You Have Not Resisted Unto Blood

What an interesting day! Two of my posts were flagged by Facebook for "not meeting community standards" One was the story of Fr. James Haley and his white martyrdom. The other was one of my blog posts. Friends reported they share some of my posts and blog and they too were flagged and taken down. Weird.

If you're here for the first time, welcome. I make $0 from blogging, have never made any money from writing in fact. I have no ads on my site and no ulterior motive or agenda other than sharing the Catholic faith and what Jesus Christ and our Blessed Mother has done in my life and the life of my family to anyone who will listen. I try to write every other day or so and keep it orthodox. I try not to be clickbaity, because I have nothing to gain by doing so. I usually spend no more than an hour per post. I don't have much more than that to spare.

Wisdom and Folly is not my first blog. I had one for a few years prior that was personal like this one but not as focused. When my faith and walk with the Lord started to crowd out the other things in my life (thanks be to God), I wanted a fresh start and launched this site three years ago and have been writing exclusively here about my attempts to live a Catholic life and disciple of Jesus Christ while being married and raising a family. I write about faith, family, marriage, chastity, and Catholic manhood, and have used Facebook as a platform to post my writing and engage with people. I used to have a pretty diverse feed but after the election that changed a bit. I have more peace having gotten off the fence that I was straddling, but I feel like it may have cost me as well. I'm okay with that. I don't see it as a place to evangelize anymore, though I did at one point. Instead, I enjoy 'being fed' so to speak by other faithful Catholics and learning what I need to learn from those with more experience than me to go into the fray.

Back to the flagging, though. Like many people, I've had a love/hate relationship with Facebook for the past ten years or so. As a friend told me once, "Wow, you really put yourself out there." Well, yes, I guess I do in some ways. It's a blessing and a curse, much like writing. A blessing because of all the faithful people I have met that I would not have met otherwise. A curse because, well, it can leave you a little...exposed. My wife is a saint for bearing with me and my subtle eccentricities, because they are legion. I'm not controversial by nature, nor am I conspiracy theorist.  I am not an intellectual or a theologian. I'm just some joe with a blog. So I find it kind of funny that someone is censoring my posts or reporting me to Facebook or whatever. From what I understand, other people have been experiencing this too.

Lest we think we are more than we are, that we are special, or that being flagged on Facebook is any kind of persecution, I like to remind myself of the scripture, "You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin" (Heb 12:4). We do not need to go looking for trouble, because when you proclaim the Truth of Christ and live it, it will find you. Being a jerk doesn't make you a martyr, either. We should emulate our Savior in his actions: to pray for those who persecute us (Mt 5:44), count ourselves blessed when we are reviled and falsely accused (Mt 5:11), wash our face and anoint our head when we fast (Mt 6:17), and sing and rejoice in suffering (Rom 5:3-5). It doesn't mean we're doing something wrong (though this is how the world will make you feel), but something right!

I don't see or go looking for devils under every rock, though I believe strongly in the reality of evil and the seriousness of spiritual warfare. When you're steeped in sin or lukewarm in your faith, you're already had, so the Devil doesn't need to waste any energy on you. But when you start trying to live for the Lord, he goes at you, sometimes hard but by the usual means--ordinary temptation, dejection, desolation of spirit, sometimes external misfortune or calamity or other 'weird' things. No matter. He has no power over us when we are in Christ. Don't give him any more attention than he deserves. We are not Padre Pio or Jean Vianney. That doesn't mean the devil doesn't want our souls. It just means we shouldn't think we are great saints when we face ordinary temptation. We are sinners and should adopt the posture of the publican. We should be ourselves, and try to serve the Lord in the capacity appropriate to our state in life.

That being said, the little Facebook thing was kind of a wake up call for me. I don't know what God is doing in my life, but He is doing something. It can be hard to explain, but he is replacing fear with trust, comfort with austerity, worldliness with asceticism, and disease with joy. It is all by grace, and I would never want to go back having experienced it. I don't know what I'm called to do, but I'm going to keep writing about Christ, because it's what I seem to do. When I try to keep it in, try not to write, Jeremiah comes to mind:

"But if I say, “I will not remember Him Or speak anymore in His name,” Then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire Shut up in my bones; And I am weary of holding it in, And I cannot endure it" 

(Jer 20:9)

Those suffering for the Name in foreign lands face persecution, real persecution every day. In our country too, there are legal ramifications for standing for truth, but rarely is one forced to shed blood for the faith. That is why Fr. John Hardon referred to the oft-experienced 'white martyrdom' to differentiate it from the shedding of blood in red martyrdom. Whatever the Lord calls us to experience, that is His will for us, and we should go to it willingly and without fear, because He walks with us. But it's a nutty age, and we don't know how we're going to go. For Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, "I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”

We shouldn't make a bigger deal of our sufferings or misfortunes than is merited, and we also shouldn't underestimate the trials the Lord may have in store for us for our sanctification. Our job throughout it all is to remain faithful, to pray unceasingly as is appropriate to our state of life, and to offer ourselves, loving til it hurts...even to those who flag our little posts;)