To Have Become Like Orphans

I've been getting texts and Rorate-Caeli links about the Holy Father's flowery letter to Fr. James Martin congratulating him on his work and apostolate. You can read it for yourself if you like here. 

Remember that infamous clip of the liberal head explosion making the rounds on the internet after the 2016 election, of the woman (?) screaming into the universe? Does this letter have the same head-exploding potential for conservative/orthodox Catholics? Sure. Heads will explode. We are hungry for scandal. We're no better than liberals when we lap it up like dogs.

My response by text to my priest friend and others was simple:

"All I feel is peace, because the fissures are so clearly drawn, and we have no excuse not for girding our loins for what's coming. 

Just because your father is passed out at the wheel doesn't mean there's not work that needs to be done and siblings who need to be fed and cared for."

 

If the "smoke of Satan has entered the Church" as Pope Paul VI said, is it any wonder the Barque is as turned upside down as the world outside? Where the Pope himself affirms the construction taking place at Sodom and Gomorrah just prior to it's razing? It is enough to baffle the mind and razzle the most fervent souls. 

For those who let it.

I am not an ostrich type, with his head in the sand. I know what's going on in the Church. If I am a fool, let me be a fool for Christ, who is married to His Bride. But are we fools for staying on the ship? You almost need a kind of 'holy ignorance' today, which seems like a grace that allows the follower of Christ to continue to advocate and hold fast to the most dysfunctional, corrupt, and perverted institution in existence today. 

Of course, if that was all She was, I'd have jumped ship when I saw the smoke. But we're in it for the long game, even through the birth pangs and agony of foolishness. 

When your wife is in labor and you are by her side, what do you do? "Look at me," you say. "Focus on me. Breath. This will not be forever." As she tightens her grip on your hand to the point of cutting off the circulation, you tell her "Look at me. Focus on me" to keep her from entering into the pain, which is so blindingly acute that it seems an agony that will never end. And then she gives birth, as scripture says, and the pain is forgotten and her joy complete.

I read the letter from the Holy Father. If this were five or more years ago, I might have thrown up in my mouth a little, might have suffered a kind of spiritual aneurysm. But this pontificate has been a grace and blessing in that all the stops have been pulled out. During my time trying to extricate myself from sin and the influence of my secular friends, I felt like I had both feet on opposing fence posts which were being spread apart, and felt the acuteness of the the pain as I continued to try to straddle. When I stepped off, and left it all behind, I had peace, and could get to work; at least the suffering that came with choosing had merit, not for naught, "suffering for doing good," as St. Peter says (1 Peter 3:17). I have taken to heart that we "should not be surprised when the fiery trial comes upon us" (1 Peter 4:12). Nothing surprises me anymore. Nothing. 

Does that mean there are not siblings to be fed, like I said? Work to be done? Souls heading to perdition to fast for? Orphans that need to be cared for? It has gotten to the point that we are being gaslit so badly that we just have to tell one another, "don't listen to him. He's not in his right mind" and do the best we can as teenage parents in the faith. God gives us the grace. Passed out at the wheel or not, abusive or not, we cannot not call him father. We may be adopted by another family (Orthodox? High Church Anglican?), offered a more comfortable environment in the suburbs away from the abuse, but we know our history. Can we leave? Sure. Can we divorce our spouses? Sure. Can we give back our birthright? That may be another story altogether. 

It is interesting that all of the above verses from scripture that seem so apt in this trial to hold on come from the first Bishop of Rome himself in his epistles. I'll end with one as well. Remember--people still need to be fed. The house still needs to be cleaned and maintained. The bills still need to be paid. We as brothers and sisters of the Church are like the Lost Boys of Sudan. But it is those same fools who have chosen their Master to follow--the man with no guile on his lips, who always told the truth and did not relish in falsehoods, who loved and died and rose and did not leave us orphans--who will inherit the kingdom. 

How clear are the lines drawn in the sand. What a grace we have for this breaking open of falsehood in full view for those with eyes to see to view. What delineation between angels and demons who used to resign themselves to the shadows. What a sifting taking place, wheat from chaff, and we are spared no grace to get off the fence and double down to work out our salvation in fear and trembling, and great confidence. The perversions of this world are so apparent, so in your face, that we almost have to shield our eyes as one would look away from the sun lest we burn out our eyes. But as the Master says, "Fear not! I have overcome the world!" I have such great hope. Such great hope.

"But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority.

Bold and arrogant, they are not afraid to heap abuse on celestial beings; yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not heap abuse on such beings when bringing judgment on them from the Lord. But these people blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like animals they too will perish.

They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood! They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Bezer, who loved the wages of wickedness. But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey—an animal without speech—who spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.” (2 Peter 2:1-22)