I was reading a book the other day about the secrets to a
successful, long-lasting and happy marriage.
It’s amazing that after centuries of people coming together
in matrimony there are still, apparently, secrets that we do not know about on
how to make our marriages happy and successful.
I read with some trepidation and curiosity in order to
discover what else I have to learn on the subject.
It seems that the first steps in choosing a partner for life
are the most important ones. Marriage is not to be entered into too lightly and
one must be careful with whom we pledge to spend the rest of our lives – come
sunshine, rain or snow. It is imperative at the outset to decide who will clear
the path when the snow is feet deep and blocking your way out.
Love, mutual respect, patience and understanding are
obviously very important in a marriage. But just as essential is the fact that
one of the spouses should be slightly deaf – preferably the husband.
The choice of spouse is vital not only for reasons of
compatibility, shared interests, hopes, values and aspirations. It seems that
the occupation and profession of one’s partner plays a major role in the
longevity and success of the union.
Statistics prove beyond doubt that archaeologists make the
best marriage partners. The older you get the more interested they are in you.
It is of course inevitable that in any marriage arguments
will occur sometimes out of the blue and on the most absurd and un-important subjects.
The trick is not so much on how to win an argument; if this was at all
possible, but to avoid getting into one in the first place.
It’s not a question of capitulating and giving way in the
first instance, but choosing which argument is important enough to defend as a
matter of principle and which is not worth losing privileges for.
The question of principles is worth dwelling on for a moment
or two. Don’t just have one unbreakable principle which you will uphold at the
cost of your marriage, happiness, and future livelihood. Be generous. Have
plenty of principles; and if one doesn’t work out for you choose another one.
No one who is anyone has ever succeeded by having just one principle.
The book also has a chapter about mutual interests and doing
things together as a couple which both marriage partners can enjoy.
Now, doing heavy work together like changing the engine oil
in the car, tuning the engine, changing the tires and other mechanical tasks
may be ideal for certain couples; but personally I’d rather sit back and admire
her handiwork and praise her every now and then. Besides, I hate it when the
engine oil and dirt gets under my fingernails. It’s a devil of a job to clean
when I’m at the manicurist.
In a chapter specifically for men, the book states that
women like to be re-assured frequently that they are loved and cherished. Frequently
the words “I love you” are not heard as often after the honeymoon, or are used
as a pretext to wanting something, like watching the football on TV.
The book suggests that the husband writes down the words “I
love you” on a piece of paper which the wife can refer to as often as needed in
future. Laminating the piece of paper will ensure its durability, especially if
it is the size of a credit card so it can be easily carried in one’s purse or
handbag. Drawing a heart, or a flower, (before laminating), will also ensure a
successful purpose.
So there you have it … a few secrets to a long, happy and
successful marriage. Now where’s my dinner?
My Australian Aunt Gertrude who has been staying with us for
a while is a really peculiar person; and it has nothing to do with her age or the
fact that some elderly people can be eccentric or odd.
Ever since I have known her she has been that way,
apparently. I remember as a child hearing my parents saying that she is very
tight-fisted when it comes to spending money; and if she were ever mugged she’d
convince the mugger to give her his wallet.
This attitude, and others, have manifested themselves since
we’ve renewed her acquaintance after so many years of living apart since she
emigrated to Australia
all those years ago.
For example, not that we’re expecting any gifts from her,
let me explain and emphasize … but her choice of welcoming gifts has been
“economically eccentric” not to put too fine a point.
She brought the children bags of Australian boiled sweets …
and one packet was open because she needed something for a dry throat whilst on
the plane.
When I met her at the airport she came towards me holding a
can of Foster’s amber nectar; one of the best things to come out of Australia.
I was delighted at the prospect of such a generous gift … turned out it was her
lunch.
What she actually gave me was a book on how to make your own
boomerang. Well, I exaggerate; it’s not a book but in fact a ten-page pamphlet.
Every time I threw the book away it came back.
The first time I left it semi-deliberately on the sofa so
that the dog would pick it up to play and destroy it. It was retrieved and put
on my bedside table for safety.
The second time I left it outside in the garden in the hope
that it would just fly away. Again it found its way to the bedside table.
I finally put it in the waste paper basket and was told this
is insensitive and that I should keep it in case some day, when I’m old and
retired, I might want to make a boomerang for the grand-children. What an
unlikely prospect!
