Stop and Think!

The Most Important Thing you can read this year!

It used to be that the Internet was pretty much advertisement-free, and user friendly.  Nowadays one has to navigate through a plethora of banner adds, popups, spam, and all manner of tricksters out to sell you something, or steal your identity.

All of these attempt to catch your attention through some sort of gimmick or snappy phrase or catchy image.

And nearly all of them are just as waste of time, offering useless or needless things.  But the most important Advertisement you can read this year is what I am to say here. And it is not an ad for anything, but for your eternal benefit.

Stop and Think!

About what you are doing and what you are doing it for.  I am not talking about reading this ad, but about what you are doing today in your life, and what you are doing it for.  Do you have a job? Are you single or married? Do you have some career goal, some hope or dream, some hobby, something pressing upon your daily concern?

Stop and Think!

What are you doing it for?  I do not ask this question of you, to downplay anything you may be doing, but to ask you to take this moment to hear me out.

We have all not always been here on Earth; and we will all of us not be here for long.  In the final analysis, we came into this world without anything but our bodies and souls, and we shall leave it with only our souls.  All the things we owned or enjoyed shall have passed away, when that day of which we know not, comes to pass and we are gone.

Stop and Think!

What value has everything or anything you have done or hoped to do in this life, been?  When all is said and done, and you draw your last breath or lay your head down to sleep on your pillow on last time, what value has it all been?

We live and move about and spend out our lives pretty much oblivious of a fact of life that is stunningly true and mysteriously important.

And it is this:  that you and I have a body that will die, but a soul that will last forever.

And your identity and reality as a human person is founded upon and invested in that soul.  So you will last forever.

Now Stop and Think!

When all is said and done, what kind of proportion is there between the 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, or 100 years that you may live body and soul on this Earth, and the Eternity that your soul shall last, after death?

Is there really any comparison?  Of the miniscule existence of this world, to the infinite duration of that existence that awaits us after death?

And if there is no worthy comparison between what is to come for you and me, and the here and now, that we know, “What on Earth . . .!”, you need you ask yourself, “What on Earth am I doing, doing what I do, for the reasons I do it!?”

And so I ask you to Stop and Think!

In the Light of Faith in Our Most High Lord, Jesus Christ, who though being Infinitely Blessed and Happy with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the Eternity of Heaven, descended, descended to our humble, meager and trite existence, to save our poor sinful souls, and give us the opportunity of Eternal Happiness, and to save us, most importantly, from Eternal Horrors.

And now I want you to hear this pitch, which is a sort of Heavenly Advertisement.

Your soul will last forever, and your body will soon rot in the grave, to be fed upon by worms. So why spend so much time or effort on the comforts of the body, and so, so little time on the welfare of your soul?

And if you do anything at all, and you strive not to do it for the love of Jesus Christ, in a spirit of faith, in fidelity to all of His teachings, that is, with virtue, and removing vices, then understand, that what you do, has not only not been to the benefit of your soul, but perhaps has even injured its spiritual life and welfare.

If you are now in the state of mortal sin, your soul is more dead and rotten than any body ever has been in the grave. And if your soul is dead, there is nothing eternally valuable about anything you do, and indeed, you are under the power of the Devil and are His plaything, whenever he tugs at the cord of your vices, to make you merit eternal damnation every more certainly and surely.

If you are in the state of mortal sin, why not consider your sorry plight, resolve to flee the madness into which you have fallen, have a change of heart, and run as quickly as you can to Confession, so as to be forgiven by Jesus and reborn in soul?

If you are not in the state of mortal sin, then consider how easily you can fall into sin; and moreso, how absurd it is to live any moment of this life doing anything other than earning something for the life to come, to better your arriving in Heaven, and to protect yourself all the more here from the Evil One?

And, as I am sure St. Francis of Assisi, would say to you and have me say to you:  what is the most sensible thing to do, in the light of these considerations?

If you were fortunate enough to be digging outside one day, either in your back yard or elsewhere, and find a golden ring, would you not be happy?

And if upon showing this ring to a friend, he offered you a golden bar, in exchange, and having gone to an appraiser found that this bar was worth 100 times as much, would you not consider yourself fortunate, to have such a generous friend?

And if upon taking that bar of gold, you showed it the next day to a gold buyer, who wanted to pay you 1000 times as much as it was worthy, would you not also feel 1000’s as blessed?

But Stop now and Think!

What value has anything you can obtain in this life, if you cannot take it with you when you die?  What value is all your joys and pleasures worthy, for the next 10-50 years in compared to Eternity?  An eternity of suffering, or an eternity of blessing?

And is it not imprudent to risk an eternity of suffering, on the basis of a foolish hope that “God is kind, He does not punish, He will give me mercy instead of what I deserve?” when Scripture clearly says, and the Saints confirm this, that with the coming of Death, God’s Mercy ends, and there will be the most strict and merciless account made of our life?

Would it not be better to forsake all distractions, and set our mind and heart solely upon bettering our eternal prospects, bettering the welfare of our immortal soul?

And what better way is there to do that, but to follow the example of the Saints, by a life of virtue, penance, mortification, and prayer?  Or as a religious, to dedicate oneself to getting to know, love and serve Him who invites us to dine with Him forever at the Eternal Banquet?

Something to Think About!

But perhaps the most important truth that is not spoken about today, and which would gain you the greatest eternal blessings, is this:

That Our Lord Jesus Christ in fact promises the certainty of Eternal Salvation to all who take up their cross and follow Him as a Catholic Religious, saying:  “There is NO ONE who has forsaken father, mother, wife, children, home and possessions, who WILL NOT in this life receive (from Me) 100 TIMES as many fathers, mothers, children, homes, possessions, and in the World to come LIFE EVERLASTING!”