Thought for the Day – 23 April – During this Season of Alleluias and Joy, we will consider Fr von Cochem’s Reflections upon our Heavenly Homeland.
Excerpts from THE FOUR LAST THINGS —- DEATH, JUDGMENT, HELL and HEAVEN
FR MARTIN VON COCHEM (1625-1712) OSFC
Nihil Obstat: Thomas L Kinkead, Censor Liborium
Imprimatur: Michael Augustine — Archbishop of New York (New York 5 Oct 1899)
PART IV
ON HEAVEN
IV:3 On the Number of the Saved
… What object in life have the great majority of mankind?
What is it they strive after and crave for?
They desire to be rich, to be prosperous, to live in luxury and to be praised by their fellowmen. Nobody considers this to be a sin.
And yet Our Lord declares that everlasting death will be the doom of such persons and He denounces them in forcible language.
From these and similar passages which abound in Holy Scripture, thou seest that God is more strict than thou dost imagine and, it is a more easy matter to lose thy soul than thou perhaps thinkest. Wherefore do not any longer live so heedlessly but work out thy salvation with fear and trembling, as the Apostle exhorts thee.
The Saints did so at all times, having the fear of God’s judgements ever be fore their eyes.
The Godless, on the contrary, are ever wont to say, as many do at the present day: God is merciful, He will not condemn us so lightly to eternal damnation.
But remember what is said in Holy Scripture: “Be not without fear about sin forgiven and add not sin to sin. And say not, The Mercy of the Lord is great, He will have mercy upon the multitude of my sins. For mercy and wrath come quickly from Him and His wrath looketh upon sinners” (Ecclus v. 5-7).
We also find St Catharine of Siena saying: “O unhappy sinners, do not rely upon the greatness of God’s Mercy; believe me, the more you provoke the anger of this merciful God by willful sin, the deeper you will be cast into the abyss of perdition.”
It is undoubtedly true that we ought to place our trust in God’s Mercy but what the nature of our confidence should be, we are taught by St Gregory.
He says: “Let him who does all that he can, rely firmly upon the Mercy of God. But for him who does not do all that lies within his power to rely upon the Mercy of God would be simple presumption.”
To each and all of us the Apostle Peter says: “Labour the more, that by good works you may make your calling and election sure” (2 Pet.i. 10).
Several of the Fathers of the Church consider that from the fact that at the time of the deluge only eight persons were saved, at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,
only four namely, Lot, his wife and his two daughters escaped with their lives and of the six hundred thousand able men who departed out of Egypt, not more than two reached the Promised Land, the others all dying in the desert, it may be concluded that the number of the Elect amongst Christians will be proportionately small.
This agrees with what St John Chrysostom said on one occasion when he was preaching in the City of Antioch: “What think you, my hearers, how many of the inhabitants of this City may perhaps be saved? What I am about to say is very terrible, yet I will not conceal it from you. Out of this thickly populated City with its thousands of inhabitants, not a hundred will be saved; I even doubt whether there will be as many as that. For what indifference we see amongst the aged, what wickedness amongst the young, what impiety amongst all classes of people.”
Such words as these may well make us tremble.
We should hesitate to believe them, did they not come from the lips of so great a Saint and Father of the Church.
And if it is true that in the first five centuries, when the zeal and devotion of Christians was much more fervent than it is now, so small a number attained everlasting salvation, what will it be in our own day, when crime and vice prevail to so fearful an extent?
Since it is impossible for anyone to deny, or even to doubt that the number of the Elect is small in proportion to that of the reprobate, I beseech thee, O Christian reader, exert thyself to the utmost to accomplish the work of thy salvation.
Thou knowest what an awful thing it is to be damned eternally!
AnaStpaul 