Courageous Priest

Time 2020-10-31 23:10:10

Web Name: Courageous Priest

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Friends, you know, in our internet age, there is a lot of Catholic media out there, and some of it is very good, some maybe not so good.  I regularly get inspiration from lay bloggers and some Catholic priests who post on the internet.    Fr. Goring starts by making the observation that we re living in a time where there s just a lot of confusion around us and he highlights what are the three heresies that are threatening the Catholic Church and that are becoming really prevalent today. The first one is the notion that Jesus is just one way among many of getting to heaven. One means of salvation among many. So the idea is that Jesus isn t somehow the one and only savior of the world. You can pick your preferred religion.  God wills the diversity of religions, so whatever one suits you, go ahead, that ll get you to heaven. This of course directly contradicts the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. I could quote all kinds of scriptures, but the classic one is John chapter 14 verse six where Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”This is what scripture clearly teaches. This is what the saintsand doctors of the Church have always clearly taught.And this iswhat the Church has always clearly taught.The second great heresy of our time is just this notion that everyone s going to heaven. That no, we don t need to worry about judgment or, or even the possibility of just how it is that everyone s going to heaven. Just encourage people to be nice. Now again, one can point to a lot of scriptures that teach thatthis is not in fact reality. Hebrews chapter nine verse 27, “it is appointedthat a man die once and after this the judgment.”We re all going tobe judged.This is what scripture clearly teaches.  This is what the saints and the doctors of the Church have always clearly taught.  And this is what the Church has always clearly taught. And the third great heresy of our time?  It is the notion that things that scripture and the tradition have always taught are immoral, well, well now they re normal, maybe even healthy.  They should be accepted.So, the setting aside of biblical morality, now again we can quotea lot of scriptures. Why don t we just quote the sixth commandment, thou shallnot commit adultery.Or the 10 commandments.They re not the tensuggestions.The fact is:the moral law is inscribed inour beings. It doesn t change. The moral teaching of the Church is clearlytaught in scripture.It s been taught by the saints and the doctorsof the Church with clarity.The Church has taught clearly the moralteaching that derives from God and the purposes for that which He has created.And so it s important for us to recognize what a lot of people arecalling the ambiguity of our time.The devil wants us to beconfused, and so that s why sometimes we have what s sometimes called an eloquentambiguity. Did God really say this? Well, the answer is yeah, he did.Friends, it is not fundamentalism to assert thatJesusChrist is the one true God, thatjudgment and hell are areal possibility, and despite the gross immorality of our timesthatright and wrong have not changed.Saying these things that need to be said every once in awhile isnot fundamentalism.It is clarity.It is truth. Jesuit School No Longer allowed to be Called Catholic Archbishop Charles Thompson of Indianapolis, took an UNBELIEVABLY COURAGEOUS move of stripping a local Jesuit high school of its Catholic title.  The Jesuits are fighting him and Fr James Martin is leading the way.  Let s encourage Archbishop Thompson to keep up the courageous work. Archdiocese of Indianapolis 2006-18 | 1400 N. Meridian Street, Indianapolis, IN 46202 | 800-382-9836  Indianapolis, Ind., Jun 20, 2019 / 01:49 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of Indianapolis announced Thursday that a local Jesuit high school will no longer be recognized as a Catholic school, due to a disagreement about the employment of a teacher who attempted to contract a same-sex marriage.“All those who minister in Catholic educational institutions carry out an important ministry in communicating the fullness of Catholic teaching to students both by word and action inside and outside the classroom,” the archdiocese said in a statement Thursday.“In the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, every archdiocesan Catholic school and private Catholic school has been instructed to clearly state in its contracts and ministerial job descriptions that all ministers must convey and be supportive of all teachings of the Catholic Church.” ______________________________________________________________________________ After long and prayerful consideration, we determined that following the Archdiocese’s directive would not only violate our informed conscience on this particular matter, but also set a concerning precedent for future interference in the school’s operations and other governance matters that Brebeuf Jesuit leadership has historically had the sole right and privilege to address and decide.  