While the Eyes of the Great Are Elsewhere

CHAPTER ONE

 

EXCITING TIMES

 

May you live in exciting times.

—Ancient Chinese Curse

 

∞ ∞ ∞

 

EXCITING TIMES INDEED.

  In the decades since the close of Vatican II we have seen a

decline in the Catholic Faith such as history has never imagined.

Decline did I say? Collapse might be a better word.

Disintegration. Pick your favorite synonym for the debacle

we have witnessed in our generation. It’s enough to make the

stout of heart tremble and the otherwise docile sinfully furious.

  If my reader is blinking with puzzled eyes—“What are

you talking about? Everything looks fine to me!”—it’s time

for a Reality Inventory.

  Simply put, we faithful Catholics have been defrauded of

our religious heritage by those who were called to protect it:

our popes, bishops, theologians, priests and nuns. We have

been deprived of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as it was celebrated

for centuries, unchanged in its essentials since the reign

of Pope Gregory the Great (590-604 AD). The defined morals,

dogmas and doctrines of the Roman Catholic Faith have

been obfuscated by an influx of modernist theologians and

scholars who seek to undermine all that ever made the Church

transcendent and holy. And now the bishops and priests who

orchestrated this tragedy are falling like so many dried leaves,

tossed upon the fire not on account of manly sins for which

we can summon some degree of compassion, but putrescent

perversions such as pedophilia for which we can only feel revulsion

and nausea. Catholic parents are pulling their children

out of their own parish schools in droves to protect them from

the pagan frenzies of nuns-turned-witches, deeming the burdens

of home-schooling preferable to the dangers of exposure

to Sister Aphrodite of the New Crystalline Age.

  Yes, I’d say these are exciting times.

  And guess what? You and I are invited by Divine Providence

to live during them. And get this: the tickets are nonrefundable.

What’s to be done? Well, if you’re like most people—

including me—your first impulse is anger. A draught of

righteous fury has its medicinal value, but do not forget:

 

Be angry, and sin not. Let not the sun

go down upon your anger.

—Ephesians IV:26

 

  In other words, get ferocious and be done with it. Express

your outrage and then let it go like sand through your fingers.

Do not harbor your wrath. Do not let dark thoughts eat their

way into your soul like smoldering worms.

 

Put ye on therefore, as the elect of God, holy, and

beloved, the bowels of mercy, benignity, humility,

modesty, patience:

Bearing with one another, if any have a complaint

against another: even as the Lord has forgiven you, so

do you also.

But above all these things have charity, which is

the bond of perfection:

And let the peace of Christ rejoice in you abundantly

…

—Colossians III:12-16

 

  Remember that God requires of us not just to be right, but

to be holy. If the state of the Church—or rather our reaction

to it—causes us to sin, we are doing ourselves a disservice by

our lack of charity and are contributing to the problem rather

than the solution.

  So, our anger being expressed and assuaged, the next step

is to focus our energy on prayer. When all is said and done,

our primary duty is not to bemoan the ills of the world but to

save our souls. We cannot help save anyone else until our personal

piety is intact. Prayer is our only true weapon; prayer

and humble devotion. All else is dust in the wind; or worse,

baubles in the enemy’s purse. God gave us knees—let’s use

them.

  Thirdly, having accepted these exciting times as God’s

curse against a faithless generation, I suggest we turn our attention

to the blessings which Grace provides in ages of upheaval.

It is in times such as these that God raises up Saints.

We would not have examples like Sts. Francis of Assisi, Ignatius

of Loyola, Thomas More and Athanasius if not for exciting

times. It is from the likes of us that God will do likewise

in these tumultuous days. So don’t just get angry, get excited!

Many Saints looked to our day with longing, yearning to

stand up for the Lord of Hosts against the forces of evil. They

are backing us with their prayers. How thrilling! How utterly

glorious!

  Ponder the exhilaration that permeated King David’s soul

as he wrote:

 

For though I should walk in the midst of the

shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for thou art with

me. Thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me.

Thou hast prepared a table before me against them

that afflict me. Thou hast anointed my head with oil;

and my chalice which inebriateth me, how goodly it

is!

—Psalm XXII:4-5

 

  And lest all this bombastic militaristic language troubles

some of us, we may rest assured that we spring from a long

line of valiant soldiers. We are the Church Militant, after all;

but our weapons are not of iron and steel, but of sterner stuff:

 

Therefore take unto you the armour of God, that

you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand

in all things perfect.

Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with

truth, and having on the breastplate of justice,

And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel

of peace:

4 WHILE THE EYES OF THE GREAT ARE ELSEWHERE

In all things taking the shield of faith, wherewith

you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of

the most wicked one.

And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the

sword of the spirit (which is the word of God).

—Ephesians VI:13-17

 

Onward!