Thursday, September 1, 2022

Our Sad Abandonment of the Souls of the Unborn

Baptism is the ordinary means of salvation so if anyone is saved without baptism, it is extraordinary. God can save whomever He wills, but we can not be presumptuous and should pray for all the dead. From Crisis:

Assuring someone that “your baby is in Heaven!” is proclaiming as knowledge the unknowable. It seems so pastoral, but does it not scream, “Abortion? No problem!”? Should we not, instead, never cease to pray for the souls of those who have gone before, born or unborn, so as to assist with the grace needed to accept salvation, to escape the lure of the liar, to choose eternal life; to exercise their primary attribute—free will—yet one last time? Is this not the most proper penance of the repentant abortive mother or father? To pray unceasingly for the soul cast aside? To pray for a holy outcome to that soul’s final choice between living in love forever or embracing a spiritual death of eternal fear and loathing? 

It will be said that one’s personal judgment comes instantaneously in the moments after death, and if we did not pray then, our opportunity has been lost. However, eternity is outside of time, and as St. Augustine suggested, God may well apply graces across the span of time as He sees fit. No prayer is ever wasted. If you ask for a fish, God will not hand you a snake. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Read more.)

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