You are unique. Because we are all unique. We have unique fingerprints, unique DNA, etc. Notwithstanding all of this uniqueness and the diversity such uniqueness produces, as members of the human race, we have much in common with one another and with those who have gone before us. We all share the same rational nature and the end of that nature. We are all mortal. Death comes to us all. If the dead could speak, they would declare: “What you are, I was; what I am, you willl be. No matter how diverse our backgrounds may be, death comes to us all. And yet, we all have the same desire: We all desire eternal, infinite happiness. We all want to live forever! Nevertheless, desire is one thing; attaining what we desire is another. After all, how can anyone live forever and enjoy infinite happiness if everyone is mortal? That is the great question, the great paradox which confronts us all. But not everyone knows the answer. Indeed, because the answer is not immediately knowable, many seek the answer in the pursuit of pleasure, popularity, possessions, or power. Nevertheless, all of these are finite goods. Pleasure is fleeting, popularity fickle. And as for our possessions and power, when we die, we lose them too. They cannot fulfill our deepest desire. That is why Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, famously declares: “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” We remind ourselves of the core of that answer with the image or sculpture of Christ Crucified, or what is called a crucifix. But what was Christ’s death on the cross. What was it? Why is it significant? Why is it the answer to the Great Question? Why does it contain the fulfilment of our desire for eternal happiness? To those those who don’t believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God who has the words (and is the Word) of eternal life, that He is Our Savior, the solution and solver of that great Paradox, Christ’s death was simply an execution. But to those who do believe, it was much more than that: it was a sacrifice: Christ’s own, free sacrifice of obedience; of redemption. A sacrifice of self-giving love through which Christ conquered death, rising from the dead to die no more, and becoming for us the Way to eternal life. And what is that Way? We get on that Way not only by believing in Christ, but by repenting of our sins, being baptized into His death so as to become sons of God and sharers in the divine nature. We walk along that Way that leads to eternal life by imitating Christ through the power of His Spirit, so as to carry our daily cross, living a life of self-giving love, presenting our bodies, in St. Paul’s words, “a living sacrifice — holy, pleasing unto God”. But wait, there’s more. The crucifix is only a man-made reminder of what Christ did for us. But Christ Himself left us another way to call to mind and share in His Sacrifice. That other way is none other than the Holy Eucharist, the Bread of Life. We Catholics speak of the “holy sacrifice of the Mass” because the Holy Eucharist, which is Christ’s gift of Himself to the Church, is the sacramental, unbloody renewal of Christ’s physical, bloody sacrifice that He made of Himself once for all, some 2000 years ago. In the Holy Eucharist, we who are alive in Christ are able to receive Him as our spiritual food, that we may be assimilated into His Body, so that our lives may be conformed to the Sacrifice which we consume; that we too may be obedient to God unto death; that we too may practice self-giving love. It should also be said that anyone who is not alive in Christ, who is dead in sin (whether he be baptized or not), or who is not in full communion with the visible Body of Christ, which is the Church, has no business pretending to be alive in Christ. Such pretence is called an “unworthy communion”. For St. Paul warns the Corinthians: “Whosoever shalll eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord” and “eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.” But there is another very important reason why Our Lord has provided a way for us to renew and offer His own sacrifice to God. And that is atonement for sin. That is why, in the Canon of the Mass, the priest prays for the living and the dead. We Catholics pray not just for ourselves, but also for the faithful departed (those who have gone before us in Christ) because we recognize that, while a person may not have so abandoned Christ as to find himself among the goats, he may yet have followed Christ with at least some degree of self-centered love. It is such love from which the faithful departed must be purified in order to enter eternal life, where only self-giving love is allowed. And so just as we have the