Abbot Joseph of Mt. Tabor Monastery in California is called to a Mop Up Ministry via Jennifer’s Links

I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way many people are going to be saved is if they are rescued at the last minute as they are departing this world. In a sense, I’m being spiritually placed in the last hours of souls. When all else fails, I’ll come in to mop up the mess with abundant prayers and offerings of the Divine Liturgy to save the souls who have slipped through everyone else’s fingers.

So, without further ado, I hereby inaugurate the “Abbot Joseph Final-hour Mop-up Ministry.” Now I say this in a somewhat light-hearted manner, but in fact I’m dead serious.

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Here’s what’s in it for you. Are there any incorrigible teenagers, irascible old folks, lapsed Catholics, ardent unbelievers, or heedless profligates among your family or friends? Or do you know someone who is dying without faith or repentance or the sacraments? Well, just send their names to me at [email protected]. I will keep a list of these “hard cases” and will pray for them (including them also in the divine mercy chaplets I pray especially for this intention), and I will also regularly offer the Divine Liturgy for their salvation.

Imagining this priest saying prayers every day for those about to die gives me comfort and reminds me of what The Anchoress once wrote

Dame Laurentia McClachlen of Stanbrook Abbey, Sussex once said “a monastery is like a powerhouse; you do not lock up a powerhouse to restrain the power, but to keep anyone from coming in and gumming up the works. A monastery is a powerhouse of prayer, meant to give light to the whole world.”

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Prayer is a force, and it has power.

There are things seen and unseen. Things corporeal and things spiritual. Things natural and supernatural. A society bent on utilitarianism serves only the seen, the corporeal, the natural, and neglects the things unseen – at great risk.