Word to the Wise
Thursday, October 30, 2008 - Thursday in the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time
[Ephesians 6:10-20 and Luke 13:31-35]Draw your strength from the Lord and from his mighty power. Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the Devil. For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness......
Many of us can recall from our grade school and high school catechism classes the description of the church under the titles of the Church Triumphant, Church Suffering, and Church Militant! The last of those three was often emphasized when we were preparing for the Sacrament of Confirmation. We were told to become "soldiers for Christ!" The Sodality of Our Lady had a marching song: An Army of Youth! The imagery in those days took some of its energy from the Cold War and fears of Communism. We as Catholics were not alone in our thoughts. The familiar Protestant hymn, Onward Christian Soldiers! reflects much of the same outlook! Even if our current mindset is different from those older martial attitudes, we nevertheless may see some validity in the rather militant images of today's scripture from Ephesians! It would be naive to ignore the opposition to religious belief in the public forum in this country. The privatizing of faith has led to a culture of agnosticism and moral relativism, against which Pope Benedict XVI has been preaching with considerable power. Every day there are those minor "struggles" and "compromises" that come our way - activities that conflict with Sunday services, a blind eye turned toward political and financial greed, calculated ignorance of poverty and need even in our local communities! The cartoon character, Pogo (remember him?) once said, "We has met the enemy and they is US!" Perhaps the problem is not in recognizing that we are in for a struggle if we want to remain faithful, as much as in knowing how to stand against those "powers" that St. Paul speaks about. At the risk of trivializing the matter, questions like this could arise: How can I stand against the soccer (or whatever) schedule? How can I shrug off the patently discriminatory legislation against immigrants or against Catholic Health Care institutions? The list could go on and on? The sheer size of the list intimidates! Yet, we are urged to put on "the armor of God!" It is a daily battle both private and public and requires courage to remain faithful. AMEN
config
view
logs
3840.0 KB
106 ms
4
