Gaining Courage
11 16 , 20:25 Filed in: Solutions
The principal act of courage is to endure and withstand dangers doggedly rather than to attack them. - St. Thomas Aquinas
We find ourselves constantly bombarded by unbelievable forces of ignorance and outright wickedness. Depraved and deplorable acts of unmerciful hatred committed against the innocent and helpless as well as degenerate minds of tyrants gaining ground in both secular and religious frameworks. No matter where we look, it seems as though bad news is never too far away. The path our country is on barely gives a spark of hope as to a restoration of truth, justice, mercy, and Christ centered communities. It seems as though all hope is lost or is it? What does it mean to be courageous especially in the face of all the enemies of true religion and peace among men? How can we rediscover courage in a land seemingly stricken with despair and lawlessness?
“These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world.” - John 16:33
Our lord Jesus Christ was the very one that told us before hand that in this world we can mostly expect hard times. Some, unfortunately, will have it harder than others but for the most part, we will all suffer. But Jesus doesn't want us to focus on these things at all. Yes, we are to lament the deterioration of our country, its values, its morality, etc. but we are not to allow these tragedies to cast us down. Christ has already defeated the one in the world and His victory is assured. These things that bring woe to the Mystical Body of Christ was already seen and prophesied by Jesus Himself. We hear an echo of such woes from countless works of the Church. For a recent example, the Catechism of the Catholic Church relates a mysteriously foreboding yet amazing prophecy;
The Church's ultimate trial
675 Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.
676 The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism.
677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world.
Notice in paragraph, where the Catholic Church, like Jesus, will enter a Passion, Death, and Resurrection! Amazing! Think of the sufferings of Christ in His Passion...remember the ridicule He went through? How has the Church been ridiculed? Remember the savage beating Christ withstood? How about the unthinkable acts of scandal among the Priesthood or how countless Diocese's destroyed the Sacrifice of the Mass and turned it into a celebration of man? Yes, all of these woes are destined to come but so is the victory in Christ! So regardless of the attacks on the faithful, remember our lord Jesus and take courage because He has overcome the world! Amen!