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Haydock Bible Commentary explains Luke 17: “Ver. 27. After having compared his second coming to lightning, in order to shew how sudden it will be, he next compares it to the days of Noe [Noah] and Lot, to shew that it will come when men least expect it; when, entirely forgetting his coming, they are solely occupied in the affairs of this world, in buying and selling, &c. He only mentions those faults which appear trivial, or rather none at all, (passing over the crimes of murder, theft, &c.) purposely to shew, that if God thus punishes merely the immoderate use of what is lawful, how will his vengeance fall upon what is in itself unlawful. (Ven. Bede) --- Ver. 32. As Lot only escaped destruction by leaving all things, and flying immediately to the mountain, whereas his wife, by shewing an affection for the things she had left, and looking back, perished; so those who, in the time of tribulation, forgetting the reward that awaits them in heaven, look back to the pleasures of this world, which the wicked enjoy, are sure to perish. (St. Ambrose)”

The amount of fools in this world who commit sexual sins inside and outside of marriage are innumerable. Sad to say, they could all have increased their chances of reaching Heaven by refusing to marry and indulging in their sinful sexual pleasure. But since their heart was set on earthly and perishable things, and they did not marry for an honorable and pure cause, God’s justice also demands that they shall perish with the dead and rotting bodies that they loved more than they loved Him; which was the filth and stinking treasure of their vile hearts. “Moreover, the Paedagogue [Instructor] warns us most distinctly: "Go not after thy lusts, and abstain from thine appetites [Sir. 18:30]; for wine and women will remove the wise; and he that cleaves to harlots will become more daring. Corruption and the worm shall inherit him [Sir. 19:2-3], and he shall be held up as public example to greater shame." And again—for he wearies not of doing good—"He who averts his eyes from pleasure crowns his life."” (St. Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, Book II, Chapter X)

Thus, Our Lord Jesus Christ’s teaching in The Gospel of Matthew shows us all that it’s impossible to love Him at the same time as a physical and temporal thing or pleasure without actually hating or despising Him in the process. (Matthew 6:21,24)

St. Alphonsus, on the damnation of the impure: “Continue, O fool, says St. Peter Damian (speaking to the unchaste), continue to gratify the flesh; for the day will come in which thy impurities will become as pitch in thy entrails, to increase and aggravate the torments of the flame which will burn thee in hell: ‘The day will come, yea rather the night, when thy lust shall be turned into pitch, to feed in thy bowels the everlasting fire.’” (Preparation for Death, p. 117)

Our Lord Jesus Christ is perfectly right when He said in Matthew 19:14 that “the kingdom of heaven is for such [children],” and one of the most distinguishing traits of children is that they are chaste and pure and free from all sexual temptations, until they reach the age of puberty. Whether married or unmarried, if one wants to enter “the Kingdom of Heaven,” one must do all in one’s power to try to imitate the virtue and chastity that is inherent in children. Not only children can reach this stage of chastity or purity (where one is not bothered by the stings and temptations of the flesh), but also those who manfully labor in fasts and prayers, taking care to avoid mortal and venial sins and to not commit any act that will tempt or incite their sexual desire, always refusing to see or look at anything that might disturb their chastity. “Brother Roger, a Franciscan of singular purity, being once asked why he was so reserved in his intercourse with women, replied, that when men avoid the occasions of sin, God preserves them; but when they expose themselves to danger, they are justly abandoned by the Lord, and easily fall into some grievous transgressions.” (St. Alphonsus, The True Spouse of Jesus Christ, Mortification of the Eyes, p. 221)

In truth, “the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away.” (Matthew 11:12) The words suffereth violence means that it is not to be obtained but by main force by using violence upon oneself by mortifications and penances, and by resisting our perverse inclinations. Too few, however, care anything about mortifications and penances, and that is also why the world and most of the members of the Church have been allowed to fall into such great immorality, apostasy and heresy that was unheard of before the twentieth century.

St. Alphonsus de Liguori, in his masterpiece “The Glories Of Mary” describes how we are to achieve Purity Of Heart, and how The Blessed Virgin Mary is a powerful helper for those who are struggling with sexual sin, and also On How to Avoid Sexual Sins: “St. Ambrose says, that "whoever has preserved chastity is an angel, and that he who has lost it is a devil." Our Lord assures us that those who are chaste become angels, "They shall be as the angels of God in heaven" (Matthew 22:30). But the impure, becomes as devils, hateful in the sight of God. St. Remigius used to say that the greater part of adults are lost by this vice. Seldom, as we have already said with St. Augustine, is a victory gained over this vice. But why? It is because the means by which it may be gained are seldom made use of.

