Blessed are the clean of heart, 

for they will see God

From the book addressed to Autolycus by Saint Theophilus of Antioch, bishop

If you say, “Show me our God,” I will say to you, “Show me what kind of person are you are, and I will show you my God.”  Show me then whether the eyes of your mind can see, and the ears of your heart hear.

Spiritually blind 

It is like this.  Those who can see with the eyes of their bodies are aware of what is happening in this life on earth.  They get to know things that are different from each other.  They distinguish light and darkness, black and white, ugliness and beauty, elegance and inelegance, proportion and lack of proportion, excess and defect.  The same is true of the sounds we hear: high or low or pleasant.  So it is with the ears of our heart and the eyes of our mind in their capacity to hear or see God.

God is seen by those who have the capacity to see him, provided that they keep the eyes of their mind open.  All have eyes, but some have eyes that are shrouded in darkness, unable to see the light of the sun.  Because the blind cannot see it, it does not follow that the sun does not shine.  The blind must trace the cause back to themselves and their eyes.  In the same way, you have eyes in your mind that are shrouded in darkness because of your sins and evil deeds.

A person’s soul should be clean, like 

a mirror reflecting light.  

If there is rust on the mirror his face 

cannot be seen in it.  

In the same way, no one who has sin 

within him can see God.

But if you will you can be healed.  Hand yourself over to the doctor, and he will open the eyes of your mind and heart.  Who is to be the doctor? Is it God, who heals and gives life through his Word and wisdom.  

Through his Word and wisdom He created the universe, for by his Word the heavens were established, and by his Spirit all their array.  His wisdom is supreme.  God by wisdom founded the earth, by understanding he arranged the heavens, by his knowledge the depths broke forth and the clouds poured out the dew.

Saint Theophilus of Antioch, bishop

If you understand this, 

and live in purity and holiness and justice, 

you may see God.  

But, before all, 

faith and the fear of God 

must take the first place in your heart, 

and then you will understand all this.  

When you have laid aside mortality and been clothed in immortality, then you will see God according to your merits.  God and then, once made immortal, you will see the immortal One, if you believe in Him now.




Taken from The Liturgy of the Hours

Examine your Conscience in the Presence of God

AN ACT OF MERCY - PRAYERS FOR THE DYING

 

Three Very Beautiful Prayers
 For Dying Souls
An ancient Christian writer wrote that, "of all divine things, the most divine is to share with God in the saving of souls."
The following Prayers are very useful to a dying person, and should be prayed often as an act of mercy. First, where these prayers originated.
There once was a Pope in Rome who was surrounded by many sins.  The Lord God struck him with a fatal illness.  When he say that he was dying he summoned Cardinals, Bishops and learned persons and said to them: "My dear friend!  What comfort can you give me now that I must die, and when I deserve eternal damnation for my sins?"  No one answered him.  One of them a pious curate named John, said: Father, why do you doubt the Mercy of God?"  The Pope replied: "What comfort can you give me now that I must die and fear that I'll be damned for my sins?"  John replied: "I'll read three prayers over you: I hope, you'll be comforted and that you'll obtain Mercy from God."  The Pope was unable to say more.  The curate and all those present knelt and said an Our Father, the then following prayers:
1.       Lord Jesus Christ!   Thou Son of God and Son of the Virgin Mary, God and Man, Thou Who in fear sweated blood for us on the Mount of Olives in  order to bring peace, and to offer Thy Most Holy Death to God Thy Heavenly Father for the salvation of this dying person...If it be, however, that by his sins he merits eternal damnation, then may it be deflected from      him.  This, O Eternal Father through Our Lord Jesus Christ, They Dear Son, Who liveth and reigneth in union with The Holy Spirit now and forever.  Amen
 
2.       Lord Jesus Christ!  Thou Who meekly  died on the trunk of the Cross for us, submitting Thy Will completely to Thy Heavenly Father in order to bring peace and to offer They most Holy Death to Thy Heavenly Father in order to free ....(this person)... and to hide from him what he has earned with his sins; grant this O Eternal Father!  Through Our Lord Jesus Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in union with the Holy Spirit now and forever.  Amen.
 
