Necessity of self-denial (Mt. 16,24-28; Mk 8,34-39; Lk 8,23-29)
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[I am no one to comment on the Word of God, but I give you a few lines about the children’s catechesis that God is giving us on the Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew:
We have to take the cross, not seek comfort but give life for serving Jesus Christ because otherwise we lose eternal life. We have sinned and the way to return to God is by the cross. It is not that God wants pain or death for us. He created us in a Paradise without pain or death, but we ruined everything with the first sin of disobedience, we were cast out and then mankind made worse sins. So, the eternal Judge ruled that to return to live in His presence, we must take up the cross and walk following Jesus Christ. If we do not feel that we have a cross, if all goes well for us, we must make sacrifices to sanctify ourselves, our loved ones and to convert others. The cross makes us better, wiser, more holy.
When there is a natural disaster in an area, those who suffered it are then more charitable to others who suffer something similar later, because the pain made them of better heart, and they know better how to help.
Sometimes there are husbands who say: -what a cross I have with this woman! Or wives: -what a cross I have with this man!
And we must carry the cross, if we want to make it removed we deviate by the way to hell. Eg: if that spouse decides to separate (except in the case of infidelity or when his life is in serious danger). And worse, if he marries another person he goes to hell except miracle of conversion (stop doing that sin and going back to the right path).
Sometimes mothers say: -What a cross I have with this child! But they must know that they must imitate Saint Monica who made prayers and tremendous sacrifices and cried a lot of tears for years and prayed so much for the conversion of her son Augustine, and sought priests to speak to him so to leave the sect to which he had joined... and after years of sacrifice: Augustine was converted and then became Bishop and Doctor of the Church. Nothing is impossible or difficult for Jesus Christ, He tells us in the Revelations and Prophecies of Saint Bridget.
Now the bishops are teaching people to go down the road to hell. When a marriage is celebrated by a Catholic priest, it is for life. There are no nulities in the Holy Tradition of the Church, reminds us Our Lady of the Roses. But the bishops are nullifying marriages that want to break up.
There is only one Way and you cannot change to the opposite sense because it is taking a path of sin that goes down, to hell.
And Jesus will come to judge everyone according to the works they have done, we must strive to do what God tells us in Matthew chapter 25. We must strive to be like Jesus Christ. If we are comfortable seeing what happens in the Church as a series seen in chapters, if we do not make sacrifices for the Holy Mother Church, if we cling to the world, we go with the world into the infernal abyss.
Jesus Christ will come in the glory of His Father, let us strive to please Him by imitating the Saints to be among His, happy, for all eternity.
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Good works begin in our head and heart, wanting to do them and planning them. Let us ask God every day to have a good mind and heart and eyes and ears and mouth and hands. May our heart be charitable (charity is Christian love) who loves Him as He deserves and loves the neighbor as He commands; a merciful heart (the merciful will achieve mercy); a humble heart (humility defeats the devil along with faith and obedience to God); a prudent and wise heart. Let us accompany these requests daily with an Our Father.