Time to Take the Knee
Massive St. Peter’s Basilica practically empty on the high holy day of Palm Sunday?
Empty because of Europe’s lockdowns for fear of the virus? Or loss of faith, you know, out of sight, out of mind? When, or is it if depending on secular minds, the Sunday obligation is reactivated, will people return to sacred spaces and Holy Mass? Will our hearts again praise God together? Or will the Holy One, Christ present in the Holy Eucharist before us, the means of our salvation, remain ignored?
The devil must be dancing with glee at our present state of inertia. Pope Francis is quite right to say the devil is taking advantage of the pandemic. I will go one step further, because I don’t care if scientists say the virus came from a bat or escaped from a laboratory or came from a garden hose, the results reek of the smoke of Satan.
“The devil is taking advantage of the crisis to sow distrust, desperation and discord,” causing physical, psychological and spiritual suffering, the Holy Father said. He might have added rebellion, in view of the vile responses to the statement that the Church cannot bless gay unions.
An attempt has been made all over the world to cancel God and the Church. Without God, without His graces, without the Church, we are lost, wandering like fools in the desert. You just have to see the cavorting debauchery at spring break for proof. What further need have we of witness?
As I wrote before on this Bellarmine Forum website, our spiritual tools have been taken from us by limitations imposed by the iron hand of government. For fear of the virus or to impose control on the one entity that stands against the sins of the age? Sure, the governor in our state just announced no limits in churches, but demanded social distancing. What is that if not a limit? So the churches retain sign-ups for Mass and limiting attendance (except, it appears, for the services of the Sacred Triduum at which no overwhelming crowds are expected, perhaps?). Perpetual Adoration is absent, only certain times allowed and not without prior sign up. Devotions are still online. Confessions? Not a lot. Masses are even limited because of the need for volunteers to sanitize the church after use. In fact, the Faith has been driven underground. Matthew’s words on the temptation of Christ in the desert come to mind:
The devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. And he said to Him, “All these things will I give thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.”
I’ve got a feeling more than one politician or world leader has bought in on Satan’s offer.
How can we fight back?
It’s time we made our spiritual needs known, encouraged our prelates to open the churches, offer more devotions, more Rosaries, more adoration. It’s time we come together and march to the chanceries, march to the churches and demand our rights as Catholics to our holy spaces. Our archdiocese had a May Rosary Procession. Time to ditch the virtual and the drive-by and BE there. We also had a major Corpus Christi Procession, plus little parish celebrations. Same thing. Get out there. Bring God back in public. And if you have to carry a sign in front of the Governor’s mansion, so be it. “Let My People Go,” would do for starters.
And take the knee. Not to secular ideas and idols but to God Almighty. We have the most powerful prayers on earth in the Holy Rosary and Divine Mercy chaplet. We have prayer, fasting, and sacrifice. We need to get on our knees and pray. We have to be in this for the long haul because souls depend on it. Let this Holy Week of the Passion be the beginning of the road to reclaim the Easter Resurrection in Christ Jesus for all.
This article, Time to Take the Knee is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/time-to-take-the-knee/
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