Our Blessed Lord’s Lament on the coldness of souls to Saint Gemma Galgani

From the biography of Saint Gemma Galgani by Venerable Father Germanus, CP, her spiritual director, a lamentation from Our Lord Jesus Christ from one of Saint Gemma’s many ecstasies/apparitions on the coldness of so many souls, especially those who call themselves Catholic.  As I read the below, I thought how much Our Lord’s laments could apply to me. This is not a bad basis for some examination of conscience:

Some days ago I had scarcely received Jesus in Holy Communion when He asked me this question: “Tell Me, My child, dost thou love Me greatly?”  What could I answer?  But my heart answered Him by its throbbing.  “If thou lovest Me,” He rejoined, “thou wilt do whatever I want of thee.”  And then sighing, He exclaimed: “What ingratitude and malice there is in the world!  Sinners continue pertinaciously to live in crime. Weak and heartless souls will not do themselves violence to overcome the flesh.  Those in tribulation lose courage and despair.  Indifference keeps increasing daily, and no one amends. [And this was over a century ago, in Italy!  What must Our Blessed Lord think of us now, in this country, where we murder thousands of babies daily and permit the greatest perversion to be called “marriage!”]  I cease not to dispense heavenly graces and favors to all My creatures: life and light to My Church, virtue and strength to him who rules it, wisdom to those who direct souls that are in darkness, constancy and fortitude to whose who have to follow Me, graces of every kind to all the just. I send My light into the dark dens of sinners and even there soften their hearts, doing all I can to convert them. But notwithstanding all that, what do I ever gain?  What correspondence do I ever find in My creatures whom I have loved so much?  No one any longer cares for My Heart and for My Love. I am forgotten as though I had never loved them, and as though I had never suffered for them.  My Heart is always in sadness. I am left almost alone in My churches. If many assemble there, it is for other motives than worship, and I have to suffer the pain of seeing My House become a theater of amusement. [How often do totally inappropriate acts take place in actual churches, not in the hall, but in the nave and sanctuary!  While this may be a “private” revelation, dare we ignore it?  Should this not cause some reconsideration for what kinds of activities are allowed to go on inside churches, like pagan dances as we see below?] Many, through hypocrisy, betray Me by sacrilegious Communions.  I can bear no more!”

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And I am afraid I must ask, not to excuse myself in any way, but for those who have not had the benefit of more solid formation, what does all the irreverence, indifference, and sacrilege that goes on in so many parishes every during Mass do to the beliefs, the faith (such as it may be), to those exposed to things like this:

And I can tell you this priest has been corrected and yet persists in his worldly desacralization of what should be the most solemn, sacred act of his priesthood.

Oh but the people like it, don’t you see!  Yes, and the “people” might one day enjoy seeing priests turned into flaming torches or the sacrifice of virgins on the altar.  Shall we go along with that, too?

Forgive us, Lord. I shall try to do better. I shall try to join Bishop Slattery’s Novena of abstinence in reparation for ALL the sacrilege and evil that goes on all the time in our nation, and also to atone for the insult to Your Great Name in the planned “black mess.”  Have mercy on us!  Have mercy on me!  Help us to please You through prayer and penance, to make up, at least to some small degree, for the great heaving black cauldron that is the world today and all the affronts to Your Infinite Majesty.