When God drives the Abandonment Bus, He is directing you to a better outcome. Just hold on. The Lord will take our idols, our understanding, our timing, our control, and He will make a way in the wilderness. “You shall know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruins and replanted that which was desolate.” (Ezekiel 36:36)
One of the great challenges in the modern world is how to resolve an excessive admiration for science with the diminishment of man that has been brought about by scientists. The sociologist, George Simmel has spoken wisely on the problem when he advised that science should stay within its own natural limits. Accordingly, he stated that “whenever any particular branch of science attempts to give answers of universal validity, answers on ultimate questions concerning Man and the Universe, it oversteps its borders and goes wrong.”
Conclusion: The Second Vatican Council’s vision of a more deeply engaged missionary Church in the modern world has fallen short so far because Catholic laity settled, fairly quickly, on visibility within the life of the church as the choice definition of living out the baptismal promise. So in a blink of an eye, your “engaged laity” was all about having an impact on the life of the Church rather than the world – whether that be through liturgy committees, diocesan commissions, getting to wear an alb when you’re lectoring or, in the present day, apparently, being a jerk on Twitter.
We say: “I want to plow a perfect field, the field over there with better soil, where the weather is nicer, not thisfield.” But God says, “No, this field.” And you say: “But there’s a pandemic. And corrupt politicians. And horrible people. And stupid bishops. And the pope says things I don’t like.” And God says: “Yup, that field.” So you say to God: “Nope, not doing it. Not this field. Too rocky. No obvious pay-off. It’s owned by a jerk I don’t like.” We grumble. And moan. And complain.
This video sends an unmistakable message from the Sexual State: “We intend to enforce our ideology, like it or not. We stand ready to use children as enforcers. We want children to rat out their parents and their teachers. They cannot trust the adults who are part of their lives, such as their teachers or pastors. They cannot trust the people who gave them life, their parents. We want every child to see us and us alone, as their savior and protector.”
Even today the revelation of Jesus’ humanity, and the fact that the Eucharist is Jesus’ Body and Blood, can cause scandal, he said. It is something difficult for people to accept, he added, explaining that this is what Saint Paul calls the ‘folly’ of the Gospel in the face of those who seek miracles or worldly wisdom.” “What sense can there be, in the eyes of the world, in kneeling before a piece of bread? Why on earth should someone be nourished assiduously with this bread?” he said. According to Pope Francis, we should be surprised if the words of Jesus Christ do not throw us into crisis, “because we might have watered down His message,” he stated.
It is not difficult to identify how these four trends undermine the passing on of the Catholic faith. Secularism encourages young Catholics to view their inherited beliefs as antiquated and out of step with broader society. Individualism teaches them that fulfilling their own desires and celebrating the self is what’s most important in life. Consumerism engenders selfishness and viewing relationships as solely transactional. And relativism vitiates belief in absolute truth.
“[I]f the bishops, who are in charge of the cohabitation and mutual enrichment of the two liturgical forms, do not exercise their authority to this effect, they run the risk of no longer appearing as shepherds, guardians of the faith they have received and of the sheep entrusted to them, but as political leaders: commissars of the ideology of the moment rather than guardians of the perennial tradition. They risk losing the trust of men of good will.”
And a certain bravery in the face of death. There’s an old saying: “A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” Cowering in fear or with your face half-covered is not a life for a human being. It’s shocking that our public discussion of the pandemic focuses almost exclusively on preventing more cases – which is fine so far as it goes. But it’s increasingly evident that we’re going to have to decide at some point, since the virus variants will never go away now, that we have to live our lives anyway, and accept certain levels of risk and death. That’s our situation on earth anyway, virus or no virus.
His Catholic significance is that he no longer judged it necessary to make arguments about how to reconcile his Catholic faith with his embrace of the extreme abortion license. He simply sacrificed his faith to his politics and got on with the pursuit of power.
The Olympics ended Sunday night, though many of us hardly noticed they were on. It’s hard to cheer for athletes representing our country who don’t seem to actually like our country. That, plus the insufferable push to sexualize these games have turned many of us off. This is a shame, because there were a number of inspiring athletes competing in Tokyo this year whose performances and stories are worth knowing and celebrating.
On this feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord – a transfiguration to which Christ’s disciples are all called – we need to make as honest an assessment of the Christianity of our day as Newman did the Christianity of his. We need to confess the lie embodied in our deeds: the infidelity of priests and people to their vows and promises, the scant transparency and accountability of leaders, the apostasy from or sacrilegious reception of the Holy Eucharist. The debasement of the language of faith.