Today's Gospel for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Jesus:
‘But anyone who is an obstacle to bring down one of these little ones who have faith, would be better thrown into the sea with a great millstone round his neck. And if your hand should cause you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life crippled, than to have two hands and go to hell, into the fire that cannot be put out. And if your foot should cause you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life lame, than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye should cause you to sin, tear it out; it is better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell where their worm does not die nor their fire go out.’ (Mark 9: 47-48)
Below is a powerful sermon by a holy priest who had the courage to proclaim it to bishops that were gathered at Fatima. I'm re-posting it here and I added some pictures too. It certainly fits in with today's Gospel!
Deacon John
HELL EXISTS AND WE MIGHT GO THERE!
by Father Marcel Nault
[Father Marcel Nault, 1927 - 1997. On Easter Sunday, March 30,1997 at
12:00 noon, Father Marcel Nault was called from this earthly life unto
the God whom he had loved and. served with zealous devotion. Born on
March 3, 1927 in Montreal Quebec, his was a relatively late vocation. He
was ordained to the diocesan priesthood on March 4, 1962 the day after
his 35th birthday.]
The following is a speech given by Father Marcel Nault to the World
Catholic Bishops Fatima Peace Conference in Fatima, Portugal in 1992.
This speech made such an impact that after this Conference, several
Bishops asked Father Nault to hear their confessions.
Our Lord Jesus Christ came on earth for one reason, to save souls from
Hell. Teaching the reality of Hell is the most important and unavoidable
duty of the Holy Catholic Church.
One of the greatest Fathers of the Church, St. John Chrysostom,
continually taught that Our Lord Jesus Christ preached more often on
Hell than on Heaven.
Some people say it is better to preach on Heaven. I disagree. Preaching
on Hell produces many more true and strong conversions than only
preaching on Heaven. St. Benedict, the founder of the Benedictines,
while he was in Rome was told by the Holy Ghost: "You are going to lose
your soul in Rome and go to Hell." He left Rome and he went into the
silence and solitude outside the city to meditate on the life of Jesus
and the Holy Gospels. St Benedict ran away from those numerous occasions
of sin of pagan Rome. He prayed. He made sacrifices for himself and
sinners. The Holy Ghost spread the word of his holiness.
As a result, people came to see, hear and follow St Benedict's example
and advice. He separated himself from occasions of sin and became holy.
Holiness attracts souls. Why do you think St. Augustine changed his
life? Because of the fear of Hell! I preach often on the tragic reality
of Hell. It is a Catholic Dogma priests and bishops do not preach
anymore.
Pope Pius IX, who pronounced the two dogmas of Papal Infallibility and
the Immaculate Conception, and who also issued his famous Syllabus
condemning the errors and heresies of the modem world, used to ask
preachers to preach more often on the Four Last Things, especially on
Hell, as he himself did preach. He asked this because the thought of
Hell makes saints.
The Saints Feared Hell
Here is something very curious, saints are afraid to go into Hell but
sinners are not afraid. Saint Francis de Sales, Saint Alphonsus Liguori,
Saint cure of Ars, St. Therese of Avila, St. Therese of the Infant Jesus
were all afraid to go to Hell.
Saint Simon Stock the Superior General of the Carmel, knew that his
monks were afraid to go to Hell. His monks were fasting and making
prayer. They were living in seclusion, cut off from the dangerous world
dominated by Satan. Still they were afraid of going to Hell.
In 1251, Our Lady of Mount Caramel appeared in Aylesford, England to
Saint Simon Stock. She said, "Do not be afraid anymore, I am giving you
a special vestment; all those who will die wearing this vestment will
not go to Hell." I wear my Brown Scapular under my vestments and I have
another one in my pocket because I never know when people will ask me to
preach on Hell or the Brown Scapular.
Mary said to the Dominican priest, Blessed Alan de 1a Roche, "I will
come and save the world through My Rosary and My Scapular." One cannot
specialize in everything and preach on everything; one must make a
choice. I believe that it is the will of Our Lord Jesus that I preach on
Hell.
A Monsignor, my superior at that time, once told me: you preach too
often on Hell and you scare people". He added: "Marcel, I have never
preached on Hell, people don't like it. You scare them." In a very
friendly way, the Monsignor told me in his own office: "Marcel, I have
never preached on Hell and I never will preach on Hell, and look at the
nice and prestigious position I hold." I kept a long silence, then I
looked him in the eyes. "Monsignor," I said, "you are on the road to
Hell for all eternity. Monsignor, you preach to please men, instead of
preaching to please Christ and save souls from Hell. Monsignor, it is a
mortal sin of omission to refuse to preach the Catholic Dogma of Hell. "
When God sent Prophets in the Old Testament it was to remind men to come
back to the truth, to come back to holiness. Jesus came, preached and
sent His Apostles in the world to preach the Holy Gospels. The Serpent
came and spread his poison through heresies, so the Lord Jesus sent His
Beloved Mother, the Queen of Prophets: "Go on earth and destroy
heresies." The Fathers of the Church have written that the Mother of God
is the hammer of heresies. If you take the time to study with great
attention the Message of Our Lady of Fatima, you will notice it is a
most tragic and profound message repeating the teaching of the Holy
Gospels.
