(There were two places where the audio got cut off. I haven't been able to find any other audio or video for this sermon, so this is the best I could do. I did my best with paragraphing, he uses the word "and" a lot, and I didn't want it to be a huge wall of text in some places, so here you go.)
TRANSSCRIPT OF THE SERMON FOR JANUARY 1, 2013 PONTIFICAL HIGH MASS
HIS EXCELLENCY BISHOP RICHARD WILLIAMSON
Dear Fathers, Sister, my dear friends,
What a marvelous way to start a new year, and I wish all of you a truly Happy New Year, meaning, a new year in which you will grow closer to God, and fill yourselves further with God. We're not on this earth for anything else. No soul created by God is created for anything other than to get to Heaven. Mysteriously, most people don't want to go to Heaven. They don't believe in Heaven, today, they may even think they no longer believe in God, they may profess that they no longer believe in God, but He is exactly the same as He always has been, an Infinite Being, of an Infinite Majesty, and of an Infinite Goodness. He is completely unchanging, without any shadow of change, says Saint James in Scripture, and therefore, this poor world as it is today, still exists, only in order to send souls to Heaven, to act as a trampoline on which souls can bounce, so to speak, in order to finally to bounce to Heaven.
And, if God is giving to each of us the beginning of a new year, and He may well give easily to most of us, probably he will give to easily most of us, a complete new year, if he's giving us that, it is a gift day by day. Each day is a gift to be made use of, precisely in order to get closer to Heaven. Few men live that way, few men believe that, and so few men act that way. It's very sad. It's enough to make the angels weep and it had made over the last 50 years, many images and statues of Our Lord and Our Lady weep, and weep even tears of blood, because they see what is happening by their own choice to so many souls. So many souls using their free will, to choose not to go to Heaven. To not even try to go to Heaven. The prospect of an infinite sadness indeed. And there was the great sadness of Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane, that so few souls would make use of His Passion, His terrible Passion, and His Death, agonizing Death, in order to save themselves and spend an eternity of happiness with God.
How can God allow such a thing? What sense can it make for Him to create millions and millions and millions of souls, in any one year I don't know how many, in this coming year I don't know how many, but every time that a human father and a human mother will put together the material elements for a new human being, the great and good God, creates individually, and infuses in the elements put together by father and mother, a soul, which will give life to that human being, for nine months, from then onwards, for normally nine months in his mother's womb.
Why can God do that, if so few souls make use of that gift of life, for which it was intended by God, and for which He created that soul. How could God do such a thing? How can God have foreseen, as He must have done, from eternity, and wish from eternity, to create so many souls apparently for Hell, well, in reality for Hell, but He didn't create them for Hell, He created them for Heaven? And it's by their choice that they will not go to Heaven. It's by their own choice that they will finish against God's will in the eternal fires of Hell.
How can God have foreseen that and have fore willed that? Think for a moment. It stands to reason, it's logical, that if there are many more souls, Our Lord says, which is what the Church has always taught, it's a frightening thought, but, if it's true, it's true, and Our Lord says, "Many there are that choose the broad way to destruction, few there be, and narrow is the path to salvation, and few there be that go thereat." And, "Many are called but few are chosen," says Our Lord Himself. And, the True Church has always followed Him in this apparently discouraging teaching, that of the relatively small number of the elect, relative to the number of the damned.
Saint Augustine spoke of the (missa petitiones?) mass of souls that are lost. Discouraging thought. Or, a thought that makes us, if we think, makes us realize, how precious it is for God for even one soul to arrive in Heaven. If God foresaw, and fore willed from eternity, that it would be only a relatively few souls that would reach Heaven. Relatively. Still, says scripture, thousands upon thousands upon thousands, in modern language, that comes to millions and millions. It stands to reason, that for God, one soul that gets to Heaven, is worth many that choose not to, which is a completely encouraging thought, because he tells us how much it will mean to God, in a manner of speaking, if you or I, save our souls.
How much more happiness, it stands to reason, how much more happiness, He will pour out on one soul reaching Heaven. (Cut off)-- souls going to Hell. That's how much it means to God for you or I to save our souls. We might say, and it would surely be true to say, that if we save our souls, it means much more to God than it means to even to ourselves.
