Terror On Every Side

Because I think about Eden-yes, the original garden of, I write about it- more than once or twice. I do this because writing helps me think carefully enough to decide what I believe is true-real. I do this because there is no other place that calls us so powerfully, so irresistibly as the place called Eden. Somewhere deep inside each human heart is a longing for Paradise, the place we were created to inhabit for eternity.

But this piece is about the other side of Eden: after the banishment instead of that Garden of Perfection.

Even those of us who have schooled ourselves to stop watching the news cannot escape the ever-darkening realities of today. Times that feel precisely like those of the prophet Jeremiah 2500 years ago.

For I heard the reproaches of many, and terror on every side: Persecute him, and let us persecute him: from all the men that were my familiars, and continued at my side: if by any means he may be deceived, and we may prevail against him, and be revenged on him.

But the Lord is with me as a strong warrior: therefore they that persecute me shall fall, and shall be weak: they shall be greatly confounded, because they have not understood the everlasting reproach, which never shall be effaced.

And thou, O Lord of hosts, prover of the just, who seest the reins and the heart: let me see, I beseech thee, thy vengeance on them: for to thee I have laid open my cause.

The reading was the first for last Sunday’s mass and fertile ground for Bishop Barron’s homily about Jeremiah- and you and me. The sermon is just thirteen minutes long and worthy of our attention because of the ominous weight of these words. Jeremiah’s phrase, terror on every side, hardly feels ancient. Instead, all Christians, Catholics, and God-fearing people sense the accelerating animus toward our precious Judeo-Christian civilization. Persecution by our own government toward Christians is occurring with increasing frequency. And more than a few of us ponder just what we can do- and whether we have the fortitude to do it.

The Bishop challenges each of us with his crisp, clear rhetorical question: Why were you baptized?

Listening, we shift uncomfortably because we know what comes next-Jeremiah was not the last prophet. Not by a long shot. The Catechism makes our obligation clear: “Baptism constitutes the foundation of communion among all Christians, including those who are not yet in full communion with the Catholic Church: "For men who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in some, though imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church. Justified by faith in Baptism, [they] are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church."^’ "Baptism therefore constitutes the sacramental bond of unity existing among all who through it are reborn²...Reborn as sons of God, [the baptized] must profess before men the faith they have received from God through the Church" and participate in the apostolic and missionary activity of the People of God.”

The time for silence is long past. We must speak our Truth, but softly, lovingly, so that the whispers can be heard amidst the din:

Like these prophetic words of Maura Harrison:

My Beloved Atheist

Surely you have the power to renounce God

To divorce yourself from mystery

To walk alone

To reduce your talent

To chain your spirit to the cliff.

In the beginning, you do.

You walk away. Quietly.

You find the power to announce yourself

To make your mark

To have effect

To manage pleasure

To orchestrate your path.

You walk your way. Marching.

Marching, banging your drum

Right with your will, with sheer will

Left beating your drum, beating

All drums, you find only hum.

You sense humdrum.

You get angry. You stomp.

You collect ravens and rear them

On razors. You starve them

Then show them the dove.

Daily, you see offenses, daily

You run shrieking back to the cliff where

You peck out your own eyes. Daily it hums and

Mystery still transgresses.

In the end, you are blind.

In the end, you will be quiet. You will be

in an eternal silence when Mystery

Calls the dove

To reconcile your ravens.