Another example of her meanness was portrayed in church last
Sunday. During collection she put in £1 and took out some change from the
collection plate. She complained afterwards that she only managed to retrieve
85 pence whereas she wanted to collect 90.
Anyway, Aunt Gertrude’s peculiarities are not confined to
the not spending-money variety.
Our house faces a beautiful park leading to pleasant country
walks amongst the valleys and hills beyond. When Aunt Gertrude arrived we gave
her a front facing bedroom so she could see the beautiful views from her
window.
I got home the other day to find the largest pair of white
bloomers hanging out to dry from a makeshift rope out of her window. The
underwear was so big that it would have been used by Captain Cook as a sail for
his ship on its way to Australia.
Next to her pants was the largest bra I could ever imagine.
I was speechless … I mean … is this what they do in Australia?
Hang their under-washings out of the window for the whole world to see?
What would the neighbours think or say? It is bad enough the
way they look at me when I’m wearing my red tartan shirt, green trousers and
cowboy hat with a feather in it. Now they have the huge white under-garments as
an additional subject of conversation.
Fortunately, as I am not renowned for my diplomacy, I was
forbidden to mention the objectionable items, and a quiet word in her ears
quickly removed the clothing to the washing line in our back garden.
“Will the birds poo all over it in the back garden?”
enquired Auntie Gertrude.
“No … they only poo at the front,” I replied …
diplomatically of course.
For a few days Father Ignatius had been thinking over his conversation with Father Donald about the dream he had.
In the dream, St Peter asked Father Ignatius directly, ‘Have you done a good job of looking after Our Lord’s lambs and sheep?’
“What a challenge!” thought Father Ignatius, “St Peter himself asking me if I was a good priest!”
Jack lived a few yards down the road from St Vincent Church, just the other side of the Convent.
One Friday evening he was waiting outside the Fish and Chips Shop just opposite the church when Father Ignatius joined the queue.
“How are you keeping Jack?” he asked, “you look really miserable right now … just like a mile of bad road, I should say!”
“Hello Father …” mumbled Jack under his breath, “it’s a long story!”
“You’d better tell me about it … let’s move away from this queue …”
The two men left the queue and walked a few paces away from the shop.
“It’s this friend of mine …” Jack said hesitantly, “he’s over seventy years old, lives in Brintown, and he’s not too well. I think he’s dying. I spoke to the lady friend he lives with and she said the doctor is not holding much hope. I’ll go and see him tomorrow as I’m not working this weekend … I hope I get there in time …”
“I’ll pray for him Jack. I notice you said lady friend … is he not married then?”
“Oh … that’s another long story Father.” said Jack, “Many years ago, when he was thirty or so, he met this lady and fell in love with her. She was divorced and his priest would not marry them. In fact he argued the matter with the priest and the priest excommunicated him.
“I think he probably excommunicated her as well … I don’t know.
“Anyway, they’ve lived together ever since … that’s about forty years. I don’t know if they ever got married in the Civil Court.
“But the man kept faithful to the ban imposed on him. He didn’t move to another church and take Communion there, even though they moved town several times. In fact I believe he never set foot in another church ever since that day!”
“We’d better go and see them then …” said the priest.
“What now … it’s five o’clock. It will take us two hours to get to Brintown!”
“The sooner we start the better,” replied Father Ignatius, “you go to my office and phone them from there. I’ll get the car ready!”
Moments later Father Ignatius was driving up the highway as fast as the speed limit allowed.
They arrived just after 7:30 that evening. Father Ignatius went to see the old man in his bedroom whilst Jack stayed with the old lady in the front room.
They could hear talk, and sometimes laughter from the bedroom. The priest stayed there for a while. He heard the old man’s Confession and gave him Holy Communion. Then they chatted away about the past … the old man had spent some time in Italy, not far from where Father Ignatius studied for the priesthood, so they talked about Italy and all the places they visited whilst there.
Eventually the priest came out and asked Jack to go and stay with the old man.
He heard the old lady’s Confession and gave her Holy Communion.
Father Ignatius and Jack set off back home at about 10:45 that evening. In the car, on the way to St Vincent, Jack said, “Thank you Father … being with you is like being with Jesus!”
“Don’t ever say that,” replied the priest, “no one can possibly be like Jesus!”
For days on end the house was full of excitement because “Aunt Gertrude is coming! Aunt Gertrude is coming!”