privilege of being able to renew and be united to the Sacrifice of Christ, we also have the privilege of sharing in this process of purification and purgation by asking God to apply the merits of Christ’s sacrifice of perfect self-giving love which we ourselves offer here and now, to the faithful departed, so that he (or they) may be purified of all vestiges of selfish love and brought to the perfection self-giving love (or charity). But unlike a typical Mass, the Requiem Mass is directed much more forcefully towards the deceased. It’s as though the Church desires the deceased to benefit from all the graces of the Mass, leaving nothing for the living. Thus, for example, the words of the Agnus Dei are changed. Instead of praying “miserere nobis” (have mercy on us), we pray, “dona eis requiem” (grant them peace). And at the end of Mass, the faithful do not receive the Final Blessing. It is omitted. Nevertheless, there are ways in which the Requiem Mass (especially in its extraordinary form) seeks to accompany those who are present: both believers and unbelievers; both faithful Catholics, and those who may have fallen away. There is, of course, the homily. The music proper to the Requiem of the Roman rite likewise has the power to touch the grieving faithful. For the the chant is restrained and soothing, yet not schmaltzy or sentimental. The ministers wear black vestments to validate and give liturgical expression to the grief of the mourners, as if to say to them: “the Church accompanies you in your sorrow.” At last, and only in the usus antiquior, the great 13th century sequence called the Dies Irae helps to exercise the minds of the faithful on the things that really matter. If you study the Dies Irae, you will see that the first 6 verses describes for us the 2nd Coming of Christ, the Day of Judgment, when Christ will come to judge the living and the dead, tie up all the loose ends of history, and bring the great play of human history itself to completion. Verses 7 through 17 is an extended appeal to the “font of mercy”, that we may be among the saved, not the damned; that we be among the sheep who follow the Shepherd, and not among the goats who do their own thing and have no need of a shepherd. In short, the Dies Irae calls us to repentance and conversion, petitions the divine Mercy for to obtain the mercy and graces needed in light of that Day when we will all be called to account for how we have lived. Only with the final two verses does this magnificent poem redirect our attention towards the faithful departed, praying for them in the final verse: “Merciful Lord Jesus, grant them rest. Amen.” In short, the Dies Irae directs our thoughts to the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell. And it puts on our lips an eloquent appeal to the divine Mercy. So when the funeral of a loved one forces us to face the reality of our common mortality and the great paradox of our existence, the Dies Irae invites us to go beyond Death and confront the rest of the Four Last Things: Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. It invites us to embrace and follow Christ, the God-Man who has resolved the paradox with His own Death and Resurrection. For only in responding to this invitation will we be truly comforted in the face of our mortality. So, then, here we are pondering the ultimate unavoidable certainties: All of us will die. We will all be judged by Christ. And we will either find ourselves among the damned or among the elect. And because many of us will die in the state of grace yet not without need of purification, we will be very grateful for whatever mercies of the Lord come our way through a priest’s offering of the Holy Sacrifce of the Mass on our behalf. Let us, then, remember to earnestly and devoutly offer to almighty God “your sacrifice and mine” for ourselves and for those who have gone before us, that we may strive to know and love and serve the Lord, and that K.M. (together with all the faithful departed) may receive God’s purifying love, so that, once purified, he may enter into the company of the saints in heaven and enjoy everlasting rest. Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon them. Facebook | Category: Fr. Robert Fromageot, Uncategorized | Authored or Posted by John Quinn | | Leave Your Comment Here By St. Josemaría EscriváI cannot say how often the prophetic words of the Apostle have been fulfilled, but you would have to be blind not to see how they are being carried out almost to the letter in our own time. People reject the doctrine contained in the law of God and of the Church. They twist the content of the beatitudes, translating them into a socio-political doctrine. They attack those who try to be humble, meek and pure of heart as ignorant or outdated partisans of things long ago consigned to the past. They refuse to bear the yoke of chastity and invent a thousand excuses to evade Christ s