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Note: For related correspondance with of some members of the family, see Mr. Olivier Moreau, and Mr. Jean-Sébastien Trudel, as well as the letter to Cardinal Marc Ouellet.
On my web site, I rarely remove a text. It's even more rare that I re-post a text I've removed. This text has probably been removed and re-posted three times, so that gives you an idea.
I put it back (for the time being!) for the following reasons:
- What it describes is true, to the best of my knowledge.
- The situation it describes is very frequent in Quebec these days, and many Catholics are confronted with similar family situations.
- Several persons have told me this text touched them.
- If I try to condemn evil, I must condemn it everywhere I think I see it, not just in my enemies.
Some persons have told me that, in this text, "you send your own sister to Hell!". That's false. First, it's probably a heresy to claim to know who is, and who is not in Hell. Second, I pray for my sister twice a day, something I wouldn't do if I was convinced all was lost.
Dear Agathe,
Eleven days ago, your mother Elizabeth Jetchick died of cancer. It's hard to lose your mother when you are only thirteen. Everybody loved her, our "Zaza"! But then, why didn't I come neither to the ceremonies, nor to the burial of my own sister?
Was it because I didn't love your mother? No. You know I came several times to Ottawa to help Elizabeth. Maybe you also know that when you, your father Laurent and I walked into Elizabeth's hospital room, and found her dead, I kneeled on the floor by your mother's side and I said an "Our Father", and then I made a sign of the Cross on her forehead saying "In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit", exactly like your grandmother Marie-José used to do, when she would put Elizabeth to bed when she was small.
No, it is not because of a lack of love that I refused to come. It was to avoid causing a scandal by participating in a group hypocrisy and a collective lie.
Am I crazy? In a way, I really hope so, because that would mean that there never was a "group hypocrisy and collective lie". Anyway, if you don't agree with what I'm going to say, take this letter not as an attempt to hurt you, but as a cry for help.
Maybe you don't know what a "scandal" is. Imagine there is a huge hole outside, and that all people who fall into it are killed. If you saw this hole before everybody else, you would surely put one of those "orange cones" in front, so people would avoid it. I know you would never do this Agathe, but if you removed the "orange cone" and hid the hole with dead leaves, in order to cause more people to fall into it, then we would say that you were a "cause of scandal". In other words, you would be encouraging people to hurt and even kill themselves. You can see that a scandal is something very, very bad!
But then, how can somebody help other persons fall and even die, simply by going inside a church and burying somebody in a cemetery?
To understand this, Agathe, you need to know that men are not like dogs, cats, or ants. Men have a spiritual soul, created immediately by God at the moment of conception, and this soul never ceases to exist. When our body dies, our soul goes either to Heaven, to Purgatory or to Hell. Going to Heaven is fun and enjoyable, because we are with God and the saints, and we are perfectly happy for eternity. Going to Hell is not fun at all, because we are separated from God and all the people we love, and we burn in fire forever. Going to Hell is like falling into the hole I was talking about to explain scandals.
To fall into a hole, you have to trip, but to fall into Hell, you have to commit what is called a "mortal sin". To understand what is a sin, you can read a little essay on Morality. But believe me, a "mortal" sin is a sin that is serious enough to kill the life of God's grace in our soul.
But then, what is this group hypocrisy and collective lie? What I'm now going to say is hard, but as far as I can see it is true. Agathe, long before your mother's body was killed by the cancer that was gnawing at her brain, I think the life of God's grace in Elizabeth's soul was being choked by certain members of my family. In other words, your mother was in a way subjected to a spiritual euthanasia, long before her heart stopped beating.
Does "spiritual euthanasia" pertain to Criminal Law? No, of course, we're talking here about a concept of Catholic Theology [Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 88, a. 1].
I sincerely believe these members of my family acted not out of malice, but out of ignorance. But my conscience tells me that if I had participated in the ceremonies and the burial of your mother without saying a word, it would have been like if I had removed the "orange cone" and hidden the hole with dead leaves.
