Senator Kamala Harris: Sick anti-Catholic bigot

Lifesite News reports:

"Bishop Joseph Strickland sent out a tweet suggesting that Joe Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, reminds him of former Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who famously called conservatives 'deplorables,' at the height of her 2016 campaign. 

'Catholics take note....reminds me of another candidate calling us ‘the deplorables’....we need to be awake to this.....Kamala’s Anti-Catholic Assault Previews Her Potential Administration,' wrote Bishop Strickland..(on Twitter)."

More on Senator Harris' anti-Catholic bigotry at The Federalist here.

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Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the problem Sen. Kamala Harris will have with Catholics:

Once Catholic voters learn more about Kamala Harris’ positions on an array of moral issues, Joe Biden’s vice presidential pick will have a hard time winning them over.

To begin with, Harris has tainted herself with the brush of anti-Catholicism. In 2018, she sought to stop a Trump nominee for a seat on the federal bench simply because he was Catholic. In doing so, she invoked a religious test for the bench, a patently unconstitutional act.

Here is how I characterized the Catholic League’s effort to help the nominee for a federal district job; my remarks were published in the Catholic League’s “2019 Year in Review.”We were among the first to come to bat for [Brian] Buescher, and our effort paid off. After much haggling, he was seated on the court in August [2019].”

The day after Christmas, 2018, I unloaded on Harris for questioning the suitability of Buescher for the job. His offense? His affiliation with the Knights of Columbus. She objected to his membership in the Knights because it is pro-life. Of course it is—it is a Catholic entity. In short, her real target was the Catholic Church.

Her craving for abortion rights is so strong that in 2019 she bludgeoned pro-life activist David Daleiden for his undercover video work showing how abortion operatives harvest and sell aborted fetal organs. Unlike the American people, the vast majority of whom want restrictions on abortion, Harris insists there should be none. She led the fight against a 20-week abortion ban.

Last September, following a Democratic presidential candidate debate, Harris criticized ABC panelists for not asking about abortion. The debate, she said, “was three hours long and not one question about abortion or reproductive rights.” She is so pro-abortion that in 2015, in her capacity as California’s Attorney General, she sought to cripple crisis pregnancy centers with draconian regulations. She was sued and lost in the Supreme Court three years later.

Catholics will be delighted to know that Harris is a co-sponsor of “The Equality Act,” legislation that would effectively gut Catholic hospitals. As the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said, it would put freedom of speech, belief, and thought “at risk,” thus vitiating conscience rights. It would also disable the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, making mince meat out of religious liberty.

Harris’ passion for gay rights led her to become the keynote speaker at the 2017 Human Rights Campaign dinner, the prominent homosexual entity. She thrilled the crowd, saying, “Together we’ll fight when Planned Parenthood clinics are being threatened to shut down.” The audience was ecstatic when she boasted that she “felt patriotic when on Valentine’s weekend in 2004, I performed marriages of gay couples at San Francisco Hall.”

What about men who think they are women, and vice versa? She’s fine with that. Do they belong in the military? Sure. What about biological males who think they are girls competing against real girls in girls’ sports? She loves it.

Harris’ persona is something to keep an eye on. She will fight to the end of the earth to keep black kids trapped in public schools, denying them the same school choice options she has exercised. Yet her stepchildren attended an elite private school in Los Angeles, Wildwood School, that costs about $44,000 a year. She made sure not to stick them in a public school.

If this shows her classist streak, her penchant for believing any sexual allegation made against men shows her sexist side. When Supreme Court nominee Bret Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Harris said about Christine Blasey Ford’s accusations, “I believe her.” That was before Kavanaugh testified. A year later, after Ford’s tale was blown wide open, Harris tweeted that Kavanaugh “lied.”

Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax is another man whom Harris smeared. When he was charged with sexual assault, she immediately labeled it a “credible account.” The accusation died on the vine. He still has his job.

More seriously, when her running mate was charged with sexual assault last year, Harris said of his accusers, “I believe them and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it.” She has never taken that back. Does she still believe Biden is a predator? If she hasn’t changed her mind, what does that make her?

Finally, Harris supports reparations for African Americans. That would not include her: her father is Jamaican and her mother was born in India. So she wouldn’t get a dime. But she would have to fork up lots of cash. Why? As her father disclosed—he is a Stanford University professor—one of her ancestors, Hamilton Brown, was a slave owner.

