Take Heart: The Crisis in the Church is Terrible, But We've Seen Others!

Some say we face today the worst crisis the Church has ever experienced. Perhaps it's true. Horrifying things occur on an almost daily basis. Satan's influence pollutes the Church in many places. But take heart. The Church rose and grew in the midst of crises in the first century and has seen one after another ever since. Has there ever been a time of universal peace without difficulty and persecution? Church history overflows with periods of crisis.

One of the joyful realities we can celebrate, however, is the fact that God always raises up holy men and women in the midst of crisis. St. Francis and St. Dominic, St. Joan of Arc -- many saints were called by God to respond to a crisis in the Church. The saint for yesterday in the old calendar is St. Benedict, founder of western monasticism. God called this great man during a time of grave crisis. 

Will he do less for us today?

Here's part of the entry I read yesterday from Butler's Lives of the saints:

[Benedict] was sent to Rome for his "liberal education"...He was then in his early teens, or perhaps a little more. Overrun by pagan and Arian tribes, the civilized world seemed during the closing years of the fifth century to be rapidly lapsing into barbarism: the Church was rent by schisms, town and country were desolated by war and pillage, shameful sins were rampant amongst Christians as well as heathens, and it was noted that there was not a sovereign or a ruler who was not an atheist, a pagan or a heretic. The youths in schools and colleges imitated the vices of their elders, and Benedict, revolted by the licentiousness of his companions, yet fearing lest he might become contaminated by their example, made up his mind to leave Rome.

Like St. Ignatius centuries later, Benedict withdrew into solitude where God prepared him to begin the reform of monastic life. 

Re-read the section from Butler's again. Could we not use those same words to describe our own time? The so-called "civilized" world looks like a jungle inhabited by barbarians who, at the slightest instigation, riot, loot, burn our cities, and even injure and kill people. Many Christians embrace the same evils as the secular population cheering the murder of babies in the womb, the sin of sodomy, and the mutilation of children to appease the LGBTQ lunatics. The common good is abandoned to enrich the elites through green energy and pharmaceutical madness.

Schism? Yes -- all around us. The German synodal way embraces a call for apostasy. Cardinal Gerhard Mueller recently said Germany is in a state worse than schism by denying “the very essence of Christianity […] in favor of its transformation into a variant of the materialistic and nihilistic woke culture of man’s self-redemption and self-creation.” 

Equally horrifying, a "Mayan rite of Mass" is celebrated in Mexico with pagan elements incorporated into the liturgy. According to an extensive report by Maike Hickson:

Now it is another form of paganism that is being promoted by Rome. The ancient Mayan religion is permeated by polytheism (the earth, the sun, the moon, and animals are all regarded as being gods), by animism (belief that objects and creatures have a soul), by the belief in communication with one’s ancestors (and even worshipping them), and by human sacrifice (to include women and children) as part of its worship. As we shall show, many of these idolatrous elements will be included in this new rite of Mass.

While Pope Francis is crushing the Traditional Latin Mass, he encourages these "indigenous" liturgies filled with pagan practices and, even at St. Peter's, polluted the altar with the representation of Pachamama in the form of the Pachamama bowl at the final Mass of the Amozonian Synod.

Watch John Henry Weston's video at LifeSiteNews embedded in Maike Hickson's article to see what actually happened during this blasphemous liturgy.

Moving on to the pollution of our children, college and high school campuses echo with the screaming protests of those who demand censorship of ideas that diverge from their own. Those youngsters who still retain a sense of right and wrong are harassed and punished by their classmates and administrations, even at the elementary school level. Administrators, and teachers bend the knee to woke, mindless mobs. 

And then there are the libraries with their homosexual-celebrating picture books and drag queen story hours and the "medical professionals" eager and willing to mutilate and kill their patients both body and soul. 

Yes, indeed, it's deja vu all over again.

But! We are fools and as bad as the scandalizers if we despair.

These are times when God acts to raise up reformer saints! He never abandons us. We need to double down on prayer and fasting and be faithful to Our Lady's peace plan at Fatima. Do you say the daily rosary and make the Five First Saturdays? We can make up for what's lacking in the sufferings of Christ by uniting our own sufferings and prayers to Christ's with a firm desire to conform our wills to God's. 

Never, never, never give up. Pray, hope, don't worry and persevere. The best is yet to come!