Author: Jocelyn Soriano

See her books like "Questions to God", "Mend My Broken Heart", "To Love an Invisible God", "Defending My Catholic Faith", "Of Waves and Butterflies: Poems on Grief" and more - click here.

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(You may freely quote excerpts from this website as long as due credit is given to author Jocelyn Soriano and the website itakeoffthemask.com)

Categories
Spirituality

Is God unjust to send people to hell?

Many people accuse God of being unjust

for sending people to hell

for all eternity.

Consider however these two things:

1.  It is not God who sends people to hell, but people who refuse God’s Mercy and wishes to proudly exalt themselves for all eternity.  After being enlightened of everything they need to know in order to decide, will they change their minds at all after they render their eternal choice?  Will they choose God above themselves?  Will they choose true Love instead of human wisdom and pride?

2.  Which God will be unjust?  The One who after a definite time shall separate the darkness from the Light?  Or the One who will forever choose to mingle the Light with the darkness that is not His?

Much of the suffering of people on earth is due to the dual nature of things upon this life.  Light and darkness, day and night, good and evil.  It is here where the good suffer for the evil things those of the darkness persist in doing.  Will a just God forever allow that the good suffer for the evil they have not done?

Haven’t you wondered then that out of all the evil things the current world has done, it has not yet reaped the frightening recompense it deserves?  Whence shall the day of Justice come at all?  In truth I say that this world has not yet suffered what it deserves only by virtue of God’s Mercy, and by virtue of God allowing the time for this duality of things to exist until the intended harvest is ripe.  In truth I say, it is by virtue of the suffering of the good that the evil in this world has not yet been exterminated.  Were it not for such, those living in darkness would have long ago received what they deserved.

Categories
Best Life Quotes

Difference between Loving Oneself and Being Loved

There’s a whole world of a difference between knowing that you love yourself and in knowing that you are loved.  In the end, it is Jesus who spells the difference.

Categories
Words of Wisdom

Where There is No True Religion There are No True Virtues

For though the soul may seem to rule the body admirably, and the reason the vices, if the soul and reason do not themselves obey God, as God has commanded them to serve Him, they have no proper authority over the body and the vices. For what kind of mistress of the body and the vices can that mind be which is ignorant of the true God, and which, instead of being subject to His authority, is prostituted to the corrupting influences of the most vicious demons? It is for this reason that the virtues which it seems to itself to possess, and by which it restrains the body and the vices that it may obtain and keep what it desires, are rather vices than virtues so long as there is no reference to God in the matter. For although some suppose that virtues which have a reference only to themselves, and are desired only on their own account, are yet true and genuine virtues, the fact is that even then they are inflated with pride, and are therefore to be reckoned vices rather than virtues. For as that which gives life to the flesh is not derived from flesh, but is above it, so that which gives blessed life to man is not derived from man, but is something above him; and what I say of man is true of every celestial power and virtue whatsoever.

-CITY OF GOD, ST. Augustine

Categories
Self-Development

Failed expectations

What ails your heart, O, woman
and what ails your heart, O, man
expectations
that could not be met
needs that could not be satisfied
Did you think that by finding each other,
you could claim back your joy
in the garden of eden?
Did you think that by having found
each other,
you could reunite with your lost half
and finally be complete?
Nay, I say unto you,
for it is not each other that you have lost in the garden
and it is not each half that could
complete your empty soul
It is God’s presence that you have lost
and it is only in God
where you can find your bliss
once more.

Categories
city of God

Can We Have Peace in This Lifetime?

But the peace which is peculiar to ourselves we enjoy now with God by faith, and shall hereafter enjoy eternally with Him by sight. But the peace which we enjoy in this life, whether common to all or peculiar to ourselves, is rather the solace of our misery than the positive enjoyment of felicity. Our very righteousness, too, though true in so far as it has respect to the true good, is yet in this life of such a kind that it consists rather in the remission of sins than in the perfecting of virtues. Witness the prayer of the whole city of God in its pilgrim state, for it cries to God by the mouth of all its members, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”1306 And this prayer is efficacious not for those whose faith is “without works and dead,”1307 but for those whose faith “worketh by love.”1308 For as reason, though subjected to God, is yet “pressed down by the corruptible body,”1309 so long as it is in this mortal condition, it has not perfect authority over vice, and therefore this prayer is needed by the righteous. For though it exercises authority, the vices do not submit without a struggle. For however well one maintains the conflict, and however thoroughly he has subdued these enemies, there steals in some evil thing, which, if it does not find ready expression in act, slips out by the lips, or insinuates itself into the thought; and therefore his peace is not full so long as he is at war with his vices. For it is a doubtful conflict he wages with those that resist, and his victory over those that are defeated is not secure, but full of anxiety and effort. Amidst these temptations, therefore, of all which it has been summarily said in the divine oracles, “Is not human life upon earth a temptation?”1310 who but a proud man can presume that he so lives that he has no need to say to God, “Forgive us our debts?” And such a man is not great, but swollen and puffed up with vanity, and is justly resisted by Him who abundantly gives grace to the humble. Whence it is said, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.”1311 In this, then, consists the righteousness of a man, that he submit himself to God, his body to his soul, and his vices, even when they rebel, to his reason, which either defeats or at least resists them; and also that he beg from God grace to do his duty,1312 and the pardon of his sins, and that he render to God thanks for all the blessings he receives. But, in that final peace to which all our righteousness has reference, and for the sake of which it is maintained, as our nature shall enjoy a sound immortality and incorruption, and shall have no more vices, and as we shall experience no resistance either from ourselves or from others, it will not be necessary that reason should rule vices which no longer exist, but God shall rule the man, and the soul shall rule the body, with a sweetness and facility 420
suitable to the felicity of a life which is done with bondage. And this condition shall there be eternal, and we shall be assured of its eternity; and thus the peace of this blessedness and the blessedness of this peace shall be the supreme good.
-CITY OF GOD, St. Augustine