“These means are three, according to Bellarmine and the masters of a spiritual life: fasting, the avoidance of dangerous occasions, and prayer.

“1. By fasting, is to be understood especially mortification of the eyes and of the appetite. Although our Blessed Lady was full of divine grace, yet she was so mortified in her eyes, that, according to St. Epiphanius and St. John Damascene, she always kept them cast down, and never fixed them on any one; and they say that from her very childhood her modesty was such, that it filled every one who saw her with astonishment. Hence St. Luke remarks, that, in going to visit St. Elizabeth, "she went with haste," (Luke 1:39) that she might be less seen in public. Philibert relates, that, as to her food, it was revealed to a hermit named Felix, that when a baby she only took milk once a day. St. Gregory of Tours affirms that throughout her life she fasted; and St. Bonaventure adds, "that Mary would never have found so much grace, had she not been most moderate in her food; for grace and gluttony cannot subsist together." In fine, Mary was mortified in all, so that of her it was said "my hands dropped with myrrh" (Canticle 5:5).

“2. The second means is to fly the occasions of sin: "He that is aware of the snares shall be secure" (Proverbs 11:15). Hence St. Philip Neri says, that, "in the war of the senses, cowards conquer:" that is to say those who fly from dangerous occasions. Mary fled as much as possible from the sight of men and therefore St. Luke remarks, that in going to visit St. Elizabeth, she went with haste into the hill country. An author observes that the Blessed Virgin left St. Elizabeth before St. John was born, as we learn from the same Gospel where it is said, "that Mary abode with her about three months, and she returned to her own house. Now Elizabeth’s full time of being delivered was come, and she brought forth a son" (Luke 1:56). And why did she not wait for this event? It was that she might avoid the conversations and visits which would accompany it.

“3. The third means is prayer. "And as I knew," said the wise man, "that I could not otherwise be continent except God gave it . . . I went to the Lord and besought Him" (Wisdom 8:21). The Blessed Virgin revealed to St. Elizabeth of Hungary, that she acquired no virtue without effort and continual prayer. St. John Damascene says, that Mary "is pure, a lover of purity." Hence she cannot endure those who are unchaste. But whoever has recourse to Her will certainly be delivered from this vice, if he only pronounces her name with confidence. The Venerable [Saint] John of Avila used to say, "that many have conquered more temptations by only having devotion to her Immaculate Conception."

“O Mary, O most pure dove, how many are now in hell on account of this vice! Sovereign Lady, obtain us the grace always to have recourse to thee in our temptations, and always to invoke thee, saying, "Mary, Mary, help us." Amen.” (From The Glories Of Mary, by St. Alphonsus de Liguori)

There is no marriage in Heaven according to the Gospel of Matthew

In the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 22, Jesus explains “that in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married; but shall be as the angels of God in heaven”. Through these words, He is telling us that perpetual chastity is an inherent part in the Angelic and Heavenly Life, thus showing us once again that chastity is morally superior to marriage and the marital life.

And Jesus answering, said to them: “You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married; but shall be as the angels of God in heaven. And concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken by God, saying to you: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And the multitudes hearing it, were in admiration at his doctrine.” (Matthew 22:29-33)

Marriage and those acts which specifically pertain to it only endure for a short moment in this temporal life, while the virtue of chastity begins in this life, to continue through all eternity in Heaven in indescribable bliss and happiness. Haydock Commentary, “Ver. 30. If not to marry, nor to be married, be like unto angels, the state of religious persons, and of priests, is justly styled by the Fathers an angelic life. (St. Cyprian, lib. ii. de discip. et hab. Virg. sub finem.) (Bristow)”

Marriage did not even exist until after the fall and original sin of Adam and Eve, but chastity always existed and will always exist – whether in Heaven or on Earth – as long as the latter continues to exist. Marriage was instituted by God for procreation of children, but He also allows it to be used as a relief from concupiscence and the sin of uncleanness, adultery and fornication by giving the marital act an indulgence so long as the marital act is always subordinated to the primary end or purpose of the marital act—the procreation of children (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii #54). But this state of alleviation from temptation to sin that married people enter into when getting married is a defective state not originally intended by the Creator from the beginning—before the fall and original sin of Adam and Eve. Chastity and purity however is not a defective state, but the original and desired state that God wanted all humans to live in from the beginning. “Thus,” says St. Jerome, “it must be bad to touch a woman. If indulgences is nonetheless granted to the marital act, this is only to avoid something worse. But what value can be recognized in a good that is allowed only with a view of preventing something worse?”