divine precepts.There is one symptom that sums up this whole situation: the attempt to change the supernatural aims of the Church. When they speak of justice, some people no longer understand by it a life of sanctity, but a particular political struggle, more or less influenced by Marxism, which is incompatible with the Christian faith. For them, liberation does not imply a personal battle to flee from sin, but merely a human task which may be noble and just in itself, but which is meaningless for a Christian, if it implies losing sight of the one thing necessary — the eternal salvation of souls, one by one.With a blindness that comes from separating themselves from God — this people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me — some fabricate an image of the Church that has nothing to do with what Christ founded. Even the holy sacrament of the altar, the renewal of the sacrifice of Calvary, is profaned or reduced to a mere symbol of what they call the communion of men with each other . What would have become of souls if Our Lord had not sacrificed himself for us, to the last drop of his precious Blood? How can they despise this perpetual miracle of the real presence of Christ in the tabernacle? He has stayed with us so that we can talk to him and adore him. He has stayed with us as a foretaste of our future glory, so that we decide once and for all to follow in his footsteps.These are times of trial, and we have to ask the Lord with an unceasing clamour to shorten them, to look mercifully on his Church and to grant once again his supernatural light to the souls of her shepherds and of all the faithful. The Church has no reason to try to pander to men, since they, individually or in community, cannot save themselves. The only one who saves is God.Facebook | Category: Uncategorized | Authored or Posted by John Quinn | | 13 Comments! What Say You? The Catholic world is adrift, and, with anguish, the question is asked: Where is the Church going?The Catholic world is adrift, and, with anguish, the question is asked: Where is the Church going?Before the drift in process, it seems that the difficulty is reduced to that of the abuse of minors, a horrible crime, especially when it is perpetrated by a priest, which is, however, only part of a much greater crisis. The plague of the homosexual agenda has been spread within the Church, promoted by organized networks and protected by a climate of complicity and a conspiracy of silence. The roots of this phenomenon are clearly found in that atmosphere of materialism, of relativism and of hedonism, in which the existence of an absolute moral law, that is without exceptions, is openly called into question.Sexual abuse is blamed on clericalism. But the first and primary fault of the clergy does not rest in the abuse of power but in having gone away from the truth of the Gospel. The even public denial, by words and by acts, of the divine and natural law, is at the root of the evil that corrupts certain circles in the Church.In the face of this situation, Cardinals and Bishops are silent. Will you also be silent on the occasion of the meeting called in the Vatican for this coming February 21st?We are among those who in 2016 presented to the Holy Father certain questions,dubia, which were dividing the Church in the wake of the conclusions of the Synod on the Family. Today, thosedubiahave not only not had any response but are part of a more general crisis of the Faith. Therefore, we encourage you to raise your voice to safeguard and proclaim the integrity of the doctrine of the Church.We pray to the Holy Spirit, that He may assist the Church and bring light to the Pastors who guide her. A decisive act now is urgent and necessary. We trust in the Lord Who has promised: “Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Mt 28,20).“We cannot avoid to see, as a sign of Providence, that you, Pope Francis and brother Bishops representing the entire Church, have come together on the very day on which we celebrate the memory of St. Peter Damian. This great monk in the 11th century put all his strength and apostolic zeal into renewing the Church in his time, so deeply corrupted by sins of sodomy and simony. He did that with the help of faithful bishops and lay people, especially with the support of Abbot Hildebrand of the Abbey of St. Paul extra muros, the future Pope St. Gregory the Great. Allow me to propose for our meditation the words of our dear Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, addressed to the people of God in the General Audience of Wednesday, the 17th of May, 2006, commenting on the very passage of the Gospel of Mark 8:27-33 that we proclaimed on today’s Mass.“Peter was to live another important moment of his spiritual journey near Caesarea Philippi when Jesus asked the disciples a precise question: ‘Who do men say that I am?’ (Mk 8: 27). But for Jesus hearsay did not suffice. He wanted from those who had agreed to be personally involved with him a personal statement of their position. Consequently, he insisted: “But who do you say that I am?” (Mk 8: 29).It was Peter who answered on behalf of the others: “You are the Christ” (ibid.), that is, the Messiah. Peter s answer, which was not revealed to him by “flesh and blood” but was given to him by the Father who is in heaven (cf. Mt 16: 17), contains, as in a seed, the future confession of faith of the Church. However, Peter had not yet understood the profound content of Jesus Messianic mission, the new meaning of this word: Messiah.He demonstrates this a little later, inferring that the Messiah whom he is following in his dreams is very different from God’s true plan. He was shocked by the Lord s announcement of the Passion and protested, prompting a lively reaction from Jesus (cf. Mk 8: 32-33).Peter wanted as Messiah a “divine man” who would fulfil the expectations of the people by imposing his power upon them all: We would also like the Lord to impose his power and transform the world instantly. Jesus presented himself as a “human God,” the Servant of God, who turned the crowd’s expectations upside-down by taking a path of humility and suffering.This is the great alternative that we must learn over and over again: to give priority to our own expectations, rejecting Jesus, or to accept Jesus in the truth of his mission and set aside all too human expectations.Peter, impulsive as he was, did not hesitate to take Jesus aside and rebuke him. Jesus’ answer demolished all his false expectations, calling him to conversion and to follow him: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not on the side of God, but of men” (Mk 8: 33). It is not for you to show me the way; I take my own way and you should follow me.Peter thus learned what following Jesus truly means. It was his second call, similar to Abraham’s in Genesis 22, after that in Genesis 12: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospel s will save it (Mk 8: 34-35). This is the demanding rule of the following of Christ: one must be able, if necessary, to give up the whole world to save the true values, to save the soul, to save the presence of God in the world (cf. Mk 8: 36-37). And though with difficulty, Peter accepted the invitation and continued his life in the Master s footsteps.And it seems to me that these conversions of St. Peter on different occasions, and his whole figure, are a great consolation and a great lesson for us. We, too, have a desire for God; we, too, want to be generous, but we, too, expect God to be strong in the world and to transform the world on the spot, according to our ideas and the needs that we perceive.God chooses a different way. God chooses the way of the transformation of hearts in suffering and in humility. And we, like Peter, must convert, over and over again. We must follow Jesus and not go before him:it is he who shows us the way.So it is that Peter tells us: You think you have the recipe and that it is up to you to transform Christianity, but it is the Lord who knows the way. It is the Lord who says to me, who says to you: Follow me! And we must have the courage and humility to follow Jesus, because he is the Way, the Truth and the Life.Maria, Mater Gratiae, Mater Misericordiae, Tu nos ab hoste protege et mortis hora suscipe.Dear Friends,Each January as the nation commemorates the sad anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, marches are held, and vigils are prayed. Those committed to the cause of human rights of the unborn make their voices heard. This year, pro-abortion politicians fearing increased restrictions on abortion have advocated for and passed laws expanding access to abortion in the state of New York. Similar attempts have been made in Virginia.Efforts to expand access to abortion, allowing murder of children up to the moment of birth is evil. Children are a gift from God, no matter the circumstances of their conception. They not only have a right to life, but we as a society have a moral obligation to protect them from harm.The champion of this abortion legislation is Andrew Cuomo, a Catholic and governor of New York. Governor Cuomo frequently cites his Catholic faith in support of legislation he favors. His public witness as a Catholic politician, coupled with his stalwart support of abortion, is unacceptable.Politicians who reside in the Catholic Diocese of Spokane, and who obstinately persevere in their public support for abortion, should not receive Communion without first being reconciled to Christ and the Church (cf. Canon 915; Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion. GeneralPrinciples. