{"id":26370,"date":"2017-02-23T00:00:12","date_gmt":"2017-02-23T06:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markmallett.com\/blog\/?p=26370"},"modified":"2017-04-17T21:57:33","modified_gmt":"2017-04-18T01:57:33","slug":"judgment-begins-with-the-household","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markmallett.com\/blog\/judgment-begins-with-the-household\/","title":{"rendered":"Judgment Begins With the Household","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"
\u00a0\"\"Photo by EPA<\/em>, at 6pm in Rome, February 11th, 2013<\/span><\/div>\n
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AS\u00a0<\/strong>a young man, I dreamed of being a singer\/songwriter, of dedicating my life to music. But it seemed too unrealistic and impractical. And so I went into mechanical engineering\u2014a profession that paid well, but was totally unsuitable to my gifts and disposition. After three years, I made a leap into the world of television news. But my soul grew restless until the Lord eventually called me into full-time ministry.\u00a0There, I\u00a0thought I would live out my days as a singer of ballads. But God\u00a0had other plans.<\/p>\n

One day, I sensed the Lord ask me to begin publishing\u00a0on the internet\u00a0the thoughts and words that I was writing in my journal. And so I did. Over a decade later, those “thoughts and words” are being read by tens of thousands around the world. I can truthfully say that this was not part of “my” plan. Nor was it part of “my” plan to speak about the subjects\u00a0that I do,\u00a0which can be summarized in one word: “Prepare<\/a>!”<\/em>\u00a0But prepare for what?<\/p>\n

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A DAY OF RECKONING<\/p>\n

As far back as the early nineties, when my ministry was first conceived\u00a0as a Catholic “praise and worship” band,\u00a0I sensed that something had gone amiss in our society and that we were headed toward a\u00a0day of reckoning. Western civilization\u00a0had become like\u00a0the “prodigal son” having left its Christian roots, while quickly embracing every form of hedonism. Moreover, it went beyond “old-fashioned” rebellion; objective truths were being painted as wrong while\u00a0objective evil was being embraced as a good. There was an innate “sense” in my heart that we were entering, somehow in someway, into the “end times.” And I knew that I was not alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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I know that all times are perilous, and that in every time serious and anxious minds, alive to the honor of God and the needs of man, are apt to consider no times so perilous as their own…. still I think\u2026 ours has a darkness different in kind from any that has been before it. The special peril of the time before us is the spread of that plague of infidelity, that the Apostles and our Lord Himself have predicted as the worst calamity of the last times of the Church. And at least a shadow, a typical image of the last times is coming over the world. <\/strong>\u2014Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), sermon at opening of St. Bernard\u2019s Seminary, October 2, 1873, The Infidelity of the Future<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But of course, any mention of this openly was immediately met with derision (as if one were a leper) and charges of “doom and gloom” quickly found oneself cast into ecclesial\u00a0outer darkness (where “Charismatics” and Marian priests gnashed their teeth)\u2014unless, of course, it\u00a0was a pope\u00a0saying such things…<\/p>\n

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There is a great uneasiness at this time in the world and in the Church, and that which is in question is the faith. It so happens now that I repeat to myself the obscure phrase of Jesus in the Gospel of St. Luke: \u2018When the Son of Man returns, will He still find faith on the earth?\u2019\u2026I sometimes read the Gospel passage of the end times and I attest that, at this time, some signs of this end are emerging.\u00a0<\/strong>\u2014POPE PAUL VI,\u00a0The Secret Paul VI<\/em>, Jean Guitton, p. 152-153, Reference (7), p. ix.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I can’t say that, even now, I am comfortable with it all. I just became a grandfather before Christmas, and I still have five boys that we\u00a0are raising at home. Like everyone else, I struggle with the more serious warnings from Heaven that portend cataclysmic changes. Who doesn’t want to simply grow old in peace and quiet? But we live in a world where relatively few enjoy that. Where countless millions are starving this moment while I sip a cup of tea and type away. [1]<\/sup><\/a>cf. Does He Hear the Cry of the Poor?<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/span>