Spiritual Direction: Are Forty Minutes Enough? Build Back Better

Today let us look at an article that ran in the media on March 6, 2022. The article was entitled, BIDEN GOES TO CHURCH AS WAR DRUMS POUND.

There are many things wrong with the article but it is probably not what you think and most definitely what the author of the article was thinking.

What is wrong with the headline?

Does this mean that it would be better for the President to not go to Church? Do Americans trust a President who does not go to Church more or does the author try to hold up the concept that taking time out of a busy schedule to attend Church was a really bad decision? If we are to Build Back America, should we enlist God’s help? If Build Back Better is primarily a plan to invest in America’s future does the author want us to somehow exclude God? The word choice Build Back Better somehow conjures up times in our past where things were more simple and our belief in God was much stronger. Why not Build Back Better there too- why does building back better only mean to increase the largeness of the Federal Government. Remember the words of President Reagan when he said the worst words in the English language were, “I’m from the Government and I am here to help.”

Yes, brothers and sisters, the headline was bad, but there was much more.

In the first paragraph of the article it stated:

President Joe Biden attended mass at a Delaware church with a handful of family members late Saturday afternoon shortly before having a 32-minute phone conversation with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

This clearly implied that spending more time talking to God than Zelenskyy was bad. I say just the opposite, maybe if all of us spent more time talking to God, this world would be a better place. Governments come and go, leaders come and go, but God stays. He is eternal. Maybe he has seen this before and could offer us some help. Do you think at this point we could not use his help on this problem? How would trying to seek God’s guidance hurt? We must start to wonder about the concept that man created government and not government created man. At the rate they are going, governments will destroy this world, the world God created. Let us go to the source for help in saving, not go to the root of the problem to save it.

Brothers and sisters here is the real problem with the article. President Biden spent about 40 minutes at St. Joseph on the Brandywine Roman Catholic Church in Wilmington, where he’s spending the weekend. According to the White House press pool, he arrived at 5:09 p.m. and left at 5:50 p.m. His call with Zelenskyy was from 6:18 p.m. to 6:50 p.m.

Brothers and sisters, once again the author tries to attack the time on the call. Somehow, the call should have lasted longer than Church. However, why I am so upset here is that the Mass did not even last forty minutes. 40 Minutes- this is not even as long as it probably took to get ready for the Mass. It would be about the length of the average American lunch or dinner. Is that enough? Should we spend more time worshiping God each week? In reference to Build Back Better, maybe we should look at the average attendance in the late 1950s when all Catholic Churches had altar rails, the Eucharist was given to each person in the mouth, and the average Mass lasted almost twice as long as it did on that Saturday in Delaware. If we are going to Build Back Better, let us start to look at that model. How could we get 75% of the Church attending weekly and the Mass was twice as long? Maybe the people in those days remembered something. We need to celebrate the Mass to praise and worship God and His son Jesus Christ. If we are going to build back better, let us start with the Church and start with spending more than 40 minutes with God each week. Do not shortage the members of the Parish and more importantly let us not shortage God. If we have learned anything in the past sixty-plus years since the late 1950’s maybe we should learn to short-change the Government, not God.