Mystic Saint Reveals the “Fewness of the Saved” (and what We can do)
Mystic Saint Reveals the “Fewness of the Saved” (and what We can do)
The warm, incandescent ring light reflected as tiny, perfect circles in Father Thomas’s eyes as he adjusted his collar. Outside, the dusk of late May 2026 was settling over the parish grounds, casting long, somber shadows across the rectory office. On the polished walnut desk before him sat an old, yellowed leather volume—a collection of sermons by the 18th-century Franciscan master of the text, St. Leonard of Port Maurice.
Thomas reached out, his hand hovering over the book for a fraction of a second before he pulled the microphone arm closer. He looked directly into the high-definition lens, his expression stripped of its usual easygoing warmth, replaced by a quiet, arresting solemnity.
“My friends, today we are going to confront what is arguably the most terrifying question a thinking Catholic can ever ask,” Father Thomas began, his voice dropping into a low, resonant register that immediately commanded the space. “It’s a question we often bury under layers of modern sentimentality because the raw, unvarnished answer makes our blood run cold. The question is simple: Will many be saved?“
He leaned back slightly, his fingers interlacing over the ancient book.
“For years, I completely refused to read the text I’m holding right now. I knew it existed. I had heard whispered fragments of it in seminary, but I actively avoided it because I was genuinely afraid of what it would do to my soul. I’m talking about the famous, blistering sermon by St. Leonard of Port Maurice entitled The Little Number of the Saved. If you want to talk about a spiritual wake-up call that shatters every comfortable illusion we hold about eternity, this is it. But if you stick with me through the terror of this investigation, what we find at the very end—a hidden promise from this exact same saint—will completely blow your mind and change the way you pray forever. If you value this deep-dive content and want to support our media apostolate, please consider doing so through ‘Buy Me a Coffee.’ Now, let’s go right into the deep water.”
Thomas leaned forward, his eyes locking back onto the lens with the intensity of a trial lawyer.
“Let’s begin with the preacher himself,” Thomas said, tapping the leather cover. “St. Leonard of Port Maurice wasn’t a fringe radical; he was a canonized Franciscan friar, one of the most effective missionary preachers in Italy’s history. And when he stood up to preach on the demographics of eternity, he didn’t sugarcoat a single syllable. Listen to how he opens his address to his congregation:”
He opened the book, his voice taking on the dramatic, rhythmic weight of the historical pulpit:
“Brothers, because of the burning love I have for you, I wish with all my heart that I were able to reassure you today with the golden prospect of eternal happiness. I wish I could say to each and every one of you: ‘You are certain to go to paradise. The greater number of Christians is saved, so you also will be saved.’ But tell me, how can I give you this sweet assurance if you actively revolt against God’s decrees as though you were your own worst enemies? I observe in Almighty God a sincere, agonizing desire to save you. But I find in you a decided, stubborn inclination to be damned. So what am I to do today if I speak clearly? I will be deeply displeasing to you. But if I do not speak, I will be eternally displeasing to God.”
Thomas looked up from the page, letting the starkness of the quote hang in the digital silence. “Leonard didn’t just speak from his own emotion. He knew his audience would accuse him of exaggeration. So, he did something unprecedented for a standard parish sermon. He structured it like a theological thesis, pulling in the heaviest intellectual artillery the Church had to offer. He cites Francisco Suárez, the most towering Jesuit theologian of the era, who, after a exhaustive, diligent study of every Church Father, wrote that the most common sentiment held by the saints is that among baptized Christians, there are far more damned souls than predestined souls.”
Thomas’s voice grew sharper, pacing the arguments. “He quotes Christ Himself answering the disciples in the Gospels: ‘Strive to enter by the narrow gate. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.’ He lines up the authority of the Greek and Latin giants—St. Basil, St. Ephrem, St. John Chrysostom. And then he brings up an extraordinary historical figure: St. Simeon Stylites.”
A sudden, nostalgic smile broke through Thomas’s solemnity, softening the heavy atmosphere of the room.
“Now, when Leonard mentions St. Simeon Stylites, it hits incredibly close to home for me,” Thomas said, leaning his elbows on the desk. “According to historical tradition, it was expressly revealed to Simeon just how terrifyingly few souls make it to heaven. And out of sheer, driving urgency to secure his own salvation, he went out into the Syrian desert and decided to live on top of a stone pillar for forty years, exposed to the blistering sun and freezing rain, a radical model of penance.”
