire his friendship. St. Alphonsus De Liguroi, Preparation for Death, p 76.

The boundary lines are drawn. Underlying one side is the insidious voice of the tempter and destroyer through his proxies, at the other, the insistant voice of the savior through his saints. These are the two roots we seek to identify when we examine the "signs of the times," so that we understand that upon which we stand.

so, get scratching!