I can’t understand all the fuss myself; since no one has met Aunt Gertrude and the last time I saw her was millions of years ago in the Jurassic era I believe.
Sure, the old fossil does keep in touch, once a year, when she sends a re-cycled Christmas card which someone else has sent her. Yes, I mean it … a re-cycled Christmas card! She sticks a piece of paper on the card where previous well-wishers have written and then she writes her Yuletide Greetings. We often peel off the paper carefully and guess who originally sent her the card!
She has always been very tightfisted as I remember. So miserly that she looks at you from on top of her spectacles so as not to wear out the lenses!
Anyway … this distant relative, (she lives in Australia), whom no one has ever met except me has decided to visit us. Apparently her husband, a successful business man, had planned a business trip to the UK before he died suddenly, and she did not want to waste the airline ticket!
As soon as he was underground she was over ground and flying.
And I was tasked to go and meet her in the airport. I took the day off work and left early to get there on time. I waited endlessly in the reception area and eventually my eyes set upon the much awaited relative from down under.
She walked very slowly and carried a small case in her hand. I offered to carry it for her and she refused holding it tightly to her chest. We waited for the rest of her luggage which I loaded onto a trolley and then into my car.
No sooner had we left the airport that she started complaining. “Why do you drive so slow?” she asked, “where I come from we walk faster than that!”
I smiled politely, looked at her from the rear view mirror and said: “There’s a speed restriction area up front. Road works I believe!”
“Why do they have to fix the roads at inconvenient times and near a busy airport? Why can’t they fix them elsewhere?”
I must admit I had no good answer to this one. Why indeed do they fix the roads near the airport and not the ones in a desert somewhere, in the middle of a jungle or up a mountain? How inconsiderate of these road mending people!
“Do you live far?” was her next question.
“It’s about an hour away, I’m afraid!” I replied hesitantly.
“You should consider moving nearer the airport.” she retorted quickly, “it would be more considerate when you have visitors from abroad.”
Once again, she was right of course. We should all leave our place of employment locally, and where the schools are close to hand, and move near the busy airport on the off-chance that our distant relative, (not distant enough right now), might one day in a lifetime get hold of a spare airline ticket and choose to use it rather than attempt to get a reduced refund.
I remained silent and then started to panic as I saw the traffic build up right ahead. There had been an accident and we soon came to a stop on the highway.
“Are we there yet?” she asked.
“No!”
“Why have we stopped then?”
“There’s been an accident. The police is re-directing us another way.”
“Not many accidents in Australia.” she claimed, “My husband drove for fifty years and never had an accident. Except once! When he reversed on Aristotle, the cat! Didn’t like him anyway … the cat. Didn’t like my husband much either …”
I said nothing and left the highway slowly as directed by the police.
A few minutes later my cell-phone rang. I stopped the car to answer it.
“Where are you? Why have you not picked up Aunt Gertrude from the airport?”
It took a few seconds for my slow brain to realize what I had done. I’d picked the wrong aunt from the airport!
How was I to know? She wore spectacles. She walked slowly. She looked old … she WAS old! She looked Australian, she spoke in an Australian accent and came off an Australian plane!
Was I to check her identity in her passport double-locked in her hand bag held tightly against her chest?
Why is it always my fault when everything goes wrong?
That evening I opened my Bible and read: “Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name; you are mine.” Isaiah 43: 1-5.
I bet He knows the right Aunt Gertrude better than me!
Joy of joys !!! At last, you've made it. God has seen it fit for you to deserve Heaven. An eternity with Him. You are so glad, more than you've ever been your entire life.
You look around and meet old friends and relatives who have made it here too. You greet them with a tear in your eye - a tear of joy as well as a little sadness when you remember how you missed them and cried when they were gone!
You renew old acquaintances as well as make new ones as you meet the Saints you've read so much about but had never met.
Then you realise someone is missing.
A relative, or friend, whom you'd expected to see here is missing. You ask St Peter and he confirms your suspicion. That person is not here.
Is he in transit? In the Purification Center we call Purgatory, perhaps?
No ... he is ... in the other place.
Your joy turns to sadness, confusion, despair even. How can it be? You so expected to be with that person in Heaven for eternity.
What do you do?
Seek an explanation from God? Perhaps there's been a mistake! Ask Him to re-consider. Plead with Him even? Beg that this person is brought up to Heaven?