Thomas let out a soft laugh, shaking his head. “When I first heard that story as a teenager, I thought it was completely fake. It sounded like medieval hyperbole. But years later, I found myself as a counselor at a Catholic youth camp. One of our team-building exercises was a high-ropes challenge where you had to climb to the very top of a thirty-foot utility pole—literally a telephone pole standing straight up in the air—and stand balanced on the tiny circular top before jumping for a trapeze. Now, you have to understand: I am completely, utterly terrified of heights. My knees lock up on a stepladder.”
He leaned in, his eyes bright with the memory. “I was standing at the base of that pole, paralyzed with fear, ready to walk away in shame. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the Holy Spirit dropped a name into my mind: Simeon Stylites. I thought, ‘Well, if that crazy saint actually lived on a pole for forty years, let’s see if he has any power today.’ I breathed a desperate, silent prayer: ‘St. Simeon, get me up this pole.’ My friends, a wave of inexplicable, supernatural courage flooded my chest. I scrambled up that wood like a little monkey. When I reached the top and stood entirely upright on a platform no bigger than a dinner plate, thirty feet in the air, looking out over the tree line, I didn’t feel panic. I felt a literal sense of peace that bordered on ecstasy. I don’t normally climb poles, and I certainly don’t normally experience ecstasy. That moment was a living, visceral proof for me that Simeon was real, his penance was real, and his urgency was real.”
The smile faded as Thomas transitioned back to the text, his expression returning to the razor-sharp focus of the sermon.
“But if Simeon’s life is startling, the narrative examples St. Leonard uses next from the great Dominican preacher St. Vincent Ferrer are enough to keep you awake at night,” Thomas warned, his voice turning grim. “Vincent Ferrer relates a historical account of an archdeacon in the city of Lyon who gave up his prestigious ecclesiastical career, surrendered his wealth, and retreated into a desolate desert to do grueling penance. He happened to pass away on the exact same day and at the exact same hour as the great monastic reformer St. Bernard of Clairvaux.”
Thomas turned the page, his finger underlining the stark mathematics of the afterlife. “After his death, the archdeacon was permitted by God to appear to his former bishop. The bishop looked at him in the vision and asked how it fared with him. The spirit of the archdeacon replied:
“Know, Monsignor, that at the very hour I passed away, thirty-three thousand people died all across the earth. Out of that staggering number, St. Bernard and myself went straight up to heaven without a moment’s delay. Three individuals went to the purging fires of purgatory. And all the remaining thirty-two thousand, nine hundred and ninety-five souls fell directly into hell.”
“Less than one percent,” Thomas whispered, letting the math sink in. “Think about the sheer volume of mortality. Right now, as I speak into this camera, thousands of people are drawing their very last breath. I’m going to display the current global mortality statistics right here on the screen—the numbers per hour, per day, per year. It is a relentless, rushing river of human souls leaping into eternity. And as thinking Catholics, we have to look in the mirror and ask: Where are they going? Where am I going?”
He continued through the text, his voice tight. “Leonard drives the stake even further with a second historical account from Germany. A holy priest was preaching an intense parish mission, laying bare the sheer ugliness and spiritual deadliness of the sin of impurity. A woman in the congregation was so overwhelmed by a sudden, supernatural sorrow for her sins that she dropped dead right there in the aisle. A few moments later, by a miracle of God, her soul returned to her body. When she opened her eyes, she was weeping uncontrollably. She told the terrified crowd: ‘When my soul left my body, I was presented before the terrifying tribunal of God. At that exact same instant, sixty thousand souls arrived from every corner of the earth. Out of that massive multitude, exactly three were saved by being sent to purgatory. All the rest—fifty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-seven souls—were condemned to the pit.’“
Thomas leaned back, a hand coming up to touch his forehead. “We talk a massive amount about purgatory on this channel. We talk about it as a hospital of grace. But St. Leonard is asking a far more fundamental, haunting question: Are we even going to make it to the hospital? He concludes his theological argument by quoting the Angelic Doctor himself, St. Thomas Aquinas. After weighing every scriptural, patristic, and logical argument in his immense erudition, Aquinas calmly concludes that the greater number of adult Catholics are lost. Why? Because eternal beatitude is a supernatural state that completely surpasses our fallen human nature, especially since we have been stripped of original grace. It is only the small, heroic remnant that passes through.”
Thomas stood up from his desk, stepping fully into the center of the frame. The tension in the room was palpable, the weight of the sermon almost suffocating. He looked at the camera, his hands extended in an open, pastoral gesture.