In fairness, then, if the average American has to pay X amount for slavery, Harris should at least have to pay 10X. Isn’t this what redistributive justice is all about? Catholics need to know.

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Joe Biden's choice for Vice President is a vicious, rabid anti-Catholic bigot who promotes legalized prostitution, see here. This should come as no surprise.  For Joe Biden is a Catholic in name only with his own disdain for Catholics and Catholic teaching.  An ageing sick opportunist with a lust for power who will say or do anything to get elected.

Bishop Antonio Carlos Cruz Santos: Blaspheming against God

"Homosexuality is not hardwired...whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations."

"..there is an inescapable component of heritability to many human behavioral traits. For virtually none of them is heredity ever close to predictive."

-Dr. Francis S. Collins, one of the world's leading scientists who works at the cutting edge of DNA.



Bishop Antônio Carlos Cruz,  having succumbed to diabolic disorientation, is now asserting that homosexuality may just be a "gift" from God.  During a recent homily, the confused Bishop said: "From the perspective of faith when you look at homosexuality, you can’t say it’s a choice.  Choice is one thing that you freely choose and no one chooses orientation.  One day the person finds out with this or that orientation.  Choice will be the way you will live your orientation.  Whether in a dignified, ethical, or in a promiscuous way.  But promiscuity can be lived in any of the orientations one has.  So since it is not choice, since it is not an option, since the World Health Organization, since the 90’s no longer considers it as an illness, from the perspective of faith, we have only one answer.  If it is not a choice, if it is not an illness, from the perspective of faith, it can only be a gift.  It is given by God.  This is a gift: it is given by God.  There’s no other way!  If it is not a choice, if it is not a disease, it is a gift, it is given by God.”

Read the statement from Dr. Collins again. Translated simply, this brilliant scientist is saying that while genes might predispose a person toward homosexuality, they do not predetermine the behavior.  A person still has free will.  Which is why homosexual persons can change their sexual orientation.

Bishop Cruz would have you believe that homosexual persons are born that way and that science validates homosexuality.  But the Catholic Medical Association, in Homosexuality and Hope, summarizes the reality:


"A number of researchers have sought to find a biological cause for same-sexual attraction.  The media have promoted the idea that a 'gay gene' has already been discovered...but, in spite of several attempts, none of the much-publicized studies...has been scientifically replicated.  A number of authors have carefully reviewed these studies and found that not only do the studies not prove a genetic basis for same-sex attraction; the reports do not even contain such claims...If same-sex attraction were genetically determined, then one would expect identical twins to be identical in their sexual attractions.  There are, however, numerous reports of identical twins who are not identical in their sexual attractions." (Homosexuality and Hope, Catholic Medical Association, p. 2).

Bishop Cruz and other homosexual propagandists need to reflect very carefully on the hard science which disproves the notion that "gay" people are "born that way."

As for homosexual relationships, Dutch psychologist Gerard J.M. van den Aardweg, Ph.D., a specialist on homosexuality, writes:

"The term neurotic describes such relationships [same-sex] well. It suggests the ego-centeredness of the relationship; the attention-seeking instead of loving...Neurotic, in short, suggests all kinds of dramas and childish conflicts as well as the basic disinterestedness of in the partner, notwithstanding the shallow pretensions of 'love.' Nowhere is there more self-deception in the homosexual than in his representation of himself as a lover. One partner is important to the other only insofar as he satisfies that other's needs. Real, unselfish love for a desired partner would, in fact, end up destroying homosexual 'love'!" (Gerard J.M. van den Aardweg, The Battle for Normality, Ignatius Press, 1997, pp. 62-63).


"Van den Aardweg says that the claim that homosexuality is normal is one of those statements that are "so foolish that only intellectuals could believe them." It is like saying that anorexia nervosa is healthy. And he denies that homesexuality is caused by the genes, or the structure of the brain; the evidence shows that it is acquired. Nor is it a necessary result of effeminacy; it is the child's "self-perception as masculine or feminine" that makes the difference. It is caused by pressure to develop an opposite-sex role. Often mothers do not view or treat their sons as "real men," and fathers do not view or treat their daughters as "real girls." (From the Catholic Insight book review of "The Battle for Normality."