This soul on its death bed, that has lead the struggle of life, and has arrived at death, it's a pious soul, it's a believing soul. The soul has received the Sacraments, but it hasn't yet glimpsed, it believes in Heaven, it believes that it has been worth living life, to arrive at this point, in the grace of God, "Holy Mother of God pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death." How often this Catholic soul has prayed the Hail Mary during its life and every time it's been a prayer for this moment of death. And yet, the soul hasn't glimpsed Heaven.
It doesn't know what joys God has prepared for it. Isiah says exactly that, and Saint Paul picks it up from his favorite Isiah, "The eye hath not seen, the ear hath not heard, and the soul hath not imagined, conceived, what God has prepared for those that love Him." And will love Him to the end. And so this soul that has struggled, and may on its death bed still be struggling, the demons let loose, if they can, if God allows them, the demons let loose at that moment of death, they make their last effort, to capture that soul, to discourage it, to make it despair. Then they bring in front of it all the sins they can, the sins that have not been confessed, well confessed, the devils, in God's justice and wisdom again, the devils will be allowed, either to capture that soul, maybe, more probably to enable it to merit more, because the soul, if it's lived a Catholic life, it's not going to let go at the last moment, if it can help it.
And by struggling against the last temptations and the last attacks that the devil will throw, and by praying to the Mother of God, "now and in the hour of its death," the two coincide at this dreadful moment, humanly speaking, dreadful moment. So the soul may not be thinking of the glories and joys of Heaven. And it may, in fact, have to, as it dies, and comes in front of God's judgment seat, easily most souls we are told, and again it makes sense. We're only poor human beings. Even if we die with the grace and with the Sacraments of the Church. The grace of God and the Sacraments of the Church.
The soul may still have to do some time in purgatory. It comes in front of the judgment seat of God. It sees what it is deserved, It is not yet deserved Heaven. Very few souls that die deserve immediately Heaven, which is why it is so important to pray for souls at any funeral Mass.
Now, of course, in the new religion, it's imagined and pretended that every single soul goes straight to Heaven. What terrible untruth. What a terrible illusion. What a terrible deceit. What a dangerous deceit for the souls that are alive. To be told by the Church by way it behaves. White vestments now instead of black at every funeral mass. And a happy happy mass, as though every single soul has gone to Heaven. What a terrible illusion. Instead of the awareness of a true funeral Mass of the Church down the centuries. The True Mass. The majesty and solemnity, and solemnity of that music of the Mass. As the Church believes in Her Liturgy, but knows how serious death is, which the modern world doesn't want to know. It pretends that it's just a light-some passage to happiness such as we imagine it. The happiness of Heaven is nothing that we can imagine.
And so, even on its death bed, the pious soul, probably, almost certainly, has little idea, of what God's prepared for it. Saint Therese of Lisieux, had a-- after a very saintly life... she died very young, of course, by God's providence and wisdom, but she died after a tremendous suffering.
We always think of her as the sweet little saint with her arms full of roses, wrapping a crucifix. We think of her too often in some kind of sentimental way, but she had a tremendous struggle, she had a tremendous illness, tuberculosis. Two or three months of agony with tuberculosis, wracking her lungs before she died, and the devil being allowed to attack her on the Faith. And she clung to her faith. And then, again, the Wisdom and Providence of God, He gave her a glimpse of Heaven, and she said, "Oh Lord, you have surpassed even what I imagined." She was still alive. She's a saint, she understood God. She got closer to God than a great, great, great many other people ever did, or ever will do. And even she, with what she must have imagined Heaven would be, with her knowledge of the goodness and greatness of God, with her faith and her intuition and insight into the the goodness of God. Still, that glimpse of Heaven far surpassed what she imagined.
And so, we must think to ourselves, how far Heaven goes beyond our wildest dreams. Because, God wishes to compensate for the happiness of one soul that will be with Him for eternity, and that will compensate Him for many souls choosing not to spend eternity with Him. There is the goal, my dear friends.
