It's time for the Church and its faitful to look up and realize that western culture as we have known it is self-destructing around us. With 50+ million innocent lives taken in the past 37 years in the name of "choice" and "convenience," and an attempt to redefine marriage on human terms instead of according to divine decree, it is only logical to think that we are approaching the closing midnight toll of a society spiraling downward into social and individual sin with ever-increasing speed. If history is any indicator, it is only a matter of time before the apparatus of the state will be brought to bear against the faithful, perhaps even to the point--as we have seen countless times in centuries past--of taking lives and livelihoods. As Michael Voris describes so well, we the faithful have one responsibility in the face of the death and destruction that is inevitable when a society gives itself over to evil: to proclaim the Truth and defend it (Him) to the death.
So how, you might ask, is this a cause for great hope? I, for one, am struggling to internalize that reality, that persecution is God's way of separating and refining His saints. We ought to take solace when we are despised and persecuted by the world, because that is precisely the way Christ promised it would be for those who love Him, who live in Him as children of the Father, and who the Father will glorify with his Son in heaven for all eternity. For, as Saint Paul tells us,
"You who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, 'Abba, Father!' The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us" (Romans 8:14-18).
This program is from RealCatholicTV.com
It is difficult to look persecution in the face and call it a blessing.
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be something in the air which has Christian people, and Catholics in particular, feeling uneasy and a little less safe than we did just a few years ago. If it were just me, I would like to think I would be able to handle anything my Lord asked of me. But I look at my children some of whom are so small, and I just beg God to let this cup pass from them. All we can do is pray, live in this moment and prepare for what may come.
Thanks aka. It IS difficult, so difficult because (I think) it requires so much trust of the Supernatural variety that does not come easily to us. "Thy will be done" is a lot harder in practice than in word. I pray too that this cup will pass us over and the Lord will stay his hand.
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