If you are Catholic, and trying to do it (i.e., be Catholic) well, and are paying attention, you probably feeling a little down about all the stuff going on right now. I know I am. I don't have anything really articulate to write. The thing feels to me like a very dense storm cloud, fiercer than normal anti-Church nonsense. It's very incongruous with the weather being so fine outside my window. The cross is not ours to bear alone, though. Please do not give up looking to Jesus, looking to heaven for help.
There should be some consolation in this: that our blessed Lord told us that we would be persecuted (Jn 15:20). Now, don't get me wrong. Getting called on sin - that's not persecution, it's a public service that we apparently need. Being gleefully, ferociously stalked by self-appointed "watchdogs" who completely neglect their own house and who bay and howl for the House of God to be torn down to its foundations, head first - that is a little bit closer to what is meant by persecution. At least, it gives us a watered-down taste of what our brothers and sisters in other countries face every day on a much more violent scale. We should allow this animosity provoke us to prayer for our enemies and for our brethren whom they treat worse.
We should also take comfort in this prophecy of St. Peter, the first pope, who himself came against fierce opposition:
For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? (1 Pt 4:17)
If you find yourself fazed or perturbed, please remember these words of Teresa of Avila:
Let nothing perturb you,
nothing frighten you.
All things pass.
God does not change.
Patience achieves everything.
Whoever has God
lacks nothing.
God alone suffices.
It's going to be OK. Hold fast, pray, enter into the Triduum with your whole heart. Remember Jesus.
it is discouraging, brother Ryan. but I keep telling myself that the Holy Mother Church must be doing it right, to have so much evil directed at it. The Papacy of Pope Benedict is a threat to the work Satan has been accomplishing in these later decades, and he is directing the misguided in their attacks.
ReplyDeleteThe quote from St. Teresa of Avila (one of my favorite saints, btw) is very appropriate and soothing. thanks for it.
Pray pray pray.