There may or may not be a third world war. It certainly looks like it. There may or may not be a financial crash, an economic crash. Certainly looks like it. It's been organized for that by the enemies of God. The world can perish, the world can crack, the world can fall in ruins. It's of secondary importance to God. And it's for a soul that believes in God, and loves God, and holds to his religion, holds, clings to the means He gave us, to save our souls, which is our Catholic religion, not diluted nor compromised, nor fooled around with, by again, the wickedness of men, the wickedness and foolishness of men. Those who cling to that religion, one of them gives God a tremendous, tremendous happiness.
And surely you've heard of those souls, the privileged souls, to whom Our Lord talks, and to whom Our Lord says, expresses, His disappointment that such and such a soul, coming to Mass, in a state fit to receive Holy Communion, didn't do so. In other words, that didn't give to the Sacred Heart, the chance for Him to give Himself to us. How God longs, to let us grasp and understand, what He wishes to give us. If only we will cooperate. If only we also wish it. If we will only do what we can. In this case, to live in the state of grace, and to get to Mass and to go to communion, in order to give Our Lord the happiness He wishes. He says to His Apostles, "I have come to be baptized with fire and how I have longed for this baptism of fire. How I have longed for this moment," He says just before His Passion, "How I have longed to die for you." That's God.
And of course, to meditate on the Passion of Our Lord, to meditate on Our Lord's death, and to meditate on the Last Supper, these are all thoughts, meditations, which should give us a handle on how much God loves us, and how much He wishes to give Himself to us during this life in order to be able to give an unimaginable happiness after our death. My dear friends, compared with these great truths, the worst that the world can throw at us today: the heretics, the compromisers, the indifferent, so many souls indifferent, uncaring of God, completely uncaring, ignorant, and creating a devilish world, because God is not in it, because God is being deliberately pushed out of it. All of that, is of secondary importance. Or, if it is of importance, it's in order to help us get to Heaven, believe it or not.
Saint Augustine says, "God allows evil men to be evil, either in order that they may convert, or in order that they may put to trial the good souls." The crisis of the Church generated an Archbishop Lefevbre. The crisis, if that's what it is, now of the Society of Saint Pius X, will again, generate, a reaction in which there will be a coming closer to God of the souls that want, that discern.
Therefore, dear friends, throughout this new year, let us see all of these things, and let us see all the world events. Let us see everything that may happen for good or ill in the Society of Saint Pius X. Let us see it with the eyes of faith which discern that all of these hardships, all of these difficulties, all of these sufferings, are designed by God for our good, to push us towards Him, to push us to a greater discernment of His Will, in allowing us these evils, and a greater discernment of His Love for us, and what He means for us. Let us not waste the time that He gives us, that He will give us through this year, however long it may be, maybe, well very likely, one of the other of us will die during this year, maybe several, maybe even many. Maybe there's coming a persecution, maybe there's coming the war, whatever. These are things I can imagine and it doesn't matter.
I can't know with certainty, God, again, in His Wisdom, does not give us to know the future. We can guess that today, humanly, that it's going to be difficult, but those human difficulties, seen from God's point of view, are opportunities for ourselves, and chances, chances and opportunities, and that's how they should be seen.
And the families are suffering, of course, "How can I protect my little ones? How can I keep their innocence? How can I shield their innocence? How can I keep them on the path to Heaven? How can I bring them, like the tug pulls the glider up off the earth up to a height where it's going to be able to fly on its own? The tug pulls and pulls then the glider gets up to that height. How can I make sure that when the glider casts off the line, it's going to know how to navigate in the winds and fly on its own without a tug to pull it, without its parents to keep it on the path?"
My dear friends, my dear parents, when you had a child, when you were having children, you knew each time that God would give you to have a child, each child is a great gift of God and many children is a true rich, a true wealth. Ask childless parents what a wealth children are. And, each time you had a child, God gave you a child, you knew that the time would come when they would have free will. It begins to show its free will at quite a young age. It shows its own will at quite a young age, and you have to discipline the child from a very young age. Already it's doing what it wants and not what you want, even if it doesn't reach the age of reason, and it needs discipline before the age of reason, so that when it reaches the age of reason, it will begin to use its free will wisely, then there are many more years between the age of reason and when it will leave home.
