Pray More, Speak Less

praymorespeakless2

 

I could have written this for the past week. First published 

THE Synod on the family in Rome last autumn was the beginning of a firestorm of attacks, assumptions, judgments, grumbling, and suspicions against Pope Francis. I set everything aside, and for several weeks responded to reader’s concerns, media distortions, and most especially distortions of fellow Catholics that simply needed to be addressed. Thanks be to God, many people stopped panicking and started praying, started reading more of what the Pope was actually saying rather than what the headlines were. For indeed, Pope Francis’ colloquial style, his off-the-cuff remarks that reflect a man who is more comfortable with street-talk than theological-speak, has required greater context.

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Is God Silent?

 

 

 

Dear Mark,

God forgive the USA. Normally I would begin with God Bless the USA, but today how could any of us ask him to bless what is happening here? We are living in a world that is growing more and more dark. The light of love is fading, and it takes all my strength to keep this little flame burning in my heart. But for Jesus, I keep it burning still. I beg God our Father to help me understand, and to discern what is happening to our world, but He is suddenly so silent. I look to those trusted prophets of these days who I believe are speaking the truth; you, and others whose blogs and writings I would read daily for strength and wisdom and encouragement. But all of you have become silent too. Posts that would appear daily, turned to weekly, and then monthly, and even in some cases yearly. Has God stopped speaking to all of us? Has God turned His holy face from us? After all how could His perfect holiness bear to look upon our sin…?

K.S. 

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My People Are Perishing


Peter Martyr Enjoins Silence
, Fra Angelico

 

EVERYONE’S talking about it. Hollywood, secular newspapers, news anchors, evangelical Christians… everyone, it seems, but the bulk of the Catholic Church. As more and more people are attempting to grapple with the extreme events of our time —from bizarre weather patterns, to animals dying en masse, to frequent terrorist attacks—the times we are living in have become, from a pew-persepective, the proverbial “elephant in the living room.” Most everyone senses to one degree or another that we are living in an extraordinary moment. It’s jumping out of the headlines every day. Yet the pulpits in our Catholic parishes are often silent…

Thus, the confused Catholic is often left to Hollywood’s hopeless end-of-world scenarios that leave the planet either without a future, or a future salvaged by aliens. Or is left with the atheistic rationalizations of the secular media. Or the heretical interpretations of some Christian sects (just cross-your-fingers-and-hang-on-until-the-rapture). Or the ongoing stream of “prophecies” from Nostradamus, new age occultists, or hieroglyphic rocks.

 

 

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