 | Father Richard James Cleary was born and reared in Wichita. After graduation from Cathedral High School in 1947, he attended the seminary operated by the Benedictine monks of Conception Abbey in Northwestern Missouri. There he came to appreciate the life of the monks and, having obtained the permission of Bishop Mark Carroll of Wichita, he became a monk of that monastery. After being ordained a priest in 1955, his superiors sent him to get his master’s degree at the University of Ottawa, Canada, then to study in Athens, Greece, and then in Rome, Italy, where he obtained his doctor’s degree in Theology. Finally, he spent a year of study at Harvard University. Later, Fr. Cleary was assigned to teach for many years in Rome. In 1998, he returned to Wichita, where he served in parish ministry at St. Mary’s Cathedral and at Blessed Sacrament parishes. In 2001, his abbot (superior) transferred him to Arkansas, where he served as chaplain of the Benedictine Sisters of Holy Angels Convent in Jonesboro, and helped in the parishes of northeast Arkansas. In March 2010, he was re-assigned to his monastery, Conception Abbey, Conception, in Missouri 64433. He can be contacted there at, 660-944-2877, or by email: rjcleary@juno.com. |
Religion
2012-08-29 14:05:47
How many people are saved?
A- Only God knows who and how many persons go to hell! God gives to each person a free will, with which he/she is able to choose good or evil, right or wrong; and in the end each will be judged by God for the choices they have made. Then each will receive the reward appropriate to his/her behavior in this life. That final judgment and reward depends ultimately on the final choice made by the individual person. All other choices in this life are a preparation for that one final determinate choice, on which will depend our salvation or our damnation.
God sees and knows everything, even our most secret thoughts and desires as well as all our actions. God is merciful, but also most just. He wills that all peoples be saved and enjoy the rewards for virtue. But God will not force any human will! He gives us Commandments and holy guides and good examples and warnings and the helps of his grace; but he will not force anyone to come to him.
God even sent his only Son, in the person of Jesus Christ, to teach and suffer and die and rise from the dead: in order to draw human beings to freely choose what is good. But if, nonetheless, someone
freely chooses to ignore God and his helps, then that person will go to hell, separated from God and every consolation for all eternity.
The words of Our Lord cited above serve as a warning. That warning is itself a help to persuade humans to use their free will in a manner pleasing to God. But, as Jesus observed, there are many who choose to ignore God and his commandments, choosing instead to pursue their own selfish interests and even to harm their neighbors. There are many who prefer the creature to the Creator. Such preferences and choices prepare them to make as their ultimate choice: the slippery wide road to hell. Those persons hope there is no God, or that there is no hell, or that God is so merciful that all persons go to heaven. They will find out too-late how mistaken they have been, how foolish they are: to have blown their opportunity to be happy forever in heaven.
God is absolute Justice! If God were to admit into heaven those who in this life have freely chosen evil and die unrepentant, then God would not be just, and his Word would not be true, and his Commandments would be empty words. God’s mercy is so great that He is willing to grant salvation even to persons, who have ignored Him during their life, but are truly repentant before they die. Only those who die unrepentant for their sins go to hell. But many persons neglect to repent before death catches them unaware and unprepared, and they make that final bad choice, which sends them to hell.
Because we don’t know just when we will die, whether we will have a long or short life, whether we will be granted time to repent our sins, it behooves every one to be always prepared for that critical moment of death. This is why many persons freely choose to live the Commandments of God, to follow the teachings of Jesus, to practice all the virtues, to never harm their neighbor, and to maintain through this life habits of prayer and communion with God: so that their final choice will be easy: as they pass through the small door and narrow path into heaven.