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 2004).The Church’s commitment to the life of every human person from conception until death is firm. God alone is the author of life and for the civil government to sanction the willful murder of children is unacceptable. For a Catholic political leader to do so is scandalous.I encourage the faithful to turn to our Lord in prayer for our political leaders, entrusting them especially to the intercession of St. Thomas More, a public servant who preferred to die at the hands of civil authorities rather than abandon Christ and the Church. Let us also keep the unborn,as well as all pregnant mothers, in our prayers.Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us. Live, Jesus, in our hearts forever.In Christ,Most Reverend Thomas A. DalyBishop of SpokaneFacebook | Category: Uncategorized | Authored or Posted by John Quinn | | 3 Comments! What Say You? By Fr. Stephen V. Hamilton:Today we are being made numb by the 24-hour news cycle and TV broadcasts that seem to be nothing but a series of “Breaking News” and “News Alerts,” we might not appreciate it, but Jesus’ words are a true bombshell!Scripture reveals Jesus reading from Isaiah the prophecy of what the Spirit of the Lord would accomplish in the Anointed One. What’s the bombshell, the true “breaking news?” Jesus said,“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing!”What’s at stake? What does this mean? It means that with and in Jesus the time of waiting for the fulfillment of God’s promises is over! Today it is fulfilled! In your ears, in your midst, God’s promises are here!And how did Nazareth respond to the bombshell? The Gospel told us, “[A]ll spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” But as quick as a breaking news alert, what happens in just a few brief moments verses later? The sentiment turns and the synagogue crowd is now “filled with fury” at Jesus. They rise up and drive him out of town. They are prepared to kill him! In the Gospel passage today Jesus got a clear experience of what his mission is up against in our fallen world.Adopting an uncritical and irrational mob mentality is not unique to Jesus’ time or to folks in Nazareth. With that in mind, I want to reflect on recent events in our society. These past two weeks, I haven’t been able to shake the need to address the unhinged lunacy around us. Why, why would I bother about that? Because it’s the air that we breathe, like it or not. This is the atmosphere in which we live, in which we raise and form our kids. Like Jesus in his time and place, this is the setting which we are called to be prophets to evangelize in the face of hostility. When we are dismissed and even violently opposed we are called to announce: Today God’s promises are in your midst because Jesus Christ is here and he remains here in his Church!Catholic boy from Covington High SchoolThe last two weeks in American society reveal our communal sickness of mind and sickness of soul. When I first saw the brief video of a Catholic boy from Covington, Kentucky, standing face to face with a Native American beating a drum, and when I heard news describe the boy’s actions as disrespectful and racist my reaction was: “Where are these alleged actions the video is supposed to show? What is he doing that would be fairly called disrespectful or, worse, racist?” All I could see at first was two people standing uncomfortably and oddly close to one another. The longer video shows that those boys are not guilty of disrespect or racism. It is absurdity that false reporting like this goes on with impunity from alleged professionals. The result is people have been trying to ruin the lives of kids. And it is all the more shameful and embarrassing that some Church leaders joined the pile on with the unhinged mob. I know a priest from Covington, Kentucky, who is a chaplain at another Catholic high school there (not the one in the video). I spoke to him this past week and he told me that his school also received death threats. Let that sink in. The information mobsters are so irresponsible and so indiscriminate in their rage that they are (1) crazy enough to threaten kids with death; and, (2) they can’t even manage to do enough homework to level their nonsense at the correct school involved.Yet, this is the atmosphere we live in and in which we must proclaim the truth that God was made flesh and dwelt among us. For we are called to be his prophets. And we must not proclaim the Gospel without charity, without love. If we did, we would simply be just like so much of society around us. We cannot be of service as members of the Body of Christ if our proclaiming of the Gospel is little more than a “resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.” It doesn’t matter how right you may be. If all we do is add to the noise and add to the heat then it is nothing and useless. We are called to be prophets, and so you and I must keep ourselves filled with the love of God, armed with His presence, because it will be incredibly difficult to be evangelists in our society, just as it was for Jesus in the Gospel we heard. If we aren’t praying daily in serious