Has that person's absence tarnished your joy of being in Heaven? Changed your view of God's justice and mercy?
How can you possibly be here in Heaven for ever, knowing full well that a dear loved one is in the other place and will never join you?
On the Cross Jesus forgave those who dared to inflict so much suffering and death to the Son of God. What more heinous sin could your relative or friend have committed to deserve an eternity in hell?
Your human sense of justice; and your understanding and perspective of forgiveness and mercy would like things to be different and, no matter what that person has done in life, you wish him here with you in Heaven.
But God does not work like that. His perspective is not a human perspective. He decided otherwise.
In Luke 16:19-31 we read that the rich man in "the other place" pleaded that his brothers may not join him there. But his pleadings were met with the response that each person makes his or her own decisions in life, and by their actions they choose whether to go to Heaven or not.
No one goes to hell by mistake. We choose to go there. And many, by their actions, are sleep-walking their way to hell.
The time for action and prayers is now.
And yet ... what if we're one day in Heaven and our loved one is not there? What then?
Father
Francis Maple is an occasional guest writer on this Blog. He lives in
England and has recently celebrated his 50th Anniversary as a priest. He
re-visited the Church where he was ordained and this is his homily
which will hopefully inspire someone somewhere to consider joining the
priesthood.
Welcome
everyone! I would like to welcome particularly Bishop George of Kerala in
India who just happens to be passing through Bedford and has asked to concelebrate Mass with
us this morning. I would like to thank my family and parishioners for
coming today to celebrate and help me thank God for being His priest for 50
years.
On the day of my
ordination I gave my mother my memorial card. She read it. I also
gave her the memorial card of another priest who was ordained with me the same
day. Very gently my Mum said, “Son, I wish you had written on your card
what he had written.” He wrote, “I thank the Lord for choosing me to be
His priest. I wrote on mine, “I thank the Lord for the gift of the
priesthood.” Mum was right, his was more personal.
I am standing
here today because I owe my vocation to my saintly parents. I think of
them today and thank God for the parents He gave me.
HOMILY
I invited Canon
Seamus Keenan, the parish priest, to say these words. He declined saying,
“I am sure your family would like to hear you speak. So if you don’t like
what I have to say, you know whom to blame!”
Every priest,
like St. Matthias whose feast we keep today, is chosen by Christ. No
priest can say, “I chose to be a priest.” Rather it is Jesus who says, “I
chose you.” It is Jesus who leads us to the priesthood in different ways.
The majority of
priests come from good Catholic homes. I was blessed with saintly
parents. I was one of twelve children, eight girls and four boys.
If God had called all of us to be priests and nuns I am sure my Dad and Mum
would have been extremely happy. That says something about the holiness
of my parents. One girl became a nun and one boy a priest. The rest
married and I can proudly say that not one lapsed and all happily
married. We owe this to the strong faith of our parents and the good
example they gave us.
We owe so much
to our ancestors. One day when I was a deacon, well on the way to the
priesthood, my grandmother said to me, “Do you know Marcy God is calling you to
be a priest. It will be you who will lead us all to Heaven.” I
said, “Mamma, please don’t place that responsibility on my shoulders.
What inspired me
to be a priest? It was hearing my father say, “If one of my sons becomes
a priest it will be the happiest day of my life.” I think I was about six
at the time, but those words made a deep impression on me that I, who loved my
Dad so much, was going to be the one who would bring about the happiest day of
his life. Someone could make the case that my motive wasn’t the right
one, but it was God who eventually channelled that motive to please Him first
before pleasing my father.
Now what sort of
priest was I going to be? A strange circumstance in life brought this
about. I was now eight years old, an altar server in a Corpus Christi procession in New Delhi. There I was a young lad of eight,
with a huge quiff of hair like Elvis Presley, carrying a lighted candle.
I could hear a burning noise. Suddenly from nowhere a Capuchin priest
rushed over to me and started patting my head. The candle I carried had
set my hair on fire. There was a bald patch there for a few weeks.
That priest was Fr. Luke. I got to like him and decided when I grew up I
would become a priest like him, wearing a brown habit, a black beard and a pair
of sandals.
It was now my
ninth birthday, and on our birthdays, our father used to tell us to go the
priest and get his blessing. I was shy at that time and I didn’t want to
do it, but you could not say no to Dad. It was to Fr. Luke I went.
