As we watch all the different areas of chaos taking place both within and outside of the Church, it has become quite evident that we are entering a new season for the Church.

I remember teaching an adult education class in my last parish in Raleigh, NC. The subject of the entire class was Church History. We studied all the major events of the Church and periodically dipped into some of the minor events to show the consequences of the major ones. It was quite illuminating to me.

When you examine the landscape view of the Church throughout the last two millennia, you can’t help but see the human vulnerability of the Church (as well as the world). At certain times, the Church has played a major role in helping the world climb out of the evil pit it had declined into.  At other times, we see the Church and its leadership get caught up in the depravity of the world’s evil.

It appears that we are in one of those seasons of church depravity today. Due to the leadership of our Church, its relevance in the world has declined greatly. Those of us old enough to remember Blessed Fulton Sheen might remember him declaring that “Christendom” is dead.

The glory days of the Catholic Church are long gone, and the roughly twenty percent that are left continue to bleed helplessly. Evil is on the rise as corporations pour billions of dollars into sin. In many parts of the country, Catholicism has ceased to be a part of the Kingdom of God and simply become a cultural identity.

Teens are receiving the sacrament of Confirmation (of their faith) and still question whether they believe in God. Their parents are more concerned with their child’s sports and academic success than their souls. Local parishes have finally come to recognize that keeping the status quo is no longer acceptable.

There is Hope

Despite all of the darkness, the Lord has promised to keep a remnant going. I see the Holy Spirit gathering pockets of authentic faith communities around the country. We are entering a period of persecution where every person who chooses to align themselves with the body of Christ will now have to join Him in His suffering.

I don’t know of a single person who is faithfully seeking Christ that is not experiencing some form of suffering. Whether it’s physical, familial, emotional or spiritual, we are all being called (I believe) to pray in reparation for our sins, the sins that our leadership committed in their role as shepherds and those we committed by ourselves in seeking to build our own kingdom first before serving our Master’s Kingdom on earth.

This is a sobering word for every one of us who has made the decision to die with Christ in our baptism.  How foolish of us to believe that we could be a part of the body of Christ and not experience the pain that His body experienced.

My encouragement to all of US is to draw close to the Holy Spirit, to the Word of God, and to the sacraments. We will need all the power and grace the Spirit will give us. We will need to hold onto and live out the truth given in God’s word. We will need to stay grounded in the sacraments so that we can remain children of the light in the midst of this darkness.

Rise up, Church, and brace yourselves for the testing that each of you will go through. If you lose all in the world, you will have lost your stuff. If you let go of Christ, you will lose everything for eternity! Come Holy Spirit.