Just Do It!

As I sit back and watch national and world events unravel; and unravel is a totally appropriate term to use regarding the state of our country and our world.  I marvel at these events in light of the revelations and prophesies that our Lady has brought us and given to us, time and time again, as she pleads with our prideful and sinful hearts and tries so desperately to lead us toward lives of holiness and Her Son.

She warned us about these scandals and sufferings the Church would endure at the hands of evil shepherds. She warned us about the erosion we would find in our Church and the World as a whole.  She appears in many places, both Church approved apparitions and apparitions not yet approved by the Church, yet her message is always the same: repent, pray and offer penance!

It’s the same message that Her Son came to earth in human form to deliver so many, many years ago. Many of us were unwilling to heed that message then just as we are unwilling to heed that message now.  Why?

We are all on a journey in this world, and for most of us, we aim toward a goal that I think our efforts are very much misappropriated towards.  If you would ask most people what the goal of life and our existence is, most would say, to be happy.  I think that this is very wrong.  Our Lady told the children at Fatima that She could not promise them happiness in this world, but that she could promise them happiness (joy) in the next.  She then showed them what the pursuit of “happiness” gets us if we aim for it in this world – Hell.

Nothing mirrors a world gone wrong more than two separate events playing out right now in our very own country and on a greater scale in the world.  The scandal the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church finds herself embroiled in, and the whole Nike debacle enfolding in the media.   Taking a knee in protest, rather than prayer is what got us to this point.  As one current meme so appropriately calls out, the people praising Colin Kaepernick for taking a knee for his beliefs are the same ones who condemned Tim Tebow for taking a knee for his.  The moral erosion is the same though, the erosion that results from the systematic chipping away at the Rock, the foundation on which all our moral behavior and beliefs should be based on – God.   This moral foundation is still and will always be found in the Truth espoused by the Church and the truly holy men and women who still reside within her, on this side of temporality and the next; to all those who are Faithful to Her.

Unfortunately that erosion continues to be very evident in the Church and is manifested with the likes of Cardinal McCarrick and Father James Martin, promoting and embracing sinfulness and immersing that Rock in the floodwaters of crime, vice, and disfunction, because the basis for their moral understanding and foundation has somehow been jolted off kilter, which so easily happens to all of us.  This world has such a tremendous pull on our souls, whether we want it to or not, and the only defense against this is repentance, prayer and penance, the same works that our Lady asks of us in every one of Her apparitions.  

The same crime, vice and disfunction is mirroring that which has been spotlighted in the Church in our secular world. The rock of morality eroding on that stage is a more patriotic and national one.  Taking a knee to the playing of our National Anthem is protesting exactly what?  To many, this is a symbol and a sacrlidge of protest against the very moral theology and rock that this country was built upon, a government framework based on the virtues of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Virtues that many brave American soldiers have fought and died for, just as many Church Martyrs have fought and died for what Christ and the Church holds sacred and True.  These two foundations are basically the same, they are not so very different at all. Unity is found in Truth.  The war on Truth has raged on in every age since the beginning of time.  Now as we spiral toward the end times, it becomes even more frantic. 

 The Founding Fathers of our country recognized the dependence that we have on our Creator for all three of these admirable goals.  Only God can give us life, liberty and direct us toward happiness, which is precisely why those great Heroes of our Land outlined the pursuit of happiness rather than the guarantee of happiness, because as an emotion, happiness is relative and unstable.  The pursuit of the happiness found within the virtue of joy though, is not. Happiness is how we feel, joy is who and what we are. It becomes a part of our very spiritual being, and is only found when we live in God’s Truth.  Joy is what we should be aiming for, joy and Sainthood.  As Satan chips away at both of these rocks, these foundations, both institutions will suffer.  The destruction is much more costly than our Earthly happiness as well, what is at stake is our soul, and our salvation – there is an eternal reality that we all need to face in light of both of these events – do we protest Heaven for the glitter and glamour of Hell 

The Church has the reassurance from Christ that the gates of Hell will not prevail against Her.  I trust Jesus and I know that the Church will come through this and be victorious in the end, Christ did not give our country or us as individuals though, that same promise and guarantee.  We may be divinely guarded, but the United States is not eternal and cannot offer us an eternity of peace and joy.  That national rock may just crumble as Satan has his way, and his demons and earthly minions continue to carry on his battle cry.  May God have mercy on us all, and especially the USA.  Instead of asking for his blessings, we should now begin to ask for His mercy.  Not just for us, but for us in the USA, the Church, and for the whole world.