Love - Not Money - Is The Key To Heaven

The love that opens the gates of Heaven is a pure love.  Pure love is a non-possessive love, a love that does not soil another person's image; rather it is the soil that fertilizes a person's Free Will and nurtures it with prayer and care, and kindness of heart, so that Free Will could gradually grow in beauty and strength necessary to defend itself from the grotesque and powerful temptations of Satan and will its way toward a patient, forgiving, loving and expectant Father Who is our Creator.

In order for man to comprehend fully pure love, he has to surrender his heart to God just as the Blessed Virgin Mary surrendered hers willingly and perfectly without reservation.  That is an impossibility for we, unlike the Blessed Virgin Mary, are tainted with Original Sin whereas She is without Original Sin. [1]  The fact that we could never fully comprehend pure love does not mean that we are incapable to comprehend a part of it, to the best that we are able to given our unique graces, granted to each of us by God individually, despite our common limitation of Sin.

I believe that the more we indulge in the discovery and exercise of pure love, the more we are able to expand our understanding of it, the more we are able to cast its fertile soil far and wide, and that by our example and our words of sincerity, the hearts and souls that are still parched by the empty promises of today's "golden calf" [2] -- worthless pieces of currency paper signifying the collective debt of a bankrupt people -- would be quenched by the salvific blood of Christ.

However worthless such pieces of paper are to the salvation of souls, people around the world are still eating and drinking and indulging in revelry around their "value" just as the Jews of Exodus ate and drank and got up to indulge in revelry around their golden calf. [3]

More iniquitous than worshiping money is the belief that throwing it at the poor, wherever they are around the world, will bring donors salvation. [4]  It may have the effect of relieving the pains of poverty by the recipients and the pains of guilt by the donors temporarily.  However, this relief is not permanent, not for the benefactors, not for the beneficiaries.  What emerges afterward is the reality that existed before.  Nothing much in fact changes, and nothing will change until love reigns, love that is pure, non-possessive and unconditional.  It is the giving of such love that will unlock the gates of Heaven, love that is rooted in prayer and care and kindness of heart, to those around us. [6], [7]



[1] The Latin words I use to end my Salve Regina in describing the Blessed Virgin Mary are: O clemens, O pia, O dulcis, O sanctissima, inviolata, intemerata, O pulcherimma.  See http://lemomentdepaix.blogspot.com/2013/08/salve-regina-hail-holy-queen.html
[2] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+32
[3] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exod%2032:2-Exod%2032:6
[4] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+25%3A33-46&version=ESV  In this passage, line 40 (Matthew 25:40) states, in part, "as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."  "A difficult and important question is the identification of these least brothers.  Are they all people who have suffered hunger, thirst, etc. (35,36) or a particular group of such sufferers?  Scholars are divided in their responses and arguments can be made for either side.  But leaving aside the problems of what the traditional material that Matthew edited may have meant, it seems that a stronger case can be made for the view that in the evangelist's sense the sufferers are Christians, probably Christians missionaries whose sufferings were brought upon them by their preaching of the gospel." [Emphasis original]  [5]   I agree.  It would be unreasonable that Christ expected the world's poor be fed, quenched, clothed and housed including those who might be full of hate, bitterness and thanklessness despite all the good they have been given, including the gift of life.  In fact, Christ said, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God."  See http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+6%3A20&version=NIV  Christ did not say: "Blessed are the poor, you are my brother, even if you reject God, and you have to do nothing but ask the world that you be fed, quenched, clothed and housed for yours is the kingdom of God."  But that seems to be what the Catholic priests and popes are demanding these days, social justice and equality for all, without regard for the preciousness of life, no matter how difficult, and every person's capacity to love, no matter how destitute, because so many of these religious live indulgent lives that they feel so guilty that they have to demand that those less fortunate be fed, quenched, clothed and housed just like them, except most of them do not do it themselves.  Instead, they sit on their thrones and ask others to do what they should be doing themselves, become the least of Jesus' brothers.  Perhaps they think that by asking people to give to the poor and by delegating their work to care for the impoverished to others would be enough to cleanse them of their guilt for taking the vow of poverty, living in conditions and having the kinds of power that the poor they advocate so passionately for could never hope to have.  I just hope that for every true follower of San Francesco d'Assisi among them hundreds of hypocrites would be forgiven and reach Purgatory.
[5] The Catholic Study Bible: The New American Bible. Donald Senior, gen. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Print.
[6] It is far more difficult to express such love to the homeless around us, those who are near us, who know us, who wants to prey on us, who are hateful toward us, who want to take advantage of our goodness than to provide care to the very poor in this world great distances from where we live with whom we do not have a personal relationship.
[7] When we are able to give this kind of love, it is important that we do not allow it to mutate and become possessive or conditional.  It is equally important to step away humbly, gently but firmly from those attracted to such purity and wishing to contaminate it or hating you for it.