When I told him my Dad had sent me to get his blessing as it was my birthday,
he said, “Fancy that! It’s my birthday too!” So he was the one who
inspired me to be a Capuchin friar and priest.
Fifty years ago
on 31 March 1963 I said my first Mass in this Church. Sadly my
father had died two years before I was ordained a priest. He did not see
me a priest, but knew I was well on the road to becoming one. My mother
and all my family were present at my ordination and first Mass. Canon Anthony Hulme was the parish
priest at that time; also present were Fr. Tom McConville from Northern Ireland, who served for many years as a curate
here and for whom I had great respect and Fr. Tony Philpot a fellow altar
server of mine in this church. I remember that day so well.
I can’t believe
that 50 years has gone by since that day. A man wrote to me the other day
congratulating me on being a priest for 50 years. He said, “How many
people’s lives as a priest have you touched in those 50 years?” It made
me wonder and start to think. At all stages of people’s lives a priest is
there to administer to all their needs. I would love to know how many
babies I have baptised and set on the road leading to Heaven. Several
times as a hospital chaplain I was called out in the early hours of a morning
to baptise babies weighing just over 2 lbs. One of these babies lives in Chester. He is now 14 and comes regularly
to me for Confession.
Then there is
the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. In 50 years every priest would give
as much a million Holy Communions. What an honour that is.
A bishop is the
ordinary minister of the Sacrament of Confirmation, but one Pentecost day I was
privileged to administer this Sacrament to 62 children. The week before
the parish priest was due to confirm these children he broke his leg and he
asked me if I would confirm them.
On average every
year I hear 900 confessions. That means in 50 years I have heard 45.000
confessions. I can recall the happiness I have brought to many people by
hearing their confessions. Only recently I heard the confession of a lady
whose marriage had broken down, she remarried outside the church. Her
husband died and after being away from confession for nearly forty years she
made her confession to me. She told me, “I can’t describe the joy and
peace you have given me by going to confession. I shed tears of joy
throughout the whole of Mass and when you placed the consecrated host on my
hand I just wanted to gaze at It forever.”
Here is another
story about a confession I heard as a young priest. The doorbell of the
confessional rang. I entered the confessional. By the sounds on the
other side of the confessional I knew it was an old person who was the
penitent. She began, “Father, I don’t know where to begin. The last
time I went to confession was the day before my wedding when I was 18 and now I
am 82.” All I could say to her was, “Congratulations! It must have
been very hard for you to come here.” She replied, “If only you knew how
many years I have just wanted to do this!” After her confession her
daughter who had brought her to church rang our doorbell and told me, “Father,
you will never know how happy you have made my mother. May I bring my
mother, who is house bound, along again to confession to you outside the
appointed hours of hearing confession.” I told her, “Bring her along any
time. That’s what we are here for.” I could tell you dozen of
stories of this nature where through this sacrament people have experienced the
peace of Christ. No doubt those people have now died and I feel sure are
in heaven. They are there because it was that moment of their turning
back to the Lord and hearing from my lips those wonderful words, “And I absolve
you from your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit.”
Countless times
I have administered the Sacrament of the Sick. I remember the occasion I
was visiting the sick in hospital. I don’t know what made me to be drawn
to this particular man lying in a bed. I never even knew he was a
Catholic. We chatted. It turned out he was a Catholic, married
outside the Church and had left the church for years. He told me he had
just days to live. I encouraged him to make his peace with God. He
accepted my invitation. The result was that I heard his confession,
regularised his marriage and administered the Sacrament of the dying and in two
weeks’ time gave him a Catholic burial. I wish I could convey to you the
happiness I brought to him, his wife and his family. What a wonderful way
God has in using His priests to bring the lost sheep back into His fold.
How can I ever thank God for that honour?
A priest doesn’t
administer the Sacrament of Matrimony. It is the husband and wife who do
so. The priest is the chief witness of the church. I like doing
marriages. They are happy family occasions. I like to make it
personal by singing two songs, one for the bride on behalf of the bridegroom
and the other for the bridegroom on behalf of the bride. I know how much
these songs are appreciated. I wonder how many children those marriages
have produced because you were the priest who helped to tie the knot. I
shall never forget the first wedding at which I ever officiated. It was
that of my younger sister Francesca. She told her husband Gordon of happy
memory, “We are not going to get married until my brother is a priest and he
will marry us.” And they were married in this church.
