As you know, God wants us to be happy on earth, and in Heaven with Him after we die.  He suffered and died for us for that very reason.  But why, oh why, does He leave us Catholic Candle readers without a good, uncompromising priest? 

God knows best and knows what we need to achieve our goal of salvation.

St. Augustine says:

All that happens to us in this world against our will (whether due to men or to other causes) happens to us only by the will of God, by the disposal of Providence, by His orders and under His guidance; and if from the frailty of our understanding we cannot grasp the reason for some event, let us attribute it to Divine Providence, show Him respect by accepting it from His Hand, believe firmly that He does not send it to us without cause.”[1]

Divine Providence has placed many people around the world, at various times, in situations in which they had no Sacraments or Mass at all, (e.g., Japanese Catholics for 300 years).  And God has willed other people to live where there were many  valid Sacraments, but all of them were bad and had to be avoided (e.g., in St. Hermenegild’s Arian Spain and in many places in Revolutionary France).  God sometimes wills Catholics to be without the Mass and Sacraments out of love for Him and for the sake of the Catholic Faith and morals.  Of course, even during such times, it is imperative for Catholics to still practice the Catholic Faith and to pray and practice Catholic virtues.

So, let’s examine some of the many things that God has done for our salvation.  We can begin with the fact that He gave us a perfect religion and all that it offers.  The first necessity is, of course, Baptism, which can be performed by the parents, or others if necessary.[2]

Let us look next at the help we receive from the Ten Commandments and from  our conscience, (often called the Voice of God because it bids us to do right and avoid wrong).[3]

In spite of the certainty that readers of the Catholic Candle are conversant with the Ten Commandments, we nevertheless review them here:

     I.        I am the lord thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods before Me.

  II.        Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

III.        Remember thou keep holy the Lord’s day.

 IV.        Honor thy father and thy mother.

   V.        Thou shalt not kill.

 VI.        Thou shalt not commit adultery.

VII.        Thou shalt not steal.

VIII.        Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

 

 IX.        Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.

   X.        Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.                    

God also gave us other specific instructions, some of which are obligatory under the Natural Law and some are not.  For example, the Natural Law requires us to make sacrifices to the Creator but does not specify that we abstain from meat in particular or on what specific days to do so.  Through Her own commandments, the Church has fortunately commanded us in specific ways how we must fulfil the natural law. The main Commandments of the Church are these six:

1.    To assist at Mass on all Sundays and Holy Days of obligation, (when there is one available without compromise, of course.)

2.    To fast and abstain on the days appointed.

3.    To confess our sins at least once a year.  (Again, we do this when possible without compromise).

4.    To receive Holy Communion during Easter time. (We do this when possible without compromise.)

5.    To contribute to the support of the Church. 

6.    To observe the laws of the Church concerning marriage.

There are other commandments besides these six, such as the law that specifies that membership in Masonic or other anti-Catholic organizations is forbidden, or that cremation is similarly prohibited, but these are some of the principal ones.[4]

The important point is that a loving God gave us these guidelines to help us get to Heaven. He even went a step further when He said that under certain conditions, a dying person might avoid hell and even purgatory. 

It is the teaching of great masters of the spiritual life that a person who, at the point of death, makes an act of perfect conformity to the will of God will be delivered not only from hell but also from purgatory, even if he has committed all the sins in the world.[5]

“The reason,” says St. Alphonsus, “is that he who accepts death with perfect resignation acquires similar merit to that of a martyr who has voluntarily given his life for Christ, and even amid the greatest sufferings he will die happily and joyfully”.[6]

Of course, it goes without saying that without a priest and without the Sacraments, we must pray very much, study the Faith diligently, make a better effort to sacrifice, and live by our informed conscience.