Anger worketh not Justice

Dear friend,

I started praying two days ago that God would free both you and me from the cardinal sins. I hope you don't backslide as much as I do. Can you backslide in Purgatory? I don't know. I don't what you experience, or how you experience it. I don't know whether you are in time or out of time, and if you are in time, whether time there has anything to do with time here. I think not. But I don't know. In the depths of my ignorance, not only do I pray for you, but I presume to offer you advice, as if I had more experience with the afterlife than you, and then I post the advice, as if you were staying someplace with high speed internet access. Silly me. You didn't bother reading this blog even when you were living the next town over.

Still, I will continue to pray, to hope, and to offer a one-man Greek chorus of commentary on your salvation. Maybe one day we can talk about whether this made any sense. I even hold onto the hope that you can somehow hear me urging you on, or sense a connection and know that you are loved. Through Christ we are connected. Though Him I say to you: grow, be more than you were; lovely as that was, you were flawed. Christ can make you whole. I pray that God will bless you abundantly.

Yesterday's epistle at the TLM was from St. James:

Dearly beloved, Every best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change nor shadow of alteration. For of His own will hath He begotten us by the word of truth, that we might be some beginning of His creature. You know, my dearest brethren. And let every man be swift to hear but slow to speak and slow to anger. For the anger of man worketh not the justice of God. Wherefore, casting away all uncleanness and abundance of naughtiness, with meekness receive the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

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Saint Peter Celestine, pray for us, that we may be freed from all shadow of anger and resentment.

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My atheist, always-opinionated, almost-always-angry brother comes in and sits a few feet from me while I am writing the above, and instantly I am annoyed. I don't want him to see what I am writing. He starts playing a commercial on his computer, and I get more annoyed. He goes away and I am relieved. He comes back, starts pounding on his keyboard, and tapping on the table, and I can't concentrate. I never want to speak to him, which is unkind. I am far from self-mastery and holiness.

Saint Pudentiana, pray for us, that we may learn patience and acquire peaceful hearts.

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O God, who makest the faithful to be of one mind and will: grant to Thy people to love that which Thou dost command and to desire that which Thou dost promise, that amid [and beyond] the changes of the world, our hearts may there be fixed where true joys are to be found. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, throughout all the ages of ages. Amen.