Posted on 11/08/2012 5:55:04 AM PST by NYer
I became a priest because God was calling me to it. I can promise you…it wasn’t my idea. At the time of my calling, and indeed throughout seminary, I imagined being a priest in a medium-sized parish, baptizing babies, marrying couples, growing old, and eventually dying and going to heaven.
Perhaps to keep me from running away, I was spared viewing the type of priesthood that God has since let me know that I would ACTUALLY be called to. Practically from my ordination day, I’ve felt (and been shown) that the priesthood God is raising up in me and my fellow priests of my generation is a priesthood of warriors who will fight and die for the faith. I’ve also realized, from pretty early on, that this generation of warrior priests would be, in an earthly sense, too late. It is tempting to ask, “why didn’t God raise up priests like this 40 years ago?” I don’t have the answer, but I know enough to know that God has his reasons.
It began with homilies…when people would come up and complain about them I would sit there and have a kind of out of body experience and think “I should be really affected by this, but I could care less that this person is yelling at me right now.” Of course it continued with videos spreading out across the country to friends and foes alike…I remember thinking “I should be really sad that people are attacking me” but I remember in those moments being overcome with the urge to chuckle at how little it actually DID affect me. You, as a faithful Catholic, have likely had similar experiences…and that is God working in you and preparing you for what is to come as well.
And so it begins…
[1]I’m a bigger fan of authentic peace, but I’d rather have a battle than surface level passive-aggressive “peace” that simply masks evil. I’ve seen, in 3.5 years of priesthood, that perhaps a battle would do us all some good. If the stats hold true, 40% of Catholics who go to Mass every week just stood in open defiance of their bishops and the Church in voting in the affirmative for a candidate who:
1) supports redefining marriage
2) supports forcing the Church to do something it will never do
3) is for abortion through all 9+ months of pregnancy
4) is for the government helping people procure abortions if they can’t afford one
5) provides for the destruction of human embryos for research
Please draw me up a candidate who could more completely embody the opposite of Catholicism.
The Catholic Church in the United States is a cage that needs rattling, and the coming battle will provide just such a shake-up. The days of bishops and cardinals yucking it up with anti-Catholic politicians will soon be at an end. The days of bishops and cardinals wagging fingers at anti-Catholic “catholic” politicians and telling them not to cross this line again…and then redrawing the line further back…those days will soon be at an end.
And I guess what I’m saying is that there is a lazy part of me that prefers comfort and wishes it never had to come to blows like this surely will…but there is another part of me that realizes God is doing something in the hearts of faithful priests and Catholics and I think we’re on the edge of something that will be unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes.
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace. I’ve come not to bring peace but rather the sword.” – Jesus Christ. He brings the sword because the sword wakes people up, and it is better to be awakened at the last moment so that one can still repent than it is for a person to gain the whole world but lose his soul.
………….
My favorite scene from the Dark Knight Rises movie is at the beginning. Commissioner Jim Gordon is at a podium and a couple of fatcat politicians are talking about him from afar:
fatcat 1: “He’s going to have plenty of free time, the mayor’s dumping him.”
fatcat 2: “But he’s a hero!”
fatcat 1: “He’s a wartime hero, this is peacetime.”
“Wartime Heroes” always seem clumsy, brutish, unpolished, unrefined etc. when things are going swell and dandy and everyone has enough food to eat. Wartime heroes don’t know how to make a martini and don’t have a room full of stogies, but when peacetime evaporates, no one gives a dang about priests and bishops and leaders that are “refined” and “dignified”, people turn to warrior priests and warrior Catholics…they will turn to us soon…and we will be ready.
Yes...and a huge percentage of those Mexican Catholics are here illegally and still voted and they're here with the encouragement and the aid and comfort of the Catholic hierarchy. The bishops can't have it both ways. They claim to oppose obama and his anti-Christian ways and yet help flood the country with the people whose presence makes possible the election of obama.
I don't read this paragraph as metaphor.
MondoQueen said it before I could. You go to the Traditional Latin Mass, and you won’t find anyone debating about what is or is not Catholic orthodoxy. Everyone there — from the priest down to the youngest child in catechism class — knows the score.
Hang in there yldstrk, the number of strong Catholics is increasing.
Good signs:
1. My teenage daughter went to a retreat/conference this summer where there were 5,000 kids learning about real Catholic things like the beauty of chastity, and the practice of adoration of the eucharist. She came back so fortified in her faith, and has been reading her youth catholic bible on her own since then. Probably not all 5,000 kids were touched that way, but many, many were.
2. My womens bible study is very orthodox. They were pretty crushed by the election results, but they are prayer warriors and pretty used to storming heaven when the situation calls for it. Don’t underestimate the power of people like that. People like them are few and scattered around, but they pray like they mean it.
It’s our job (duty) as the 60 peprcent to evangelize and enlighten this 40 peprcent.
Don’t give up!
Or as Winston Churchilll said during World War II: “Never give in, never give in, never give in!”
**Onward Soldiers For Christ!**
Amen! I think that is why many of us are here on FR!
Our work is cut out for us.......Protestants need to get to the Black Protestants who voted for Obama
Catholics need to get to the Hispanics who voted for Obama
And we all need to get to those people who complain about what is happening and ask them if they voted.
When they reply in the negative, we can start a list with name and phone number and follow up on it by giving them a call and/or a ride to vote in the next election!
I know that sounds mundane, but we will have to do it.
At the end of the day, Catholic Church leadership did not have the courage of their convictions. They shied away from a direct confrontation with Obama and anything that might have dissuaded Democrats from the collection basket.
They should have been wall-to-wall with one clear, unequivocal message. Either Obama backs down from this, or it is sinful for Catholics to vote for him.
They did not come anywhere even remotely close to that.
The priest at my parents parish voted for Obama! I think a national movement would be in order. Write a letter to your bishop and tell him you are no longer donating to the Church until they take real action.
Father Hollowell has some good points here. There is going to be a time very soon that priests and bishops will know that being tough and assertive may be the most loving, Christian act they will ever have to do. The greatest act of mercy may be to correct an injustice, bearing in mind the future of the souls of their flocks.
I can bet that my priest didn’t vote for Obama but the priest at the other parish in town yeah he probably did.
We will all face God and as that video asked “Will your vote stand the test of fire”?
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