Miraculous Medal

So today is the feast of the Miraculous Medal in some Churches. I remember when I was new to the faith I bought a Miraculous Medal and wore it to Church one day. I thought to myself in my bouts of despair that God would not allow one who wore His Blessed Mother's Medal to go to Hell. And then the first Sunday I went to Church while wearing the medal I had my vision and was frightened and I never wore a Miraculous Medal regularly again.

The vision was an interesting event in my life. Though I am no saint, I can claim a vision from God, or perhaps a hallucination. I have talked about it before. Quickly, while at the Latin Mass, at the moment of the elevation of the host, as the server was ringing the bells, I saw the host glow like a light bulb very brightly and felt interiorly like dirt, nothingness, evil, vile, as if I was possessed by a thousand devils and the devils were manifesting themselves before the presence of God. It was a very important moment in my life. But I still do not wear a Miraculous Medal though I am no longer terrified of them.

I carry a Miraculous Medal in my wallet now. It is embedded in a prayer card to Gemma, a little one, I got from a Passionist Monastery. O Mary Conceived Without Sin, Pray For Us Who Have Recourse To Thee.

I wonder if I am a good person. I don't do a lot of things. I think of God a lot and I like going to Church, but I am not doing many things. I am not a missionary or a crusader. I do think of God. The heroes were the men who fled to the desert and ate rocks and thought of God, coming to Church once in a while or receiving visiting priests to give them the sacraments. They did not Do much either. But their prayers were of great value. I do not have a lot of interaction with other people, and as a crazy person, I am not a man of eminence. I am a little person.

I follow people on the internet and some of them seem good. But who can one trust? Anyone? Would not all truth-speakers be banned from the internet? Are there not algorithms used by Google and Facebook to suppress all truth and only allow errors of various degrees? And if truth is stated it must be expunged (unless it is used as bait to lure the youth into other greater errors)? As we live in a world full of the snares of the devil only the innocent and humble can be saved. Only the humble will find truth. Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God.

Do you want to be innocent?

Sometimes I feel as if I am the only sane man left in the world. Or one of a few. I have temperence for some of the people I know from Church, but everyone else is crazy. Knowing of my own limitations I wonder if everyone is crazy or if they are just evil or afraid. We live in a world of snares. If Abba Anthony saw all the snares and wondered who can be saved with all those snares, how would it look today if we could see as Anthony saw? If the answer is still humility, the power of humility must be greater now that the snares are multiplied. Do we need more grace today than in previous times? Life is not more difficult, but human respect is far stronger, and people do not want to believe. Everyone says to you, do not believe and I will give you fruit and we take the fruit and are glad, but at night we die and find out that the fruit we took was poison.

Do you want to be innocent?