The Lessons Taught at Fatima
The summary of the Message of Fatima is, Hell exists. Hell is eternal
and we will all go into Hell if we die in the state of mortal sin. "What
does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?"
Our Lady has come and told us that we can be saved through Her two
divine sacramentals of predestination, the Holy Rosary and the Brown
Scapular. There is also special emphasis on Devotion to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary and Devotion of the Five First Saturdays.
At the first apparition of the Angel of Portugal at the Cabeco, in May
1916, the Angel of Portugal came to the three children and he showed
them how to adore God with two different prayers. "Oh my God, I believe,
I adore, I hope and I love Thee. I ask pardon for those who do not
believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love Thee." The Angel
prayed this while prostrating himself on the ground.
The Angel of Fatima has shown the three children that in the order of prayers, first things first. One must first adore God and. then after pray to the saints. God first, creatures second. The Angel of Fatima has
shown men that we must adore and pray to God on our knees. The more a man knows God, the more he humbles himself in front of God his Creator.
The great French Bishop Bossuet said: "Man is really great when he is on his knees." Yes, Man is truly great when he is on his knees in front of his Creator and Redeemer, Jesus in the Most Holy Blessed Sacrament The
Angel at Fatima came to teach the three children that our first duty, according to the First Commandment, is to adore God.
At his third apparition at the Cabeco, the Angel of Portugal came with the Chalice in his left hand and the Host in his right hand. The children wondered what was going on. The Angel miraculously left the
Chalice and the Holy Host suspended in the air. The Angel prostrated
himself on the ground and recited a profound Trinitarian prayer of
adoration. "Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I adore Thee
profoundly and I offer Thee the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and
Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the tabernacles of the world,
in reparation for the outrages, sacrilege and indifference by which He
is offended, and by the infinite merits of His Most Sacred Heart and
through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg the conver-sion of poor
sinners.
God wants us to adore Him on our knees. Do all of us kneel in prayer and
adoration of Jesus in the Most Holy Eucharist? We should. When the three
wise men came to Bethlehem and entered the house, they prostrated
them-selves in front of baby Jesus to adore Him on their knees. We have
the example from Scripture and from the Angel at Fatima that God wants
us to adore Him on our knees.
The Reinforcement of Catholic Dogma
One year later, on May 13, 1917, the children saw a young girl appear to
them. It was Our Lady's first apparition. Lucy asked, "Where do you come
from?" She replied, "I come from heaven." The Catholic dogma of heaven.
The children asked, "Will we go into heaven?" She replied "Yes, you will." They then asked, "Our two girl friends, are they in heaven?" Mary
replied, "one yes". The children asked, "Where is the other girl? Is she in Heaven?" Mary replied, "She is in Purgatory until the end of the world." This girl was around 18 years old. A second dogma, Purgatory exists and will end at the end of this world. The Mother of God cannot
lie.
The Angel of Fatima taught the three children how to adore God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. This is a reinforcement of
the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity, the greatest of them all without
which Christianity cannot stand. We must adore the three Persons of the
Most Holy Trinity.
A Vision of Hell
On Friday, July 13, 1917 Our Lady appeared at Fatima and talked to the
three seers. Our Lady never smiled. How could She smile, for it was on
this day that She was to show the children the vision of Hell?
She said "Pray, pray very much because many souls go into Hell." Our
Lady opened Her hands and suddenly the three children saw a hole in the
ground. That hole, said Lucy, was like a sea of fire in which we saw the
souls in human forms, men and women, burning, shouting, and crying in
despair. Lucy said demons looked like ugly and unknown animals. The
children were so terrified that Lucy screamed. She was so afraid that
she thought she would die. Mary said to the children: "You have seen
Hell where sinners go when they do not repent." Another Roman Catholic
dogma, Hell.
Hell is Eternal Our Lady said "Each time you say the Rosary, My
children, say after each decade, '0 my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save
us from the fire of Hell, lead all souls to heaven, especially those
most in need." Mary came to Fatima as a Prophet of the Most High to save
souls from Hell. The patron of all pastors, St Jean Marie Vianney used
to preach that the greatest act of charity towards your neighbor is to
save their souls from Hell. The second act of charity according to St.