You do what you can. You know, God knows that the child will ultimately make its own choices. You prepare it as best you can. You do your best. God does not ask of us to do anything more than our best. He will demand of us when we die that we have done our best. He doesn't ask more. Nobody is bound to do the impossible. So, dear parents, you do what you can.
You listen to the priests, you watch the priests. Has not experience told you that you must watch and pray? You must watch out, Our Lord says so, "Watch out for wolves in sheep's clothing." When you judge that a shepherd is a wolf and not a shepherd; a seeming shepherd is not a shepherd but a true wolf, when you make that judgment, you're not condemning, in the way in which Our Lord says, "Judge not that you do not judge," it's a judgment of discernment, not a judgment of condemnation. Our Lord does not want us to practice the judgment of condemnation, but He does want us to practice the judgment of discernment. It really is up to you. With respect, and always with respect to the sacred priesthood of Our Lord. But it is up to you to discern. Whether this is a priest, through whom you can hear the Master's Voice, as so many souls heard when they listened to Archbishop Lefevbre, the souls, the priests didn't recognize what it was, they mostly rejected him, the bishops and the popes rejected him, but the people, the sheep, responded. It was the Master's Voice, sure enough. That is where the True Church is passed.
As with priests, other good priests, who also were faithful to Our Lord, having been faithful to Our Lord, like Father Hannefin, Father Snyder, in pictures on the wall there. They weren't members of the Society of Saint Pius X. Obviously, the Society of Saint Pius X is not the beginning and end of the Church. The Church has many more good priests than only, for goodness sake, in the Society of Saint Pius X. Same thing for today, therefore discern. Use your judgment, keep watch and pray.
I always say and you may have heard me say many times. Our Lord doesn't say pray and watch, he doesn't even say pray, just pray, although many people behave as though prayer is enough. Many pious Catholics behave and talk as if it's enough to pray. No, it isn't. Our Lord says, "Watch and pray," for the obvious reason that if I don't watch, if I don't stay awake, if I don't stay awake and keep my eyes open, and watch what's going on, I'm sooner or later going to stop praying. I will let myself in matters of religion to be switched so, or baited and switched. I will be offered something that looks like like the real religion but it isn't. And therefore, I shall slip away from the True Religion if I don't stay awake.
My dear friends, stay awake. Watch your priests, wisely, respectfully, but wisely, and when they're no longer doing the work of the master, when you can no longer hear the Master's Voice, it's some strange voice of some different religion, some human religion centered on man instead of centered on God, quietly walk away.
If you look for good priests, God will give them to you. If you want good priests, God will give them to you. Again, all He wants, is to fill the world with good priests, it's the human beings that don't want it because they don't want God.
So my dear friends, a very Happy New Year to all of you, and "respice finem," think of the end. Think of death. Keep it constantly in front of your eyes. The Jєωs fabricated kinds of hats in which there would be little tassels in front of their eyes. It was a very materialistic-- well and in these little tassels are wrapped up the commandments of the law. It's a very materialistic way of fulfilling the commands, to keep the commandments always in front of your eyes. But it means, keep it obviously in the front of your mind.
Keep in front of your mind, always, the great truths: Death, Judgment, Hell and Heaven. The Four Great Truths, the four last things, and then you will live wisely. And keeping in mind those four things, and remembering that you will have to die, you will pray the Hail Mary, now, and in the hour of our death. At this present moment, help us, Mother of God, and in the hour of death.
And then you will make the use of this new year, that God wishes you do, and that the Mother of God also wishes you do. Wishes that we do. Her statues also weep. The Mother weeps because she was at the foot of the cross, and every suffering of her Divine Son, wracked her as well, obviously. She was in complete empathy, it's a poor word, for what-- bound together--Mary and Jesus when Our Lord was dying on the cross. And every suffering of Jesus went through her like a sword, as Simeon prophesied. She wishes our salvation. (Cut off) --is the surest way of staying close to Our Lord. Stay close to Our Lady all through the new year. Pray the rosary, and use the new year to make more and more sure, of getting to Heaven. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.
Topic: Bishop Williamson 01-01-13 Sermon (Read 5382 times)