We Did'nae Ken!

I have read on other blogs that clergy who preach heresy, or fail properly to teach the laity the truth about mortal sin and Hell, are endangering the souls of their flocks. I have thought and said the same myself.

I cannot, I am glad to say, maintain this position, because I cannot believe that God is less merciful than we are.

Would I condemn to eternal torment someone who had sinned in ignorance of the nature of what he had done? Of course not. Or condemn someone whose heretical beliefs had been taught him by a heretical Bishop, or Priest, or teacher? A thousand times, no!

Long ago I heard an old Scottish joke about a Calvinist minister's sermon:

It'll be no use crying out to the Lord on the terrible Day of Judgment, "Lord, we did'nae ken! We did'nae ken!" 

For the Lord, in His infinite Mercy and Compassion will look down on ye and say, "Ye ken the noo!"

If we are indeed made in God's image, then our better yearnings, such as love and compassion must be a pale reflection of His.

False Bishops and Priests, and other correctly formed Catholics may well be destined for Hell if they lie to the ignorant about the Faith, but not lost little people who have never had access to the Truth.

"Better a millstone...."

A Matter of Heroism and Honour: Some Rambling Thoughts

Last week, I stood awe-struck before the magnificent and beautiful monument to the heroes who fell at the battle of Thermopylae, and saved Greece, and ultimately Europe, from the horrors of Persian despotist and barbarity. Their epitaph, written by Simonides and recorded on the monument and in the Greek Anthology:

Ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.

My translation, humbly submitted as accurate and prodosically correct, but without pretension to being poetry:

Go tell the Lacedaimonians, passer-by
Obedient to their orders, here we lie.

Like the Spartans themselves, it is pithy, lapidary, terse, and has a certain dry humour.

And what did they die for? Not for the Greek gods, who were, morally, grossly inferior to their worshippers. The answer is simple: they fought and died for their honour, a pagan concept, perhaps, but none the worse for that. The duty of a Spartan was to win or die, and in the performance of this duty lay his honour. I cannot, will not, believe that to those who knew not God, or His Son, His mercy does not extend, for I cannot believe that God is less merciful and generous than His creatures. Those who fought for Country, Home, Family, and Hearth were following a prompting of nature as natural as hunger and thirst, and I hope to be worthy to meet them in Heaven.

If Honour is a mere figment of paganism, then so are Love, Friendship, Patriotism, Good Manners, Art, Music, Literature, and all that strives to make life more beautiful and harmonious in this vale of tears.