Jean Vianney is to deliver souls from Purgatory. One day in his little
church, (where, to this day, his body lies incorrupt) a man possessed by
a demon approached St. Jean Vianney and said: "I hate you, I hate you
because you stole from my hand eighty-five thousand souls." Your
Eminence, Excellencies, Priests, when we will come to be judged by
Jesus, Jesus will ask us one question. "I made you a priest, a bishop, a
cardinal, a pope, how many souls have you saved from Hell?" St. Francis
de Sales, according to statistics, has converted and probably saved more
than seventy-five thousand heretics. How many souls have you saved? When
you read the Fathers of the Church, the Doctors of the Church and the
saints, you are struck by one thing; they all have preached the holy
Gospels of Jesus and the FOUR LAST THINGS: Death, Judgment, Heaven,
Hell. They all have preached the Catholic dogma of Hell because when we
meditate on the abode of the damned, we don't want to go to Hell. As a
result, we avoid the occasions of sin and take all the means necessary
to become saints and therefore avoid Hell and attain Heaven.
I don't want to criticize Bishops, but I must confess this truth. I have
thirty years of priesthood. It is sad to say that I have never seen nor
heard a bishop, even my bishop or any other bishop, preach the Roman
Catholic dogma of Hell. I suppose in your countries and elsewhere they
do, but in America, Hell is not preached.
One day in a cathedral I said to a bishop, "Your Excellency you make a
nice meditation of the Holy Rosary every night for the radio. This is
beautiful. But I must ask, why don't you have your meditation a little
shorter and insert after each decade: '0 my Jesus, forgive us our sins.
Save us from the fire of Hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially
those most in need of Thy Mercy'. Why do you refuse to say that little
prayer alter each decade, as requested by Our Lady of Fatima on July 13,
1917, after She had shown Hell to the three seers?" The Bishop said to
me: "Well, people don't like us to preach on Hell, the word Hell makes
them scared."
We are not there to preach to please the crowd but to save souls from
Hell, to prevent them from going into Hell for all eternity. This may
not hold true for all Bishops, but I have often heard Bishops recite the
Rosary and omit that merciful prayer to save souls from Hell. I believe
that little prayer of Our Lady of Fatima given to the children on July
13, 1917 is more powerful and more pleasing to God than any kind of
meditation even given by a holy bishop.
You have received your own missions from God, and I believe that Jesus
and Our Lady want me to preach on Hell as my mission. So I preach often
on Hell. There are many revelations that we can read in the life of
privileged souls. Some souls in Hell have been ordered by God to speak
in order to help us in our faith. It is a mortal sin of omission to
refuse to preach the Catholic Dogma of Hell. Those souls in Hell said:
"We could accept to be in Hell a thousand years. We could accept to be
in Hell a million years, if we knew
that one day, we would leave Hell." My friends, we must meditate, not
only on the fire of Hell, not only on the privation of seeing God, but
we must also meditate on the eternity of Hell. Meditate seriously in
front of the tabernacle on the Roman Catholic dogma of Hell. Dear
Bishops, you must preach the whole Gospel of Jesus, including the tragic
reality of eternal Hell.
Heretical Concept of God's Mercy
A priest at a charismatic conference told a crowd of about three
thousand people and one hundred priests that "God is love, God is mercy
and you will see His infinite Mercy at the end of the world, when Jesus
will deliver all souls from Hell, even demons." That priest continues to
preach and his Bishop doesn't take away his faculties for preaching
heresies.
"Go in the eternal fire", said Jesus. Eternal fire, not temporary fire.
With our limited human intelligence we make a little philosophic
proposition: "God is love, God is Our Father. How can a father, for
Heaven's sake, take little Peter and throw him in a burning furnace? It
is impossible. It is an insult to God, Who is love." How many times have
you heard that?
The truth, however, is that Hell exists. Hell is eternal. And we will all go into Hell if we die in the state of mortal sin. I can go into Hell. You can go into Hell. If any of us die in mortal sin, we will be
in Hell for all eternity, burning, weeping, and crying in despair. Not for a million years, but for billions and billions and billions of years and beyond, for all eternity. In our lifetime, who has never made one
mortal sin? Only one mortal sin not repented before you die is enough
for Jesus to throw us in Hell.
One of the greatest Fathers of the Church, Patron of all Catholic Preachers, St. John Chrysostom said: "Few bishops are saved and many
priests are Damned."
When we were coming from Lisbon to Fatima by bus, I preached on the bus
to the lay people, priests and bishops present. I implored them, "Please
when you come to Fatima, why not make an excellent holy general
confession. Maybe ten years ago, maybe fifty years ago, maybe you
didn't have the courage to confess that sin because you were ashamed.
Please, make a holy and complete confession in Fatima before you leave.