Bishop Cruz is blaspheming against God.  He is asserting that God "gifted" the people of Sodom and Gomorrah with the homosexual "orientation," and then exterminated them in His wrath.

This is equivalent to saying that God is: a.  The Author of evil inclinations and b. That He is unjust ( "gifting" people with a sinful inclination and then destroying them with fire for acting on this "gift."

The choice is ours: The way of penance or the way of selfishness...

In an excellent article on the way of penance in the life of Saint Francis, Father Vincenzo Cherubino Bigi, OFM explains that, "The way of penance is putting God as the center of all we value so that neither profit, nor personal success direct our lives in this world. What matters now is living in God's Presence, and allowing Christ center place in our lives. To be attentive to Christ as my Model and to try in some way to integrate Him in my life is the point of departure and the continual renewal of the true sense of penance: a continuous conversion which is profoundly internalized. It is not the mortification of the body but the conversion of one's spirit.


To live in the presence of Christ, to live in the presence of God is to assume in oneself the law of love which was expressed by Christ in His life. Beginning from this point, we will seek to discover the essential moments of the penitential life of Francis. The fundamental point already described is that of putting God at the center of our daily life, to refer to God in the continual horizon of our daily choices.


In our daily activities, we can find ourselves in a fortunate condition: we can do, good in our actions. The conversion of Francis is to be found right here: in referring the good we do back to God.

This is the interior poverty of man as against the boast of the Pharisee who attributes to himself the possibility of doing good, of saving himself by means of the observance of the law in his good works.

St. Francis always has this concern at the core: all the good that I perform by my actions is not mine, but is God's work. From here flows the centrality of God in my life. It is not my possessions, not my riches, my prosperity but everything good that I am able to do is a gift from God and so I refer it back to God in thanksgiving and in self- emptying.

The heart of one who does penance is a heart empty of self ... which recognizes that the journey of this world is a gift of God. All the good things one does in the course of daily living are not his riches, his possessions but rather come from the God Who is the Giver of every good gift and so must be referred to, and brought back to Him. Hence, the first characteristic of the penance of St. Francis is purity of spirit, of interiority, is a poverty of the heart.

Referring things back to God implies yet something else, it implies not seeking our reward in this world. "You have received your reward." Many times in life after doing something good we expect to receive the reward for this good act and, when we don't receive it, we complain to God: I chose the good and still I have this sickness, etc.. To be converted means not looking for a reward in this world. Here is the deep reality of the Spirit, namely that if I do good in order to receive a reward, it means that I wish to possess, I wish to enrich myself, I wish to have a lasting place in this world. Often St. Francis in his writings admonishes us on this very point. The gift of yourself must be free just as the gift of God is free. The reference back to God means not seeking in this world one's reward: this is what it means to be free.

When Christ multiplied the bread and when they would have made him king, He hid himself, because if He had agreed to be King then, it would have been this miracle which ruled men. Jesus would be manipulating them through persuading them by satisfying their physical needs. The reward of bread as a promise for meeting Christ would have taken away their liberty.

I am free when I am able to give, not when my conduct is influenced by selfishness. even when it is a spiritual selfishness, which always seeks to be rewarded and gratified. One who acts in this way is not yet converted.

Penance is above all this deep freedom from one's selfish demands in order to be perfectly free for God and our neighbor. It is a profound guiding concept which interiorizes the notion of changing one's mind. Generally our mind is concentrated on ourselves, our power, our benefits, our possessions, our success. We really become the center of our life. Conversion means to put God at the center and myself to the side." (See here).

Note the very important point Father Bigi makes here: "I am free when I am able to give, not when my conduct is influenced by selfishness."   Dissent from received Catholic teaching is the result of selfishness. As Pope Benedict XVI explained back in 2009: "Conflict and lack of reconciliation in the world stem from the fact that we are locked into our own interests and opinions, into our own little private world. Selfishness, both individual and collective, makes us prisoners of our interests and our desires that stand against the truth and separate us from one another. Awake, the Gospel tells us. Step outside, so as to enter the great communal truth, the communion of the one God. To awake, then, means to develop a receptivity for God: for the silent promptings with which he chooses to guide us; for the many indications of his presence..." (Christmas homily 2009).


