Rx: Examine Your Soul 2X Daily!
Day 19/40: Ch. 4 in 'The Art of Dying Well' by St. Robert Bellarmine
"What advice do you give to teach us to watch as we ought, and by watching to prepare for a good death?" Nothing more useful occurs to me, than for us frequently and seriously to examine our conscience, that so we may prepare for death… What of those who sin while dying, or die in sin, as they do who engage in an unjust war, or in a duel, or are killed in the act of adultery?
Prudently to avoid these and other like misfortunes, nothing can be imagined more useful than for those who value their salvation, twice every day, morning and night, diligently to examine their conscience; what they have done during the night, or the preceding day; what they have said, desired, or thought of, in which sin may have entered; and if they shall discover anything mortal (deadly sin or mortal sin), let them not defer seeking the remedy of true contrition, with a resolution to approach the sacrament of penance on the very first opportunity.
Let them ask of God the gift of contrition (godly sorrow)! Let them ponder on the enormity of sin! Let them detest their sins from their heart, and seriously ask themselves who is the "offended and the offenders." Man, a worm, offends God the Almighty; a base slave, the Lord of heaven and earth! Spare not then your tears, nor cease to strike your breast: in fine, make a firm resolution never more to offend God, never more to irritate the best of Fathers. If this examination be continued morning and night, or at least once in the day, it can scarcely happen that we shall die in sin, or mad, or delirious. Thus it will be, that every preparation being made for a good death, neither its uncertainty will trouble us, nor the happiness of eternal life fail us.” (Bellarmine concludes chapter 4).
Bellarmine reminds us that we should treat everyday like an examination before Christ so that we will be prepared for our final examination before Him after we die. St. Paul speaks of our own ‘particular judgement’ in 2 Corinthians 5:10, “For all of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil.”
Of course, all of us fails and constantly needs His grace. This is why we are in need of daily repentance and turning to Him. If we do this, we are less likely to shipwreck our faith as the Apostle Paul describes in his letters such as 1 Timothy 1:18-20,
18 I am giving you these instructions, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies made earlier about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, 19 having faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have suffered shipwreck in the faith; 20 among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have turned over to Satan, so that they may learn not to blaspheme.”
What does it mean to ‘shipwreck’ your faith? It means to commit apostasy, which can occur in the 3 different ways:
Formal Apostasy: Simply stated, a person stops believing in the real Jesus and historic, orthodox Christianity, and they go through formal channels to publicly renounce Christ. This tends to be a bit more rare though it is growing in popularity as some people actually go through a ‘de-baptism.’
Intellectual Apostasy: A person may not formally renounce the faith, but they do drift away and embrace other ideologies that are not Christian or wild distortions of it such as religious relativism or heresy. This is much more popular today. Relativism generally means that you do not believe absolute truth exists or if it does, you cannot really know it or access it. Examples: Everything is relative! Do what works for you! This is ‘my truth’ and you have your truth.
Moral Apostasy: A person embraces and persists in a state of deadly, mortal sin, and rejects the conviction of the Holy Spirit to repent. (i.e ‘If King David refused to repent after his adultery, murder, and organized corruption of God’s people). The Apostle John states that being in the state of deadly sin is possible. (See 1 John 5:16-17, “If you see your brother or sister committing what is not a mortal sin, you will ask, and God will give life to such a one—to those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin that is mortal… All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not mortal.”)
If we continually cling to Christ, renew our minds on His Word, examine our conscience before His pure light (for Catholics & Orthodox, this would lead to confession with our pastor or spiritual father), we can be sure that we will not shipwreck our faith.
May His grace ever accompany you and your family this Lent!
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