Before the fall, people would have been able to procreate children without the evil of lust. “In Eden, it would have been possible to beget offspring without foul lust. The sexual organs would have been stimulated into necessary activity by will-power alone, just as the will controls other organs.” (St. Augustine, City of God, Book 14, Chapter 26.) Our Lord Jesus Christ never intended for us to be plagued by sexual desire. And because this defective desire brings with it so many sins and temptations of the flesh, it is perfectly true to say that marriage is a defective state compared to what the Creator had in mind from the beginning. If Adam and Eve had never sinned, all humans had now been chaste and pure just as God intended it to be from the beginning.

The church historian, Venerable Bede (673-735 A.D.), stated that in the first age of the world humankind was propagated by the union of men and women. However, in “the last age of history” God has “taken manhood from the flesh of the Virgin.… to prove that He loves the glory of virginity more than marriage.” (Venerable Bede, Hexaemeron, Book I, PL 91:31) Just like all the other Fathers and Saints of the Church, Venerable Bede saw First Corinthians, Chapter 7, as a reminder “that prayer is hindered by the marital duty, because as often as one renders the debt to his wife he is unable to pray” which in turn teaches us that marriage became “wounded and sick” after the fall and original sin of Adam and Eve. (Venerable Bede, Super Epistolas Catholicas Exposito: In Primam Epistolam Petri)

St. John Chrysostom, On Virginity, Chapter 14: “Someone would object perhaps: if it is better to have no relations with a woman, why has marriage been introduced into life? What use, then, will woman be to us, if she is of help neither in marriage nor in the procreation of children? What will prevent the complete disappearance of the human race since each day death encroaches upon it and strikes man down, and if one follows this programme, there is no reproduction of others to replace the stricken? If all of us should strive after this virtue and have no relations with a woman, everything -- cities, households, cultivated fields, crafts, animals, plants -- everything would vanish. For just as when a general dies, the discipline of the army inevitably is thrown entirely into confusion, so if the ruler of all the earth, if mankind disappears because of not marrying (carnal coupling), nothing left behind will preserve the security and good order of the world, and this fine precept will fill the world with a thousand woes.

“If these words had been merely those of our enemies and of the unbelievers, I would have hardly considered them. However, many of those who appear to belong to the Church say this. They fail to make an effort on behalf of virginity because of their weakness of purpose. By denigrating it and representing it as superfluous, they want to conceal their own apathy, so that they seem to fail in these contests not through their own neglect of duty but rather through their correct estimation of the matter [he means that they delude themselves by their false view of thinking that they are correct]. Come then, having dismissed our enemies -- for "The natural man does not accept what is taught by the spirit of God. For him that is absurdity." [1 Cor 2:14] -- let us teach two lessons to those who claim to be with us: that virginity is not superfluous but extremely useful and necessary; and that such a charge is not made with impunity but will endanger the detractors in the same way that right actions will earn wages and praise for the virtuous.

“When the whole world had been completed and all had been readied for our repose and use, God fashioned man for whom he made the world. After being fashioned, man remained in paradise and there was no reason for marriage. Man did need a helper, and she came into being; not even then did marriage seem necessary. It did not yet appear anywhere but they remained as they were without it. They lived in paradise as in heaven and they enjoyed God’s company. Desire for carnal intercourse, conception, labor, childbirth and every form of corruption had been banished from their souls. As a clear river shooting forth from a pure source, so were they in that place adorned by virginity.

“And all the earth was without humanity. This is what is now feared by those who are anxious about the world. They are very anxious about the affairs of others but they cannot tolerate considering their own. They fear the eclipse of mankind but individually neglect their own souls as though they were another’s. They do this when they will have demanded of them an exact accounting for this and the smallest of sins, yet for the scarcity of mankind they will not have to furnish even the slightest excuse.

“At that time there were no cities, crafts, or houses -- since you care so very much for these things -- they did not exist. Nevertheless, nothing either thwarted or hindered that happy life, which was far better than this. But when they did not obey God and became earth and dust, they destroyed along with that blessed way of life the beauty of virginity, which together with God abandoned them and withdrew. As long as they were uncorrupted by the devil and stood in awe of their master, virginity abided with them. It adorned them more than the diadem and golden raiments do kings. However, when they shed the princely raiment of virginity and laid aside their heavenly attire, they accepted the decay of death, ruin, pain and a toilsome life. In their wake came marriage: marriage, a garment befitting mortals and slaves.