It is in the Sacrament of Penance that frees us from selfishness.  That teaches us to develop a receptivity to God and to place Him at the center and ourselves to the side.  Because most within the Church have lost the spirit of penance, a spirit of aggression and self-assertion has taken its place.  A spirit of selfishness and pride.  It is this spirit of selfishness which is crippling the Church.  The spirit which demands women's ordination even though the Church has said that such is not possible.  The spirit which demands that the Church change her teaching and conform herself to the "modern world."

The way of penance is the way of peace.  Which is why there is so little peace today.  And so, on the anniversary of the La Salette apparition, let us pray:


Remember, dear Lady of La Salette, true Mother of Sorrows, the tears which thou didst shed for me on Calvary; be mindful also of the unceasing care which thou dost exercise to shield me from the justice of God; and consider whether thou canst now abandon thy child, for whom thou hast done so much. Inspired by this consoling thought, I come to cast myself at thy feet, in spite of my infidelity and ingratitude. Reject not my prayer, O Virgin of reconciliation, convert me, obtain for me the grace to love Jesus Christ above all things and to console thee too by living a holy life, in order that one day I may be able to see thee in Heaven. Amen.

 
Related reading here.

More on Stuart Reid and what it means to be a Christian...

"Wherefore the Church does in every place, because of that love which she cherishes towards God, send forward, throughout all time, a multitude of martyrs to the Father; while all others not only have nothing of this kind to point to among themselves, but even maintain that such witness-bearing is not at all necessary." (St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Bk. 4, Chap. 33).

When Mr. Stuart Reid over at The Catholic Herald [an English Catholic newspaper] wrote a piece somewhat critical of the new website Protect the Pope, I responded by refuting his arguments. One concern I had was Mr. Reid's assertion that, "Catholics may one day be persecuted as Jews once were, in which case they will have two choices: either to be brave and die as martyrs or to deny their religion and join their persecutors. The Jews of the Holocaust had no such choice."

I responded to this statement by writing, "This says much about his level of faith. For the authentic Christian, there is no choice. We cannot abandon Christ."

Now Mr. Reid has written that, "Mr. Melanson should sit down in a darkened room and have a little think. One of the key beliefs of Christianity is that we have free will: No free will, no Christianity. For the authentic Christian therefore there is the choice I outline...but the Jews of the Holocaust had no such choice...They could not stop being Jews.."

Now, I never denied the reality of free will. But our free choices have consequences. This point was addressed by Peter [a regular reader of this Blog], who wrote:

"No serious Catholic would consider that a real choice Mr. Reid. Our Catholic identity is deeper than you would acknowledge. Just as Jews cannot 'stop being Jews,' the authentic Christian cannot 'stop being Christian.' We don't put on our faith and take it off as a coat. Baptism imparts a sacred character. If we use our free will to reject Christ, then we place our salvation in peril. Maybe that's a choice for you. For those of us who are Catholic in more than name, it is not."

Through Baptism, the Christian is made an adoptive member of the divine family. Which is why, "When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is that very spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God." (Romans 8: 15-16). Just as families live together, so the three Divine Persons dwell in those have received the gift of faith and who are faithful to it: "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them." (John 14: 23).

Martyrdom bears witness to faith. The martyr prizes heavenly glory more than any other good, even life itself. To choose to abandon the Catholic faith and Christ Jesus to avoid martyrdom would mean placing limits on fidelity to the Lord Jesus. Which is why I wrote, "For the authentic Christian, there is no choice." The authentic Christian will not abandon the Lord Jesus or His Mystical Body which is the Church. He or she will not set limits on his or her fidelity to the Divine Master.

As Peter so eloquently put it: "We don't put on our faith and take it off as a coat." We do not abandon our Divine Family to avoid persecution or even death. Instead we keep His Word and hold onto it at all costs. Even unto death.

When Choice Becomes God....

