Monday 17 January 2022

 Predestination

It was in the Borstal that I heard for the first time about that German monk who dared to challenge Rome and the entire Catholic Church.

From what is seen, he was an individual with very clear ideas and a strong character. Today it could be said of him that he had high self-esteem.

If I put aside — which is a lot to put aside — the treatment he gave to the Jews, the figure of Luder has been a recurring image in my mind in recent years and it´s helping me to understand some things.

In my adolescence I was able to understand that this monk was against the wealth of the princes of the Catholic Church — something that Mike and I shared —, but that of the salvation of our souls only with faith escaped me. What happened then? That a person, whatever he does, if he fully trusts that God has noticed him, will meet with the 'righteous' and live eternally enjoying the goods promised by the Maker?

This didn´t enter my head. It's the truth. Nor was it a matter of discussing it with Mike because he was not a mate of staying focused on the same topic for too long. He was my friend, I know, but if my intellect is short, his was even shorter.

And I say this because for some time now I am coming across examples that could support the theory of the first Protestant. I have realized that when someone dies, in the circle of those closest to them, mistakes or vices that the deceased may have committed are not taken into account, but that there will always be a kind of forgiveness in their family and closest friends, clean slate, settling in all of them the desire to justify the life of the missing person.

On the other hand, there will be people who, having known the subject in question first-hand, will remember the swindles that the deceased committed and will lower him, at least, to the scoundrel that he was in life.

In both cases, family and acquaintances, act as mediators of the Supreme and grant, or not, their 'grace'.

From my Borstal.

LDR