“Now, if I stopped the video right here, we would all leave this room in a state of paralyzing, clinical despair,” Thomas said, his voice rising with a sudden, passionate energy. “But this is where the narrative takes a breathtaking, spectacular turn. Because St. Leonard of Port Maurice did not compile this mountain of terrifying data just to crush our spirits. He did it to prepare us for the remedy. He wanted to strip away our cheap presumption so that we would finally value the true weight of charity.”
He stepped back to the desk, his eyes shining with a sudden, triumphant light. “In a completely separate treatise, writing to souls who were terrified by his sermons, Leonard answers the ultimate question: What then shall we do? How do we survive these odds? And what he writes in response is more shocking, more utterly mind-blowing, than every single text on damnation we just read.”
He picked up the slender volume of St. Leonard’s pastoral letters and read a single, short sentence:
“If you deliver but one single soul from the fires of purgatory, you can say with absolute, unshakeable confidence: Heaven is mine.”
Thomas struck the top of the desk with his knuckles, his voice echoing in the quiet rectory. “One soul! He didn’t say you have to deliver ten thousand. He didn’t say you have to become a martyr or live on a stone pillar for forty years. The strictest, most terrifying preacher on salvation in the history of the Catholic Church looks you in the eye and guarantees that if you have the charity to pull one single soul out of the purging fires, your own salvation is secure!”
He leaned over the desk, his face illuminated by the ring light. “Do you see the massive theological shift that just occurred? The holy souls in purgatory are not just helpless beggars looking for our scraps. They are our literal golden ticket through the narrow gate! It is not so much that we are doing them a favor—they are doing us the ultimate favor. They are our insurance policy against the statistics of hell.”
“This realization should completely revolutionize your entire daily routine,” Thomas urged, his gestures wide and urgent. “If your devotion to the dead has waned over the last few months, let this be the lightning bolt that wakes you up. Every single one of us should practically consider stopping this video, driving to the nearest Catholic cemetery, walking out among the headstones, and metaphorically hugging those graves! We should be weeping on the soil, thanking those silent souls for the unbelievable opportunity to intercede for them.”
He counted the blessings off on his fingers, his voice building in momentum. “When you exercise this highest, most selfless form of charity—interceding for those who cannot help themselves—you aren’t just performing a duty. Those souls, the moment they are relieved by your prayers, turn around and become an unshakeable wall of spiritual armor around your life. They obtain for you material blessings, deep spiritual protections from the horrendous moral evils sweeping through our culture today, the supernatural conversion of your children, and the preservation of your family. But above all things, they ensure that you cross the finish line. They ensure that when your breath fails and you join that daily river of mortality, you are counted among that precious, small percentage.”
He stood entirely still, his voice dropping into a beautiful, comforting whisper. “It is an unbelievable, beautiful mystery of grace. When you finally stand before the great and terrible tribunal of God, stripped of all your earthly achievements, bearing the weight of all your wretchedness, your past sins, and your absolute unworthiness—an army of holy souls will stand up to advocate for you. And Christ, looking at the charity you showed to His suffering friends, will honor the promise of His preacher. Despite the narrowness of the gate, you will hear those words echoed in your heart: ‘Heaven is yours.’ Praise Almighty God that He has given us such an accessible path to victory.”
The ambient, cinematic soundtrack began to swell in the background, signaling the final seconds of the video. Father Thomas leaned in close to the microphone, his expression returning to his familiar, warm, parish-priest smile.
“My friends, if this deep dive into the absolute reality of salvation has shaken you, edified you, or given you a new fire for prayer today, please just say a quick Hail Mary for my priesthood,” Thomas said affectionately. “Don’t forget to like this video, hit that subscribe button, and check out the links below to support our media work via ‘Buy Me a Coffee’ so we can keep bringing this uncompromised truth to light.”
He pointed directly at the screen. “To immediately put this into practice, I need you to do two things right now: First, download the Rosary Experience App. It’s packed with beautiful, immersive sacred art and audio meditations designed to keep your mind entirely locked into the mysteries so your intercessions for the dead are deep and focused. Second, go straight to purgator.org and input the names of your deceased family members, your friends, or even your worst enemies who have passed away, so our global prayer network can begin lifting them into the light. Your life depends on it.”
He gave a small, encouraging nod. “Until next time, my friends—stay sober, fight hard, and remember that charity covers a multitude of sins. God bless you, and I’ll see you in the very next video.”