In his Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II warned that, "It is at the heart of the moral conscience that the eclipse of the sense of God and of man, with all its various and deadly consequences for life, is taking place. It is a question, above all, of the individual conscience, as it stands before God in its singleness and uniqueness. But it is also a question, in a certain sense, of the 'moral conscience' of society: in a way it too is responsible, not only because it tolerates or fosters behaviour contrary to life, but also because it encourages the 'culture of death', creating and consolidating actual 'structures of sin' which go against life. The moral conscience, both individual and social, is today subjected, also as a result of the penetrating influence of the media, to an extremely serious and mortal danger: that of confusion between good and evil, precisely in relation to the fundamental right to life. A large part of contemporary society looks sadly like that humanity which Paul describes in his Letter to the Romans. It is composed 'of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth' (1:18): having denied God and believing that they can build the earthly city without him, 'they became futile in their thinking' so that 'their senseless minds were darkened' (1:21); 'claiming to be wise, they became fools' (1:22), carrying out works deserving of death, and 'they not only do them but approve those who practise them' (1:32). When conscience, this bright lamp of the soul (cf. Mt 6:22-23), calls 'evil good and good evil' (Is 5:20), it is already on the path to the most alarming corruption and the darkest moral blindness." (No. 24).

When choice becomes god, when humanism becomes absolute, we are on the sure road to absolute despotism. A humanism without God will never humanize man. It will only succeed in driving man into the abyss of madness as he strives to wreck the world and civilization in a spirit of blasphemous joy out of satanic hatred for the Living God. Gilbert Keith Chesterton was convinced, and so am I, that when man denies God, he does not believe in nothing but instead will believe in anything and, as a fanatic, will wreck this world out of hatred for the God which he denies:

"There are men who will ruin themselves and ruin their civilization if they may ruin also this old fantastic tale. This is the last and most astounding fact about this faith; that its enemies will use any weapon against it, the sword that cuts their own fingers, and the firebrands that burn their own homes...He [the atheist fanatic] sacrifices the very existence of humanity to the non-existence of God. He offers his victims not to the altar, but merely to assert the idleness of the altar and the emptiness of the throne. He is ready to ruin even that primary ethic by which all things live, for his strange and eternal vengeance upon some one who never lived at all." (Orthodoxy, pp. 238-239).

The choice is ours: a world where atheistic humanism is the official religion and men are enslaved in total bondage to the father of lies (John 8: 44) and the unnatural perversions which accompany this bondage or a world which embraces an authentic humanism, a community of love which "seeks the integral good of man" (Deus Caritas Est, No. 19) which is grounded in the Love of God.

Our only hope is in supernatural love...

When the economy of the West collapses and we find ourselves amidst the ruins of a once-great society (and make no mistake about it, that day is coming), we will all be forced to face a reality which so many of us have chosen to ignore. And it is just this: that our only hope is in supernatural love. At the moment, there are still many across the length and breadth of this nation who seek solutions to economic problems and disparities from society. But socialism simply does not work. It was Archbishop Fulton John Sheen, in an essay entitled "Brotherhood," who made the following profound observation:

"It should be evident that the sharing of economic wealth will not make us brothers, but becoming brothers will make us share our economic wealth. The early Christians were not one because they pooled their wealth; they pooled their wealth because they were Christians. The rich young man went to Our Lord asking: 'What shall I do?' The Socialist asks: 'What will society do?' It is man who makes society and not society that makes man. That is why all the economic schemes from Marx's communism to the latest form of democratic collectivism will never unite men until they have first learned to burn, purge, and cut away their own selfishness.

The 'one world' will not come at the end of an ascending line of progress, but as the Resurrection from a tomb of a thousand crucified egotisms. The reason Christianity lives and Socialist theories perish is that Socialism makes no provision for getting rid of selfishness, but Our Lord did: 'Sell all whatever thou hast and give to the poor' (Luke 18: 22).

The only place in the world where communism works is in a convent, for there the basis of having everything in common is that no one wants anything. Communism has not worked in Moscow, but it does work in a monastery.

All that economic and political revolutions do is to shift booty and loot from one party's pocket to another. For that reason, none of them is really revolutionary; they all leave greed in the heart of man. The true inspiration for fellowship is not law but love. Law is negative: 'thou shalt not.' Love is positive: 'Love God and love neighbor.' Law is concerned with the minimum: 'Speed limit, 55 miles.' Love is concerned with the maximum: 'Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.'

Law is for moderation; love is generous: 'And if a man will contend with thee in judgment and take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him. And whosoever will force thee one mile, go with him another two' (Matthew 5: 40-41).

Natural generosity is limited by circumstances and relations within our own circle and, outside of these, is often vindictive. Love ignores all limits, by forgiveness. 'Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?....I say not to thee, till seven times; but till seventy times seven times' (Matthew 18: 21-22). By moving from a little metaphor to a big one, Our Lord implies that precision in forgiveness is impossible. Leave it to love, and it is not likely to err on the lower side.

