Renew The Church! – website and Blog

Mt 16:24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Mt 16:25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Mt 16:26 For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life?

This world seems to be in free-fall.  It began gradually, the dark eradication of an infused sense, or intuition in us, of an intrinsic essential dignity in us all, the dignity of the human person. Maybe it was even a memory – a memory in the human soul of God’s creative hands forming each of us, breathing into us His own breath, a seed of Truth meant to last through ages of coming darkness, an intuition of the divine image.

We began to break from Him almost immediately, in the Garden, in a covenant of His trust, in the boundaries of a commandment, in a world full of His blessings.  We knew better than He, what is good for us. Then, we chose self over Him. Then, the fall began, and blood was spilled soon after: detached from Him, we turned against our brother, our neighbor, our other self.  The long, long suicide of humanity began.

It did not have to continue! God sent His Son to make a way – to become the Way – the God-man Christ would become sin to become redemption to become light in the darkness of fallen humanity. In the fullness of time He came, in the center of human history He opened the door, in the heart of humanity He opened His Sacred Heart and poured out His Life for the world.  On the Cross, He proclaimed to all creation the sublime worth of mankind – of each man and woman and child – created in His image, the divine image of God.

From that Cross, that central event, began the last days.  From there the battle begun on the first day, began in its last and final days: the two cities, the two kingdoms, the two armies engaged in a new way.  There is an army of saints, growing in holiness and in grace, and in numbers – some here on earth, many in heaven.  There is an army of demons, and men in bondage to them still, and men serving them half-conscious or unconscious, maybe not realizing the part they are serving in the forces of suffering, darkness and death.

The time is getting shorter; the alarm has been sounded; the enemy is at the gates and some have even infiltrated the kingdom of righteousness, working to sabotage and weaken the holy ones with duplicity, with falsity, with empty promises and with lies. And some believe them, and cooperate with them, and are weakening – falling back toward the darkness from which we were once released by our Lord.  The fall begun soon after the first days, is repeated in the last of the last days: man knows better than God what is good for him. Man holds the ways of the world closer to his heart, drawing closer the things of creation while pushing away the Creator of all; loving self to the contempt of God.

This world needs a holy Church!  The world needs, and the Church needs, holy witnesses of faith, and hope, and divine charity!  What are we to do?  We are to pursue holiness, and the perfection of divine charity, as the Lord and His Church tell us.  We are to see and understand the gravity of our responsibility before Him – we who have been given much!  Those who have been given much, are responsible for much, and we have been given much: as Catholics we have been given access to Christ’s holy sacraments, and the overflowing of His supernatural grace through them.  We have been given the fullness of God’s revealed Truth, entrusted to His holy Church.  We have been given true teachings concerning the moral life: how we are called to live God’s divine Truth on earth and among men.  And through the many holy saints of the Church, we have been given true teachings concerning prayer: prayer, the act of union with God, the relationship of sharing with Him and in Him, His life.  And through the great saints and doctors of the Church – St. Thomas Aquinas and St. John of the Cross, in particular – we have been given understanding of the actual personal journey of prayer: how we are to grow in prayer and proceed toward Him, closer and closer intimate union with Him.

What are we to do?  We are to repent and believe the good news, as Jesus preached. We are to set aside the masks and costumes of false expectations, and become filled with His Holy Truth, and moved by His Sacred Heart. We are to:

Repent of the love of the things of this world;
And pray to grow in the love of the one true God!

Repent of the desire for the empty praises and acceptance of men;
And seek to please the Lord our God!

Repent of worrying about the many problems of this world;
And seek to believe in and trust the almighty King of the Universe.

Do not then treasure the passing, temporal things;
But deeply value the lasting, the eternal, the true treasures of life.

We are to die to ourselves, and live to Him: we are to find our true selves in Him.  He who created us is He who holds the meaning for us of life itself.  He holds the meaning and purpose of our lives, each one of us.  To avoid Him, to dismiss Him, to run from Him is to lose our very identity, to lose our very souls. We find ourselves, and life eternal, in Him.  In serving Him we find, finally, peace, rest, life.