What is the
chief duty of a priest? It is to offer sacrifice. Every morning as
he stands at the altar he takes bread into his hands and holds the chalice of
wine and says over them those beautiful words, “This is My Body…This is My
Blood”. At that solemn moment he performs the greatest miracle that takes
place in our world every day, when bread and wine are changed into the risen
Lord Jesus. On behalf of the church he offers this sacrifice of Jesus to
God the Father for the salvation of the world. Is there any greater thing
a human person can do? Is there any greater power and honour God can
confer upon a man? How can a sinful man ever thank God for
bestowing such a gift upon him? It is now that I can appreciate the words
of my father, “The day one of my sons becomes a priest will be the happiest day
of my life.”
Singing has a
played an important and enjoyable part of my life. How pleased I am to
relate to you the fact that I sing a pro-Life song called “Cry from the heart”
and as far as I know that song has influenced at least twenty two mothers who
were contemplating abortion not to have one. In fact the twenty second
life it saved was a boy of ten who wrote to me. He said, “Father Francis,
I want to thank you for that song, ‘Cry from the heart’. My mother was
about to abort me when she heard it and said, ‘I can’t do it.’ And
because of that I am living today. I can’t thank you enough.”
Every priest
must be very near to the heart of Our Blessed Lady, the mother of the High
Priest Jesus. I would like to thank her for all the love and care she has
given to me over these fifty years and I would like to place the rest of my
life in her hands. I long for the day to be in heaven and embraced by our
loving mother.
The Golden
Jubilee of a priest is what we are celebrating today. I thank all of you,
but particularly my family, for coming to celebrate this occasion and helping
me to thank God for the many graces he has bestowed on me the last 50 years of
my life. I thank Canon Seamus Keenan for allowing this happy event to
take place in his Church. May God reward you all.
There I was face to
face with St Peter. He looked at his computer monitor and said. “Yep …
your credentials are OK. You’ve made it. Welcome to Heaven!”
I smiled silently.
“We like our
guests to be very comfortable here” continued the Saint, “and not feel
too disoriented from where they come from. So you’re allowed to go back
to earth for a short period and bring with you three items from down
there which will help make you more comfortable up here.
“I have to enter them on the computer … so, what will they be?”
I stopped and
thought for a few moments. Three items … what could I bring from earth
which will make my eternity here more pleasant … as if that were
possible.
I saw him smile at that last thought.
Perhaps I could bring my MP3 player with all my music collection … that would be nice.
He frowned a
little and was about to type when I added … “Oh … it’s got Latin hymns
on it too …” He said nothing and I saw him type in the reflection of his spectacles.
Perhaps I could also bring my DVD collection of all those movies I never had time to see …
He interrupted
my thoughts by saying, “Whilst you’re thinking about this can I also
tell you that you can bring three people from down there to share Heaven
with you. Who will they be?”
“Three people?” I thought, “but I know more than three people whom I’d love to see in Heaven for eternity.
“My wife … my
children, my extended family, my friends, and all my Blogging friends
whom I’ve ‘met’ through the Internet. There’s many more than just three
people I’d like here with me.
“But … but …
their lives are so inter-dependent. If I bring my wife here, who will
look after the children left behind? And is it right and fair to bring
young children here before they’ve had a chance to live life? How about
my extended family … I can’t bring one and leave the others behind? This is so unfair!”
“Sit down,”
said the Saint sternly, “you think it is unfair because you see things
through human perspective. You analyze and measure things your way;
often in a possessive manner.
“You say things like my wife, my children, my parents and my friends … as if these people belong to you.
“No one and nothing belongs to anybody and everything belongs to God.
“God gave life and only He decides when it ends and whether people come here or … the other place.
“You humans
often complain when a young life is taken or when someone leaves
dependents behind with seemingly no one to care for them.
“You forget
that God is there to care for them, and He leaves plenty of
opportunities for those people left behind to take on the task He has
set them.
“Everyone has his allotted time on earth, and whilst there, their main job is
to do God's will so that when their turn comes to leave earth they end up here! You understand?”
I nodded meekly.
“Now tell me,” he continued with a smile, “which Latin hymns do you have in your collection?”
“Not everyone who calls me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do what my Father in Heaven wants them to do.” Matthew 7:21.