“But the married man is busy with the world’s demands” [1 Cor 7:33]. Do you perceive the origin of marriage? It springs from disobedience, from a curse, from death. For where death is, there is marriage. When one does not exist, the other is not about. But virginity does not have this companion. It is always useful, always beautiful and blessed, both before and after death, before and after marriage. Tell me, what sort of marriage produced Adam? What kind of birth pains produced Eve? You could not say. Therefore why have groundless fears? Why tremble at the thought of the end of marriage, and thus the end of the human race? An infinite number of angels are at the service of God, thousands upon thousands of archangels are beside him, and none of them have come into being from the succession of generations, none from childbirth, labor pains and conception. Could he not, then, have created many more men without marriage? Just as he created the first two from whom all men descended.”

In this context, St. Jerome adds, “Marriage replenishes the earth, virginity fills Paradise.” (Ag. Jovinianus 1:16) After all, humans can be married only during this life. They will be virgins, however, for eternity. He summarized, “For marriage ends at death; virginity thereafter begins to wear the crown.” (Ibid., 1:22) Thus, after the fall, marriage and especially the marital act became wounded and highly potent to damn and bring a person under its control, similarly how a drug acts against a drug addict: “‘Now, [after the fall] Adam had intercourse with his wife Eve.’ Consider when this happened. After their disobedience, after their loss of the Garden, then it was that the practice of intercourse had its beginning. You see, before their disobedience they followed a life like that of the angels, and there was no mention of intercourse. … How could there be, when they were not subject to the needs of the body?” (Homilies on Genesis, Homily XVIII; PG 53.153)

According to St. Chrysostom, marriage was allowed in case one should exceed proper limits in admiring the bloom of youth and thus exciting passion (Exp. in Ps. XLIII; PG 55.181). Thus marriage was established following the Fall of man. It possessed a certain honor for what it was, but it in no way actually produced sanctity. This it was not able to do. Marriage was a solemn thing, that through which God “recruits our race” and which is the source of numberless blessings, not the least of which is its serving as a “barrier against uncleanness.” St. John Chrysostom states, “Marriage is not holiness, but marriage preserves the holiness which proceeds from Faith… marriage is honorable, not holy. Marriage is pure: it does not however give holiness, except by forbidding the defilement of that, holiness which has been given by our Faith.” (Hom. XXX in Heb.; PG 63.210; NPNF, p. 504). This is an important text in discerning Chrysostom’s teaching about marriage since it was preached at the end of his life and only published posthumously. It is popular in modern Chrysostom scholarship to suggest that Chrysostom experienced a radical change in his thinking on marriage, and came to embrace a more modern notion of marriage as holiness and sex as love. This text, among others, refutes this position. Note also here that Chrysostom roots the holiness of the individual believer in the faith itself. In Homily 10 he is more explicit saying, “Every believer is a saint in that he is a believer. Though he live in the world he is a saint... the faith makes the holiness” (Ibid., Hom. X; PG 63.87).

Sexual intercourse is not necessarily or directly sinful. However, Chrysostom nowhere suggests that intercourse is “holy”, “sacred”, or even primarily “an expression of love”. These romantic notions are really quite modern, and lack any substantive Patristic source. At the same time Chrysostom is prepared to emphasize the mysterious nature of human sexuality and to associate it very closely with love in his Homilies on Colossians. For Chrysostom, however, the mystery of love is that between the spouses and the child which results from their union, not primarily between the spouses themselves.

St. John Damascene, speaking on virginity, says: “Virginity is the rule of life among the angels, the property of all incorporeal nature. … Virginity is better than marriage, however good. … But celibacy is, as we said, an imitation of the angels. Wherefore, virginity is as much more honorable than marriage, as the angel is higher than man. But why do I say angel? Christ, Himself, is the glory of virginity.” (An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book IV, Chapter XXIV) And so, “flee thou youthful desires, and pursue justice, faith, charity, and peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” (2 Timothy 2:22)