There are many priests in Fatima that you will never see until you reach
Heaven." I preach to Bishops like I preach to everyone because Bishops
also have a soul to save. And if Bishops are truly humble they will also
accept the truth even from an ordinary simple priest. Let us not leave
Fatima without making a Holy General Confession.
A Great Act of Charity
Your Excellencies, Jesus made us priests, The Lord Jesus has chosen us
among millions of men to make us priests. We have been made priests for
one reason, to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to the Almighty
Father, to pray the breviary every day and to preach the Gospels of
Jesus to save souls from Hell. Nobody is sure to go to Heaven unless
they have received a private revelation from God like the Good Thief on
the cross or the three seers of Fatima. Why not take all the insurance
that Heaven has given us, the Rosary (devotion to My Rosary is a sure
sign of predestination), the Brown Scapular and the wonderful Sacrament
of penance.
Preach, my dear Bishops, like the Fathers of the Church. The first duty
of a bishop is to preach, not only to administer a diocese. The Church
needs to see and hear bishops preaching like the Fathers of the Church.
If only one Bishop among you would have come to Fatima then return to
his diocese and on certain occasions preach "The Four Last Things" with
the full Message of Fatima, what a great act of Charity it would be.
With the help of the Holy Ghost, say to your faithful: "Listen, my
brothers in Christ, I am your Bishop, I am here to save your soul from
Hell. Please listen, accept and meditate on my teaching today. You too
my dear priests in my diocese, imitate your Bishop, and preach on Hell
with the authority that Jesus has given you. Preach at least one entire
sermon on Hell once a year." You would be doing the greatest act of
charity of your priesthood, of your episcopate.
As I mentioned earlier, in my thirty years as a priest, I have never
heard a Bishop preach on Hell. When I want a sermon on Hell, I have to
read Saint John Chrysostom, the Fathers of the Church, the Doctors of
the Church and canonized preachers. Dear Bishops, please, preach on Hell
like Jesus, Our Lady of Fatima, the Fathers of the Church and the
Doctors of the Church and you will save many souls. Who saves one soul,
saves his own soul. Preaching on Hell is a great act of charity because
those that hear you will believe. They will change their lives and make
holy confessions.
The Garment of Grace
People sometimes ask me: "Why is it, Father, that the Brown Scapular
isn't preached anymore? In the past, we received the Brown Scapular at
First Communion, but today there are no more blessings and imposition of
the Brown Scapular. Is the Brown Scapular true today as in the past?"
Yes, the Brown Scapular is honored to this day; this truth has not
changed. On Saturday, October 13, 1917 during the Miracle of the Sun in
Fatima, Mary was holding the Brown Scapular. Sister Lucy said: "The
Rosary and the Brown Scapular are inseparable."
Why is it then priests never preach on the Brown Scapular? How can
priests preach on the Brown Scapular if they deliberately refuse to
preach on Hell? If you never preach on Hell, people won't believe in
Hell. What is the use of wearing the Brown Scapular?
Jesus said: "If you have faith, you will move mountains." If you have
faith, you will convert souls with the grace of God.
If you preach on Hell with faith, people will believe in Hell. Saint
Paul said to his disciples: "Preach with conviction." To talk or read a
homily in a Church is not preaching. Preaching is intended to move the
will; preaching is intended to move men, to change their lives, to save
their souls from Hell.
The Defection of Clergy
There are four major reasons why 75,000 priests have left the
priesthood:
1) because they have neglected to pray every day.
2) because they did not avoid the occasions of sin and have forgotten
that prudence is the science of saints.
3) because they did not have the humility and courage to make holy and
complete confessions. Jesus said: "Without Me you can do nothing."
4) because they lived in mortal sin and continued to celebrate thus. If
a priest is in the state of mortal sin and celebrates Mass, it is a
sacrilegious mass for him. When he receives Communion, it is another
sacrilegious communion for him.
How can a priest in the state of mortal sin preach under the inspiration
and the strength of the Holy Ghost? How can he preach if he's filled
with demons? Priests, go and make holy confessions and you will become
excellent preachers. The Holy Ghost will speak in you and through you
and you will save thousand of souls from Hell.
One day, the Cure of Ars received a visit from a young priest from a
nearby parish. That young priest was a little curious to meet Cure of
Ars. After lunch the Cure of Ars said: "Will you, please, hear my
confession?" The young priest nearly fell off his chair when asked to
hear the confession of the already very holy priest St. Jean Vianney.
Saints go to Confession! And those that go to Confession become Saints.
Finally, Our Lady of Fatima said: "pray, pray very much and make many
sacrifices for many souls go into Hell because there is no one to pray
and make sacrifices." Let us pray often and every day: "0 my Jesus,
forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell and lead all souls
to Heaven, especially those in most need of Thy Mercy. "
Fr. Nault's sermon taken from http://www.holysouls.com/
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