Dear Father Angelo,

I write to tell you my story in brief and to ask for an answer to my doubts.

I am a young man who has always believed in God, however, until a few months ago I never really gave much importance to religion but then, after reading an article on God, I felt my religious fervor rekindled.

At the beginning I had decided (despite having a Catholic baptism) to keep me away from the catechism of the Church because I believed that it taught doctrines not present in the Bible (a little like the concept of sola scriptura of the Protestants) and I decided to interpret the Bible myself in ways that I thought were more correct or by selecting others’ ideas that I thought were more right.

At first everything went well but I realized soon that (or at least in my case) being “priests of themselves” is a bad way to live religion which often causes uncertainties and paranoia.

In the end, after reading some writings of a famous mystic whose name I do not mention, I was convinced that the Catholic Church was the true Church of Christ and, after a rather difficult conversion, I confessed, I sought answers to my many questions and recently I have also started praying daily 5 Rosary mysteries.

The questions (quite different from each other) I wanted to ask you are as follows: 

1. Since I started to follow religion seriously again, I think practically always about God etc.. This does not give me difficulty in thinking about my duties or anything but it is as if, besides what I am thinking at that moment, I always had this fixed nail (God) in my head.

This often makes me feel good but not rarely also causes me discomfort and a lot of anguish.

Please do not think that it is the thought of God that annoys me (as I said before it makes me feel good too) but rather it is the fact of having constantly “in background” His thought in particular because it always makes me think that after death there will be a judgment for me and for all those I care about, which will decide where we will stay for eternity or much more simply because at that moment I would like to think completely about something else.

I tried to express my discomfort in my prayers but every time I feel guilty because it seems to me in a sense to do something wrong to God or “drive him away”, even if this is not my intention.

What I want to ask you is: do I have to continue with these thoughts (which are good in themselves) or is it normal that I want to think about them at the right moments and think about something else during the rest of the day? How can I overcome this problem? 

2. I know well that to commit a mortal sin, it takes serious matter, full awareness and deliberate consent, however when I commit some sin potentially both venial and mortal or some objectively serious sin it often happens that I have serious difficulties in judging the level of severity, warning or awareness of the act at that moment and therefore I am almost always in doubt whether I have seriously offended God or not.

In these cases how can I give a fair judgment to my actions and avoid the scruples that perhaps come to me too often? 

3. Is there any prayer that is particularly effective to ask for sincere contrition or at least good attrition?

I also wanted to ask you if there is a prayer for the conversion of a loved one. I have many friends and relatives who are unfortunately atheists and have the vice of blasphemy and it causes me much pain to think that they risk being separated from the Lord forever.

I already ask these things in the rosary but I would like to know if there are other prayers that I can do.

4. Regarding devotions such as the prayer to the holy shoulder etc… that they promise to those who recite them that they will not be damned, that they will grant the requests of their devotees etc… how are they to be understood?

I have interpreted them in the sense that the devotees will receive all necessary graces to deserve eternal life but without the will to stop sinning at least mortally they are null and that you will get what you ask but not always in the form you want. Did I interpret their intention correctly?

5. It is said that the Church cannot say that a person is in hell for various reasons, including the fact that the secrets of the heart are known only by God.

Does this mean that, for example, a person who at the time of death has only venial sins can go to hell because his heart is not worthy for some reason?

Finally I wanted to ask you why some private revelations do not agree with each other.

Please excuse the large number of questions and any grammatical errors. 

I ask you to answer me at your own pace, when you have time because I know that the questions that come to you every day are many and I imagine that you also have a lot of commitments.

In the meantime, I thank you in advance if you decide to answer me and, hoping that my prayers are pleasing to God, I shall remember you in my next prayer.

Greetings 

The priest’s answer

Dear friend

I was able to check today your long and beautiful mail and I gladly answer all your questions, not without having made a consideration about what you wrote at the beginning.

1. I am glad for your new faith. The Lord has used those He wanted to bring you to him.

You said that you felt the religious fervor fire as you read an article about God.

The Lord was waiting for you. As you read, He stood before you, He warmed your heart and increased your desire to know him, to love him and to possess him.

It is an experience you will not forget. I hope that the Lord will renew it incessantly.

It is an experience similar to that of the disciples of Emmaus. After having recognized the risen Lord, they said to each other: “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?” (Lk 24,32). 

The daily recitation of the Holy Rosary that now accompanies you is the most beautiful sign of your conversion. It is a moment when the Lord comes to you. If you recite it with fervor, you always feel the fire.