communion with Jesus to remain in his strength, if we aren’t being regularly healed of sin in confession, if we aren’t finding accountability and support in good Christian friendships, if we aren’t receiving Holy Communion with moral rectitude and utmost reverence… well, we simply won’t be up to the task!Catholic Governor Satanic ChoirAnd the next news cycle showed us just how desperately important it is that we be up to the task of proclaiming Jesus as his prophets. It is as if some pit of hell has opened up in a matter of weeks where politicians have become so extreme in their thirst for abortion on demand that the push is on to allow it up to the moment of birth. New York lawmakers and a Catholic governor formed a Satanic choir cheering the passing into law of late term abortion. Within days a Virginia legislator attempted an equally extreme measure and that State’s governor, a physician, made some of the most extreme remarks yet, indicating that a living child who survives an abortion might still be dispatched even though alive after birth. That governor is now embroiled in a different personal controversy which just might force him out of office. But how telling is it that he is in trouble NOT because he endorsed infanticide! This is how warped the moral compass has become. Forty-six years of legalized abortion in this country have malformed consciences such that not only is abortion not seen for the extreme depravity it already is even in early stages, but now some of the most extreme supporters, as if without shame, can utter support for abortion up to birth and even infanticide after birth. But folks, this is the extreme to which all abortion support tends because you can’t keep murderous killing cloaked for long in euphemisms like “choice,” and “healthcare.” It is a poison that invades one’s whole vision. I think this is in part the explanation for the societal landscape that we must evangelize as prophets.Scripture reminds us of the foundation and the origin of man’s dignity, a foundation that has been rejected in popular society: God says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…. a prophet to the nations I appointed you.” What has contributed to society’s hostility to the Gospel of life and to the Lord of life? One reason is the perversion of sexual love through contraception and abortion. At St. Monica we are so blessed with lots of kids. Visitors here frequently remark about this. I want it to be clear that we want to welcome lots more kids. But the larger society is selfish toward life. The result is our generosity has become so atrophied by our lust that we can no longer see things clearly. It has become so bad that otherwise intelligent human beings play word games about what is conceived in the womb and feign compassion while promoting the murder of the most innocent. These ways cannot be our ways. Or else we will fail in the work of announcing Jesus as his prophets, announcing his favor and blessing. These ways cannot be our ways. Or else we will be little more than a noisy gong in a society where the prevailing attitude is “might makes right.”Jesus calls us to be united to him in proclaiming that today God’s promises are in our midst. He calls us to be united to him in such proclamation even to a hostile world. It won’t be easy. But just as he miraculously passed through the mob unharmed, he will do amazing things with our cooperation. Let’s be hungry for the amazing and unexpected reversal that God will work through our cooperation and in the face of a depraved society. I’ll tell you right now, Covington Catholic High School had better get ready for an unusually high number of future priests to come out of that school because, I predict, the crucible of the unhinged media mob has unleashed something there that God will use to astounding effect in calling those young men to be prophets. And something tells me this will all lead right back to the March for Life in Washington, DC. The huge attendance there by a significantly young crowd is a tidal wave of truth and charity that is already sounding the trumpet of God and the defeat of the culture of death. That the main stream media is so afraid to give the march any fair coverage, tells you just how weak the grip is of those who promote the culture of death. The culture of death is so desperate now that it is showing its extreme depravity in New York and Virginia. It won’t stand. As God’s word also said through the Prophet Jeremiah: “They will fight against you but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you!” With and in Jesus the time of waiting for the fulfillment of God’s promises is over! Today it is fulfilled! In your ears, in your midst, God’s promises are here! Rise up, yes! Not in fury against the Lord. Rise up in charity and truth to proclaim Jesus Christ to a dark world desperate for mercy.

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