What hope have we got

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simonjosiah1

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St Theresa of Avila once stated she saw souls going into hell like snowflakes

St John vianny said so few are saved it’s like someone collecting fruit from trees, very few are left after the pickers taken the fruit - they are few saved.

This was said during the times when women dressed modestly, there was no porn, television, Hollywood,abortion, gay marriage. This was said when mass was in Latin - great reverence to the Eucharist, during a time when pope’s and cardinal s feared God

Feel like there’s not much hope.
 
Jesus is our hope.

If you’re worried about it try your best to be a saint is my best advice I’ve got. Just abandon yourself to Christ’s Mercy.

Pray I may do this as well.
 
I saw a very interesting one-man dramatic presentation on St. John Vianney last year.

People were sinning in it right and left, doing all the things people do today - fornication, rejection of religion (priests were hunted down and killed in France when Vianney was a boy), theft, false rumors about neighbors, greed, murder.

When Vianney took over his parish, nobody was bothering to go to church and the last several priests had transferred to another parish as soon as they could. The people had gotten used to just ignoring the church during the period of anti-Catholic feeling during the French Revolution. People were fornicating and living together and spent their Sundays working in their fields or going to the local beer garden or bar. It took Vianney a long time to get the people to just start bothering to come to Mass or receive sacraments again, much less being “reverent” or whatever.

So I think maybe you’re seeing his era through rose-colored glasses. People were just as rotten then as they were now.
 
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I’m sure you’re familiar with the famous phrase from Ecclesiastes “nothing new under the sun”.

Don’t think humans in previous generations weren’t sinners like we are, I assure you they were. You think porn is modern? Think again, ever heard of Kamasutra? If that book exists I promise you some form of porn has always existed.

There may not have been gay marriage but if you think homosexuality is a 21st century phenomenon you are either 5 years old or you just emerged from a cave.

TV? So what? That doesn’t mean that the time we spend watching TV would be used to the glory of God rather than sin.

I’m no Catholic, but I seem to recall a medieval priest who protested that nobody ever went to mass. And going to mass is not enough, think about that scene in The Godfather where the head of the Corleone’s (Michael) is in mass promising to renounce all sin while ordering his henchman to murder his enemies.

Modest dress? I would argue that depended on the woman, but I promise you the prostitutes most likely did NOT dress modestly, and even if they did to cover their tracks their behavior was anything but modest.

Think people were cleaner in the past? Think again my friend! And cheer up, there’s still hope! The fact that you worry about this says good things about you!

And finally, I’ll pray for you
 
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One need never go any farther than the Gospels.
They are all about Hope and they are the Words of Christ Himself.
Christ treated all sinner with mercy, compassion and profound love.

The wisdom of the Saints does not trump Jesus’ own words. Be at peace.
 
I’ll pray for you Kei! You’ve always made great contributions to the questions I’ve posted here!! Not that that’s a requirement in order to pray for you, but you deserve that tiny bit of praise my friend!!
 
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Curious11 said:
I promise you the prostitutes most likely did NOT dress modestly, and even if they did to cover their tracks their behavior was anything but modest.
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I seem to recall some era a few hundred years ago where fashionable ladies, not even prostitutes but regular society women in Europe, followed a practice of exposing most of their entire breasts including the nipples, which they rouged.
 
Thanks to God I say

Let us not forget that ie St Teresa of Avila lived pretty much during the Protestant revolution. Etc.
There’s one phrase from the The Power and the Glory that I love, and it goes like this:
“How often the priest had heard the same confession–Man was so limited: he hadn’t even the ingenuity to invent a new vice: the animals knew as much. It was for this world that Christ had died: the more evil you saw and heard about you, the greater the glory lay around the death; it was too easy to die for what was good or beautiful, for home or children or civilization–it needed a God to die for the half-hearted and the corrupt.”
This is something to keep in mind. So we must not lose hope, but remember to love in by and for God.
 
Revelation 12:4

“Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.”

It has been postulated that satan took 1/3 of the Angels with him. I believe this to be correct. Humanity will probably be similar.
 
Very little hope if it were up to us. Real hope if we put our hope in Christ instead. I know that I could never be good enough on my own. It is only with Christ working in and through me that I can stay on the straight and narrow. In other words we need God’s grace. By ourselves we are not enough. With God all things are possible.

Consider other passages of Scripture that inspire hope and not just focus on the negative. Jesus talks about the Father who loves his son even though he rebelled and accepted him back with open arms. So whatever we have done God can accept us back when we return to him. The sacrament of reconciliation is the example of this. God desires everyone to be saved. And Scripture says everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Jesus is the narrow road that saves us. Without him it is impossible to be saved. But through him we can do all things.

As Christians we have real hope. In fact hope is theological virtue that God gives us. Pray that God gives you this gift of hope more fully in your life. If Christians don’t have real hope to offer the world then we might as well pack our bags and go home. Jesus never said it would be easy being a disciple of his. He did promise a great reward in heaven if we take up our cross and follow him.
 
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What the saints saw is true, only a few reach Heaven. But there is hope for sinners because there is Purgatory. Hope in eternal life is the beginning and end of our faith.
 
