One thing is for sure, we can't force Catholics to have more children, to stop leaving, to end the confusion and to close the cafeteria. We can't control Catholics. This is hard for control freaks to understand.
I've lived in Georgia for 58 or my 61 years. I've always experienced the Catholic Church as small minority. We never had power.
But as a small minority, we did and do have a spiritual impact in our Georgia communities.
Souls are being saved while some choose the way of damnation.
Good works are being accomplished on an institutional level within parishes and by individual Catholics in the public square.
Maybe this will have to do. It will have to do whether we like it or not. We can't control things.
4 comments:
I don't know why, and I'm not being sarcastic. But for the last 2 years these words from St. Paul have come back to me time and again.
3 Never let anyone deceive you in any way. It cannot happen until the Great Revolt has taken place and there has appeared the wicked One, the lost One,
4 the Enemy, who raises himself above every so-called God or object of worship to enthrone himself in God's sanctuary and flaunts the claim that he is God.
5 Surely you remember my telling you about this when I was with you?
6 And you know, too, what is still holding him back from appearing before his appointed time.
7 The mystery of wickedness is already at work, but let him who is restraining it once be removed,
8 and the wicked One will appear openly. The Lord will destroy him with the breath of his mouth and will annihilate him with his glorious appearance at his coming.
9 But the coming of the wicked One will be marked by Satan being at work in all kinds of counterfeit miracles and signs and wonders,
10 and every wicked deception aimed at those who are on the way to destruction because they would not accept the love of the truth and so be saved.
11 And therefore God sends on them a power that deludes people so that they believe what is false,
12 and so that those who do not believe the truth and take their pleasure in wickedness may all be condemned.
13 But we must always thank God for you, brothers whom the Lord loves, because God chose you from the beginning to be saved by the Spirit who makes us holy and by faith in the truth.
14 Through our gospel he called you to this so that you should claim as your own the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
15 Stand firm, then, brothers, and keep the traditions that we taught you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.
Indeed, Anonymous, and let us not forget Matthew 24.
It seems to me that Our Host is saddened by the turn of events in Ireland, more saddened than perhaps the situation deserves. The outcome was entirely predictable, predictable such that it was the reason the referendum was called. I expect a similar tactic will be used in this country. I also expect it will succeed because people treat their catechesis like a club initiation and would never think of pushing anything they recite in the Creed on anyone else. I get the distinct impression, often even from the pulpit, that we are simply an alternative way of thinking about life. This has been a struggle for the Church, and the faithful, throughout history, it is a vanity for us to think we are exempt, or immune, to this struggle.
Fr. McD, at some point in every one of our lives, if we're faithful to God, we drop our heads and admit we don't control our own lives, our fate, or anybody else and most things around us. Maybe that's the point God drives us to, so we finally have to see it's HIS will done on the earth, that He permits evil for His inscrutable purposes, "For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust."
I think it's a moment when we must respond with Faith in His goodness, and say, Thy will be done. And the challenge is, do we mean it? We always pray for the good to happen, and if it does not, keep praying for mitigation of the consequences. We're just sheep.
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