The love of which we speak is not natural, but supernatural. By faith and good works under God's grace, nourished by prayer and the Sacraments, we are led into intimate union with Christ - but this love we have toward Him must redound to all His creatures."

And so we can now understand why Pope John Paul II called Maximilian Kolbe a prophet pointing toward the Civilization of Love. The saintly friar, his body racked with pain brought on by tuberculosis, saw to all the spiritual needs of those who were, like him, dying a slow death in the death camp. He knew hunger as few ever will. But would give his small ration to others and would do without. In the end, he offered to take the place of a young man who had a wife and two children and who had been sentenced to death by starvation.

I'll say it again. When the economy of the West collapses, we will be forced to make a choice between supernatural love and a generosity which knows no limits and the greed and egotism which brought on the crisis to begin with.

The photograph above was taken during The Great Depression. It brings to mind the words which Cain spoke to God after he murdered his brother: "Am I my brother's keeper?"

Related meditation here.

"It is not I who condemn you; it is you who have damned yourselves..."

Jesus assures us in Sacred Scripture that, "it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish" (Mt 18:14). This truth is found in paragraph 1037 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want "any to perish, but all to come to repentance":Father, accept this offering from your whole family. Grant us your peace in this life, save us from final damnation, and count us among those you have chosen."

It is not the will of our heavenly Father that any should perish. But this does not mean that none perish. It is not God's will that any should sin either. But we do sin. Matthew 18:14 does not refute hell but only a double predestination; the idea that God wants some to go to hell. Some people [wrongly] assert - or believe inwardly - that hell is not possible because God would have to be a monster, a God of wrath, hatred and vengeance, to permit some to suffer there eternally.

Not so. And this is explained beautifully by Father Charles Arminjon in his book "The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life": "Finally, we may say, love is all-powerful, with its own secrets and excesses, of which our hearts can have no inkling and, whatever may be said, cannot consent to condemn forever a creature made by its own hands, redeemed by its own blood. Ah! We might indeed set love against justice if it were justice that punished. But justice was propitiated nineteen centuries ago, on Calvary; at the foot of the Cross, it forgave men the debts they had incurred for their crimes , casting away the sword of rigor, never to wield it again. Let us listen to St. Paul: 'Who shall bring a charge against God's chosen ones? God, who justifies? Who shall condemn them? Christ Jesus, who died, or rather, was raised up, who is at the right hand of God and who intercedes for us?'

But it is because damnation issues from love that salvation is not possible. If it were justice that punished, love might intervene once more on the mount and say, 'Mercy, Father, spare man and, in exchange for the death that is due to him, receive the homage of my flesh and blood!'

However, when it is the very one who is to us more than a brother, more than the most affectionate friend, who tightens this heart consumed with tenderness and turns it into an abode of inexhaustible hatred, how can the ingratitude of the man who has wrought this transformation (all the more terrible as it is unnatural) dare to expect hope and refuge?

O you who, at one time or another on this earth, have loved with a love that is sincere, ardent, and boundless; you know the demands and the laws of love. Love offers itself for a long time, insistently and abundantly; it suffers, dedicates itself unreservedly, humbles itself, and becomes small. But one thing that renders it implacable, and that it never forgives, is obduracy in contempt, contempt maintained until the end.

Go then, ye cursed, the Savior will say on the day of His judgment: Ite maledicti. I did everything for you; I gave my life, my blood, my divinity, and my person for you. And in return for my infinite generosity, I asked only for these simple words: I obey and I love you. You have constantly spurned me and have responded to my approaches solely with these words: Go, I prefer my gross interests and my brutish sensual pleasures to You.

Be your own judges, the Savior will add. What sentence would you pronounce against the most dearly beloved creature who displayed the same indifference and same obstinacy toward you?

It is not I who condemn you; it is you who have damned yourseves. You have chosen, of your own free will, the city where egotism, hatred, and revolt have established their dominion. I return to heaven, where my angels are, and thither I bring back this heart, the object of your insults and scorn. Be the children of your own choice, stay with yourselves, with the worm that does not die and the fire that is never extinguished." (pp. 199-200).