Now, “Tell me, will someone still dare to compare marriage with virginity? Or look marriage in the face at all? Saint Paul does not permit it. He puts much distance between each of these states. “The virgin is concerned with things of the Lord,” he says, but “the married woman has the cares of this world to absorb her.” [1 Cor 7:34] Moreover, after gathering married people together and having done this favor for them, hear how he reproaches them again for he says: “Return to one another, that Satan may not tempt you.” [1 Cor 7:5] And since he wishes to indicate that not all sins stem from the devil’s temptations but from our own idleness, he has added the more valid reason: because of “your lack of self-control.” [1 Cor 7:5]

“Who would not blush hearing this? Who would not earnestly try to escape blame for incontinence? For this exhortation is not for everyone but for those extremely prone to vice. If you are enslaved by pleasures, he says, if you are so weak as to have always given way to coitus and to gape in eager expectation at it, he joined to a woman. The consent therefore comes not from one approving or praising this action but from one scoffing at it with derision. If it had not been his desire to assail the souls of pleasure-seekers, he would not have set down this term, “incontinence,” which quite emphatically conveys the idea of censure. Why did he not say “because of your weakness”? Because that phrase is one of indulgence but to say incontinence denotes excessive moral laxity. Thus, the inability to refrain from fornication unless you always have a wife and enjoy sexual relations is an indication of incontinence.
What would those people who consider virginity superfluous say at this point? For the more virginity is practiced the more praise it receives, whereas marriage is deprived of all praise especially when someone has used it immoderately. “I say this,” Paul declares, “by way of concession, not as a command.” [1 Cor 7:6] But where there is a concession there is no place for praise.” (St. John Chrysostom, On Virginity, Chapter XXXIV)

In this dogmatic light, it is evident that none of the holy Fathers speaks of marriage (much less of “sexual relations” themselves) as the way to spiritual enlightenment and knowledge of God, as do some “theologians” of more recent times. St. Gregory the Theologian lists in great detail the achievements of marriage, all mostly relating to culture and civilization, that is, the earthly goods. (St. Gregory the Theologian, “Parthenias epenos” (“In Praise of Virginity”), PG. 37, 563A). Such praises of marriage are woven by “those who are of one mind with their ribs,” that is, happily married. But nowhere among these “achievements” do they mention the matters of spiritual ascent, that is, knowledge of God and theosis. On the contrary, the Fathers say that, on the one hand, marriage and the things belonging to it constitute an obstacle to ascent; while on the other hand, the road upward is the road of purity, of self-control or, in a word, virginity.

And even this simple drawing near to God within marriage is possible only through exercising self-restraint. Whereas, “to be sure, marriage is deprived of all praise whatsoever, when one indulges in it to the point of satiety.” (St. John Chrysostom, “Peri Parthenias” (“On Virginity”), 48, PG 48, 557.) Then the words of St. Gregory of Nyssa hold true: “. . . lest through such passionate attachments (as in I Cor. 7:5) he become wholly flesh and blood, in whom the Spirit of God does not remain.” (St. Gregory of Nyssa, “Peri Parthenias” (“On Virginity”), 8, PG 46, 356D). Elsewhere the same Father says: “So, it seems that these examples are instructing us, through the remembrance of those great Prophets [that is, Elias and John], to become entangled in none of those things that are pursued in the world. Marriage is one of these things pursued; rather it is the beginning and root of the pursuit of things vain.” (St. Gregory of Nyssa, “Peri Parthenias” (“On Virginity”), 7, PG 46, 352D).

Whereas the Holy Father views marriage (and honorable marriage at that) in this way, he praises virginity, writing: “If one wishes carefully to examine the difference between this way of life (that is, marriage) and virginity, he will find it almost as great as the difference between earth and heaven.” (St. Gregory of Nyssa, “Peri Parthenias” (“On Virginity”), 3, PG 46, 355).

St. Gregory the Theologian is more specific in comparing the two life-styles. On virginity since the time of Christ, he writes: “Precisely then [that is, with Christ’s birth from the Virgin] did virginity shine brightly to mortals; free of the world, and freeing the feeble world. It so surpasses marriage and the fetters of the world even as the soul is apt to be more excellent than the flesh and the wide heaven than the earth; as the stable life of the blessed is more excellent than transitory life; as God is superior to man.” (St. Gregory the Theologian, “In Praise of Virginity”, PG 37, 538A)

This is precisely why virginity, and not marriage, has such power: “through itself it brought God down for participation in human life, while in itself it enables man to soar to the longing for the things of heaven.” (St. Gregory of Nyssa, “Peri Parthenias” (“On Virginity”), 2, PG 46, 324B)