I think we have to be careful what we say. I went to a Catholic men’s conference one time when the main speaker, a fairly well known popular speaker and priest, said to the thousands of people there and who spent all the money and time to come and listen to him talk, say that most of you probably won’t be saved. Now, I don’t know about you but that doesn’t inspire much hope nor charity in my heart towards that speaker. This guy was all hell and brimstone but didn’t himself offer any hope. Here are people who need to hear the good news of Christ, not the bad news.

Some people have their heads in the clouds rather than their hearts in the heart of God. God desires everyone to be saved. He doesn’t say to anyone you probably won’t be saved. God is not some accountant calculating all your sins and deeds and seeing if one outweighs the other. God’s heart is like that of the Father of the prodigal son. His heart is a heart of reconciliation. His heart is one of pure love. He accepts anyone who comes to him and turns no one away. He isn’t just entering into some contract with us where if we perform according to expectations we will be accepted. He desires a relationship with us, one of love, more like a marriage. Where he commits himself to us as members of his family and we can have real intimacy with him. He is even more committed to you than you are to him. So trust in him and his mercy.

Now if you rephrase the question and ask how many people will reject God’s love? It is impossible to say. But that is really what we are talking about. But some people have an incorrect view of God as if he were some tyrant. Salvation is a gift that we can not earn. If it wasn’t then Jesus died for nothing. But we can reject God or what we think God is. Everything in this life is temporary. The only thing that lasts is the Eternal. The only thing that really matters is Jesus Christ in your life. Don’t let the devil steal your hope. He is a thief and a liar. He wants you to think you have no hope. But don’t listen to him. He wants you to give up in despair. But his promises are empty. Instead we must turn to Christ and trust in his word. If you have his word in your heart you will be free. Jesus said if you endure to the end you will be saved. The Church herself teaches us to pray for this gift of perseverance.
"Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother." (1 Jn 4:15-21)
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How many people could live without hope? Consider a hospital patient suffering from some incurable disease just waiting to die. What hope would there be for such a person without a treatment? It would seem impossible for them to be saved from their disease. In a way that is what we are all like. We are all hopelessly lost without God. Without God’s treatment for our disease caused by sin we have no hope of being saved. There is a famous quote that says:
The Church is not a museum of saints but a hospital for sinners.
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Jesus himself says that he has not come for the righteous, but for the sinners. Because it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. Jesus came specifically for you and me, not for those who see themselves as righteous and don’t need any help. He came for Joe sinner, you and me, those who do not think we are good enough. This is why we always have hope. Jesus came for you and me, for sinners, not for those who think they are righteous. Why would he do that if he thought we had no hope? If you see yourself as a sinner then there is good news. Jesus came to give you hope. He is your physician. Just as he healed the leper in today’s Mass reading he will heal you and me. I say this not lightly but with God convicting my heart and tears in my eyes (because this is such a beautiful message). Remember, Jesus came for sinners like you and me.
 
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In any age, those who repent of their sins and obey the commandments will be saved. If many do this, many will be saved. If few do this, few will be saved. When saints talk of few being saved, they are lamenting the fact that few do this. But it doesn’t have to be that way, nor does that fact affect the “odds” of any individual being saved. Anyway can and will be saved if he wants and won’t be saved if doesn’t want to. From St. Leonard of Port Maurice’s famous sermon on the topic:
Brothers, I want to send all of you away comforted today. So if you ask me my sentiment on the number of those who are saved, here it is: Whether there are many or few that are saved, I say that whoever wants to be saved, will be saved; and that no one can be damned if he does not want to be. And if it is true that few are saved, it is because there are few who live well. As for the rest, compare these two opinions: the first one states that the greater number of Catholics are condemned; the second one, on the contrary, pretends that the greater number of Catholics are saved. Imagine an Angel sent by God to confirm the first opinion, coming to tell you that not only are most Catholics damned, but that of all this assembly present here, one alone will be saved. If you obey the Commandments of God, if you detest the corruption of this world, if you embrace the Cross of Jesus Christ in a spirit of penance, you will be that one alone who is saved.

Now imagine the same Angel returning to you and confirming the second opinion. He tells you that not only are the greater portion of Catholics saved, but that out of all this gathering, one alone will be damned and all the others saved. If after that, you continue your usuries, your vengeances, your criminal deeds, your impurities, then you will be that one alone who is damned.

What is the use of knowing whether few or many are saved? Saint Peter says to us, “Strive by good works to make your election sure.” When Saint Thomas Aquinas’s sister asked him what she must do to go to heaven, he said, “You will be saved if you want to be.” I say the same thing to you, and here is proof of my declaration. No one is damned unless he commits mortal sin: that is of faith. And no one commits mortal sin unless he wants to: that is an undeniable theological proposition. Therefore, no one goes to hell unless he wants to; the consequence is obvious. Does that not suffice to comfort you? Weep over past sins, make a good confession, sin no more in the future, and you will all be saved. Why torment yourself so? For it is certain that you have to commit mortal sin to go to hell, and that to commit mortal sin you must want to, and that consequently no one goes to hell unless he wants to. That is not just an opinion, it is an undeniable and very comforting truth; may God give you to understand it, and may He bless you. Amen.
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