How can one contribute to committing a "spiritual euthanasia"? There are many ways, but I'll limit myself to just a few here:
1) Mocking the Catholic Religion. Tell me Agathe, have you ever heard good things about Catholicism, said by members of my family? Have you ever been given any courses on the Catholic religion? Have you heard of Jesus, the Pope, the Eucharist, the Virgin Mary?
2) Not condemning unmarried cohabitation. For somebody baptized (and your mother was baptized), living in a non-marital relationship is living in a state of continual mortal sin. But dying in a state of mortal sin means that Jesus tells us on our last day: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" [Matthew, 25, 41]. How many members of my family condemned this situation?
3) Not condemning a civil union for a Catholic. For a Catholic, getting married elsewhere than in the Church, even if the marriage is done according to civil law, is nothing more than a shameful and harmful unmarried cohabitation [Denzinger, #2991].
4) Not getting your child baptized. The Church knows no other way than Baptism to give children certain access to Heaven, and getting your child baptized is a serious obligation. [Denzinger # 4671-4673]. A Catholic mother who doesn't get her child baptized is committing a serious sin.
5) Discouraging someone to prepare for death. Six months before Elizabeth died, we knew that barring a miracle she was going to die. Her cancer was of an aggressive type, and nothing in medical science could cure her, according to the most authorized sources [Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, 14th Edition, p. 2400]. Was your mother encouraged to prepare for death in a Christian way? Or on the contrary, was everything done to distract her from the most important moment of her life? You know as well as I do that death surprised Elizabeth like a "robber in the night" [Lk 12:39-40].
6) Discouraging someone to receive the Last Sacraments. The Catholic Church has powerful medications at its disposal for the soul, and it is the duty of the family to encourage a person in danger of death to receive the Last Sacraments [CCC, #2299]. Agathe, if you knew the insults and threats I had to put up with when I came to tell your mother to receive the Last Sacraments!
7) Turning someone away from the Catholic Mass. Your uncle Barry was the first one to find a ceremony for your mother after her death. He organized a Catholic Mass at the beautiful Saint-Patrick's Basilica in Ottawa. Not only did some members of my family encourage your father to refuse this Mass, but they even refused to advertise it in the newspaper, preferring for your mother a mock-ceremony in a church that isn't even Christian (the Unitarian Church).
The death of your mother isn't funny, Agathe, but there was one thing that almost made me laugh: the apparent hypocrisy of certain members of my family. These people are the ones who howl in anger and scream in protest when they read the seven paragraphs above. People who have a bad opinion of the Catholic Religion. Nevertheless, these people are the ones who insisted the most to bury Elizabeth in a Catholic cemetery! It is as if people buried their dead in a Nazi cemetery, while openly condemning anti-Semitism! Their position appears quite incoherent to me.
I can understand quite well that there are people who reject the teachings of the Catholic Church. We are in a free country, and people can adore God the way they see fit (given of course that the common good is protected). On the other hand, even if a person is not a Catholic, that person still has to avoid hypocrisy and lies. Why? Because the love of truth is the indispensable prerequisite to find God. If we don't hate lies, we are in a hole, and we'll never be able to climb out of it.
Agathe, your mother was subjected to a spiritual euthanasia. You might only be thirteen years old, but you are old enough to understand that this is not a good thing.
Agathe, show this letter to the members of Elizabeth's family, and ask them questions. You have the right to get answers.
Throw down a challenge. Ask them if they are Catholics. Explain to them that to be a Catholic, you need more than a Baptismal Certificate, you need to believe everything that the Holy Catholic Church teaches and believes. If they are Catholic, ask them why they didn't do anything to help Elizabeth prepare for death in a Christian way. Ask them why they never talk about their religion. Ask them why they don't profess their faith publicly.
And if these people tell you they are not Catholics, then ask them why they don't send a letter to the Bishop to tell him in writing they reject their Catholic faith? That would be an honest thing to do. Did you see tombstones for protestants or Jehovah's Witnesses in the cemetery where your mother was buried? No, because those people had the courage to tell what they thought was the truth. They are not buried in a Catholic cemetery, but they are buried in truth and honesty, and God will take that into account on Judgment Day.
God loves you Agathe, and God wants you to do the whole family a favour. Go put an "orange cone" in front of the hole.
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