You quote a mystic person whose name you don’t mention. Obviously I do not pronounce, but one of the most certain signs of the orthodoxy of his writings is precisely that of instilling love to the Church that Christ gave us as mother and guide.

Now I come to your questions.

2. About the first you write: “Since I started to follow religion seriously again I think practically always of God”.

For me this is one of the most beautiful graces you have received.

God said to all through Abraham, our father in faith: “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless” (Gn 17,1).

Walking before God means standing in his presence: with feet on the ground and with the heart turned to the Lord.

Being in the presence of God is the secret to succeed intact in everything. It is the same thing as succeeding well in the exercise of every virtue.

3. The saints were always in the presence of God. This was their study and highest aspiration.

When in the confessional I hear a person who accuses himself saying: “I have not always been in the presence of God” between me and myself I say: “Oh, finally a person who lives his faith well”.

Saint Catherine of Siena spoke of faith as a new pupil that God places in the eye of our intelligence so that we can see everything in his light and in his presence.

When we look with our material eyes, we always exercise the pupil because, without it, we could not see.

Well, we must do the same thing with the pupil of the most holy faith, as Saint Catherine called it.

It allows us to see and evaluate all things and every event with the rule of a higher light, of supernatural order.

Therefore, do not be afraid that the presence of God will accompany you at all times.

Keep this grace. On the contrary, ask the Lord to increase it more and more, especially since it is a grace that ignites you with love for the eternal health of your neighbor.

4. For the second question: no extraordinary warning or voluntary action is required to judge the seriousness of an act.

The light with which we ordinarily carry out our duty is sufficient.

If you have doubts, openly expose them to the priest confessor and then stand by his directions.

In this way you avoid tormenting your soul or making it the victim of scruples.

Obedience and peace (oboedientia et pax) was the binomial that Pope John XXIII liked very much.

He also wanted to put it in the cartouche under his episcopal and papal coat of arms.

5. You ask me if there is a prayer for the grace of repentance.

Well, I do not find better than the prayer of the Holy Rosary because in that prayer Jesus Christ makes himself present in the various events of his life and puts into our hands the infinite merits that he has provided us with those events.

Recite the Holy Rosary to obtain the grace of repentance and conversion of your family members or some particular person.

It has been rightly said that after the Holy Mass there is no prayer that brings more graces from heaven than the Holy Rosary.

6. If you want to strengthen your prayer, sign up also to the brotherhood of the Holy Rosary, so you can benefit from the prayers of merits of all the great family of San Domenico, especially the most beautiful portion, that is in heaven.

You can read about this on our website at the following link: It is worth to join the confraternities of the Rosary because of the benefits that are received in life, in death and after death. There’s everything to gain and nothing to lose.

But since you ask for other prayers, you can recite the little crown of the divine mercy taught by Our Lord to Saint Faustina Kowalska.

And since Our Lady is mediator of all graces, even repentance and conversion, you could also recite the Dominican litanies, which you can find on our site. They are very powerful.

7. About the fourth question: we are certain to obtain everything from the Lord if we ask him for something, as he himself said (cf. Jn 16:23).

Saint Thomas says that if we ask only for goods of a material order it is as if we asked him nothing.

We begin to ask him something if we ask for goods of material order in view of goods of supernatural order.

The Lord always answers our prayers for supernatural goods, such as the virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Saint Thomas adds that God is greatly honored if we ask him for very great things. What is greater than holiness, the grace of conversion, repentance?

8. For the fifth question: if a person dies having only venial sins, he is in the grace of God. And because God sees in the depths of his heart, this person cannot go to hell.

His safe destination is heaven, after purgatory.

9. About the last question which concerns the descriptions of paradise made by some saints.

Well, as long as we are here, no one can see heaven in itself.

Heaven consists in the beatific vision of God.

Now, only Jesus had it from the first moment of his existence. Because he was God, his human intelligence united with the nature and divine person of Jesus could see God.

We mortals, on the other hand, can only see heaven through images imprinted in our inner senses.

These are, as we say in theology, so-called imaginative visions.

An example of the imaginative vision of heaven was left us by Saint John in the Apocalypse, who sees it as a city with twelve foundations, with walls, etc.

But heaven, as such, being a reality of spiritual order has neither foundations nor walls. No one can see it except through a sensitive representation effected by angelic ministry.

This is the reason for the differences in the representations of heaven. They do not touch in any way its substance, but only the way to be represented in a sensitive form.

Thank you for your prayer for me. It was certainly pleasing to God because He himself suggested that you should pray. “For God is the one who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work” (Phil 2:13).

With this very same faith I gladly assure it also for you.

I wish you well and bless you.

Father Angelo

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