3.       Lord Jesus Christ!  Thou Who remained silent to speak through the mouths of the Prophets:  I have drawn Thee to me through Eternal Lord, which Lord drew Thee from Heaven into the body of the Virgin into the valley of this needful  world, which Love kept Thee 33 years in this world, and as a sign of Great Lord, Thous hast given Thy Holy Body as Teue Food and Thy Holy Blood as True Drink, as a sign of Great Love, Thous has consented to be a prisoner and to be led from one judge to another  and as a sign of Great Love Thous hast consented to be condemned to death, and hast consented to die and to be buried and truly risen, and appeared to Thy Holy Mother and all the Holy Apostles, and as a sign of Great Love Thou hast ascended, under Thy own Strength and Power, and sitteth at the Right Hand of God Thy Heavenly Father, and Thou has sent Thy Holy Spirit into the hearts of Thy Apostle and the hearts of all who hope and believe in Thee.  Through Thy Sign of Eternal Love, open Heaven today and take this dying person …  and all his sins into the Realm of Thy Heavenly Father, that he may reign with Thee now and forever . Amen
Meanwhile the Pope died.  The curate persevered to the third hour, then the Pope appeared to him in body and comforting  him; his countenance as brilliant as the sun, his clothes as white as snow, and he said: “My  dear brother!   Whereas I was supposed to be a child of damnation I’ve become a child of happiness.  As you recited the first Prayer many of my sins fell from me as rain from Heaven, and as you recited the second Prayer I was purified, as a goldsmith purifies gold  in a hot fire.  I was still further purified as you recited the third Prayer.  Then I saw Heaven open and the Lord Jesus standing on the Right Hand of God the Father Who said to me, “Come, all thy sins are forgiven thee, you’ll be and remain in the Realm of My Father forever.  Amen!
With these words my soul separated from my body and the Angels of God led it to Eternal Joy.
As the curate heard this he said, “O Holy Father, I can’t tell these things to anyone, for they won’t believe me.”  Then the Pope said:  “Truly I tell thee, the Angel of God stands with me and has written the prayers in letters of gold for the consolement of all sinners.  If a person had committed  all the sins in the world, but that the three Prayers shall have been read (over him) at his end (death), all his sins will be forgiven him, even though his soul was supposed to suffer until the Last Judgement, it will be redeemed (freed).
The person who hears them read, he won’t die un unhappy death, also in whose house they will be read.  Thereford take these prayers and carry them into St. Peter’s Basilica and lay them in the Chapel named the Assumption of Mary, for certain consolation.  The person who will be near death, who reads them or hears them read gains 400 years indulgence for the days he was supposed to suffer in Purgatory because of his guilt.  Also who reads this Prayer or hears it read, the hour of his death shall be revealed to him. Amen

 
 

Conscience & God's Scrutiny

Whoever I may be Lord, 

I lie exposed to your scrutiny

From the Confessions of Saint Augustine, Bishop

Lord, you know me.  Let me know you.  Let me come to know you even as I am known. You are the strength of  my soul; enter it and make it a place suitable for your dwelling, a possession without spot or blemish.  This is my hope and the reason I speak.  I this hope I rejoice, when I rejoice rightly.  As for the other things of this life, the less they deserve tears, the more likely will they be lamented; and the more they deserve tears, the less likely will men sorrow for them.  For behold, you have loved the truth, because the one who does what is true enters into the light.  I wish to do this truth before you alone by praising you, and before a multitude of witnesses by writing of you.

O Lord, the depths of a man’s conscience lie exposed before your eyes.  Could anything remain hidden in me, even though I did not want to confess it to you?  In that case I would only be hiding you from myself, not myself from you.  But now my sighs are sufficient evidence that I am displeased with myself; that you are my light and source of my joy; that you are loved and desired.  I am thoroughly ashamed of myself; I have renounced myself and chosen you, recognizing that I can please neither you nor myself unless you enable me to do so.

Whoever I may be, Lord, I lie exposed to your scrutiny.  I have already told of the profit I gain when I confess to you.  And I do not make my confession with bodily words, bodily speech, but with the words of my soul and the cry of my mind which you hear and understand.  When I am wicked, my confession to you is an expression of displeasure with myself.  But when I do good, it consists in not attributing this goodness to myself.  For you, O lord, bless the just man, but first you justify the wicked.  And so I make my confession before you in silence, and yet not in silence.  My voice is silent, but my heart cries out.

Your, O Lord, are my judge.  For though no one knows a man’s innermost self except the man’s own spirit within him, yet there is something in a man which even his own spirit does not know.  But you know all of him, for you have made him.  As for me, I despise myself in your sight, knowing that I am but dust and ashes; yet I know something of you that I do not know of myself.

True, we see now indistinctly as in a mirror, but not yet face to face.  Therefore, so long as I am in exile from you, I am more present  to myself than to you.  Yet do I know that you cannot be overcome, while I am uncertain which temptations I can resist and which I cannot.  Nevertheless, I have hope, because you are faithful and do not allow us to be tempted beyond our endurance, but along with the temptation you give us the means to withstand it.

I will confess, therefore, what I know of myself, and also what I do not know.  The knowledge that I have of myself, I possess because you have enlightened me; while the knowledge of myself that I do not yet possess will not be mine until my darkness shall be made as the noonday sun before you face.

Act of Contrition Prayer -- Sorrow for Sins