Marriage does not attain such heights, for “even though marriage be honorable (Heb. 13:4), yet it can only go so far as not to defile those who engage in it. But to produce Saints is not within the power of marriage but of virginity.” (St. John Chrysostom, “Peri Parthenias” (“On Virginity”), 30, PG 48, 554). In response to those who ask how Abraham, being married, attained perfection, while so many virgins lost the kingdom of God (cf. Matt. 25:1-13), Saint John Chrysostom answers: “It was not marriage that made Abraham a Saint, nor virginity that destroyed those miserable maidens. But rather, what made the Patriarch illustrious was his soul’s other virtues, and likewise what handed the maidens over to the fire was their life’s other vices.” (St. John Chrysostom, “Peri Parthenias” (“On Virginity”), 382, PG 48, 593)

The correctness of this Patristic view on marriage and virginity, and the unfoundedness of the views of the new so called theologians, is confirmed by the Church’s life itself. The greatest Saints and servants of the divine mysteries were not the greatest lovers (and I am referring to human sexual love, about which the new “theologians” speak about), but the greatest practitioners of self-control.

The Church Fathers, well aware of the physical sexuality present in the Song of Songs, generally cautioned against reading it until a ‘mature spirituality’ had been obtained, lest the Song be misunderstood and lead the reader into temptation. Origen says, “I advise and counsel everyone who is not yet rid of the vexations of flesh and blood and has not ceased to feel the passion of his bodily nature, to refrain completely from reading this little book.” (Origen, Commentary on the Song of Songs, cited in Anchor Bible Commentary Song of Songs 117)

When asked for advice about what scriptural books a young girl should read, Jerome recommended the Psalms, Proverbs, Gospels, Acts and the Epistles, followed by the rest of the Old Testament. Of the Song however, Jerome counsels caution, saying “… she would fail to perceive that, though it is written in fleshly words, it is a marriage song of a spiritual bridal. And not understanding this, she would suffer from it.” (St. Jerome, Letter cvii, To Laeta, cited in Anchor Bible Commentary Song of Songs 119)

Indeed, “Do not think… that the body is made for intercourse. If you wish to understand… for what reason the body was made, then listen: it was made that it should be a temple to the Lord; that the soul, being holy and blessed, should act in it as if it were a priest serving before the Holy Spirit that dwells in you.” (Origen, Exegesis on 1 Corinthians 7:29)

It is not coincidental that in this day and age when almost all are heretics, many people are falsely interpreting King Solomon’s Song of Songs in a literal way instead of a figurative way that signify the spiritual relationship between God and the soul, and Christ and Our Lady, that the Holy Fathers did. The Fathers never interpreted the Song of Songs as a glorification of sex, and they unanimously rejected those impious and lustful people who tried to excuse their sensuality by perverting the Bible for the sake of their own lustful selfishness.

Bad parents will be tormented in a far greater fire for their bad example than those who remained chaste

Most people who beget children in this world do not carefully consider the ramifications of raising children. Their only concern is to please their selfish interests and unlawful sensual desires. But the moment after they have died and entered into the eternal spiritual reality, they shall all see the evil fruit of their ways. “For behold, the days shall come, wherein they will say: Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the paps that have not given suck.”

Luke 23:27-31 “And there followed him a great multitude of people, and of women, who bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning to them, said: Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over me; but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For behold, the days shall come, wherein they will say: ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the paps that have not given suck.’ Then shall they begin to say to the mountains: ‘Fall upon us’; and to the hills: ‘Cover us.’ For if in the green wood they do these things, what shall be done in the dry?”

Haydock Bible Commentary adds, “Verse 31. In the green wood: by which are signified persons of virtue and sanctity; as by the dry wood, the wicked, who bring forth no fruit, and who, like dry wood, are fit to be cast into the fire. (Witham) --- If they be thus cruel with me [Jesus], how will they treat you!”

Simply said, those parents who beget and raise worldly and ungodly children for the sake of worldly and ungodly purposes will be tormented for an eternity in a far greater and more excruciating fire than a person who did not have children and remained chaste. Since they took upon themselves the great and heavy burden of raising children, they shall also have to answer to Our Lord for every moment of their life that they raised their children. By living a worldly, selfish and sensual lifestyle, most parents give the most abominable and sad example to their children, and this results in the child taking after the sins of the parents in almost every way. That is why an evil parent and child who will both be damned will torment each other for an eternity in Hell, since they were one of the greatest causes of their own damnation.