Casting the Net into the Deep

As I watched Cardinal O'Malley, Mary Ann Glendon, Joan Desmond Frawley sell a media apostolate they know will encourage readers to sleep around, take contraception, conflate false gods and pagan rituals as supplements for the sacraments, I thought a lot about the direction this is all going and work we all have cut out for us in our parishes. Until Pope Francis gets to the big 'ta da" of the practice of loving Christ enough to be faithful to Him, the practice of love that does what your lover desires even when you don't feel lie it -- this is where the 'Francis effect' is going to really do damage - in the Liturgy, in catechesis, which will then spread to the community and our own homes and relationships of everyone we care about making their way to Heaven.

I often wonder how Pope Francis feels about the "Francis effect".

Imagine yourself trying to sell the teachings of the Church with a new marketing plan and the next thing you know your initiative turns into a Catholic license to sin free from consequences and they call it the "Carol effect".

Pope Francis is like the parents in town who have drunken bashes for teenagers. All the teens love them but the parents don't have a friend in town over the age 18. It doesn't stop until the conversion is spawned from the tragedy of a child who wraps his car around a tree.

The synod is right around the corner. We have three possibilities.

1. He's going to formally undermine the teachings and structure of the Mystical Body of Christ
2. He's going to move people to faithfulness.
3. Cardinal O'Malley and Mary Ann Glendon have given us the preview: Pope Francis is going to sell Margery Eagan and her dissent as the future role model of 'all things Catholic'.

As the "Crux" was playing out, I was hands on working on another situation in the Archdiocese. The details are not important but the outcome is, because everyone on every level eventually came to Jesus on it and the initiative is going to be tweaked to put the focus back on the mission to bring souls to Sanctifying Grace.

One or two heroic witness to laying down one's own agenda to learn and accept the truth at all costs can light a fire of love that consumes many. When a person or persons desires to do something that is contrary to the teachings of the Church or Canon Law, love for Christ is taken hostage.

A person has sexual desires for you they want to fulfill. The spiritual reality is, that person is asking you to make a choice between them and Christ.

There are individual struggles:

Do you want to remain in a state of Grace and receive the Properties in the Eucharist or do you want to keep that person in your life?

The person you love has taken Christ hostage and the choice is before you. Pay his ransom and walk away or give in to the demands of the captor.

It's a subconscious thing that goes on, the person doesn't mean to do it but that is what is happening on the spiritual level.

There are parish and community struggles:

A person wants to turn the Sacred Liturgy into theatrics of lights and good music and human entertainment, folklore or dance. Does a priest sacrifice bringing his entire community to the font of Sanctifying Grace and let the person or persons hijack the Liturgy?


There are struggles that will involve our duty to preserve the Deposit of Faith for the next generation when it is in the hands of pagans and heretics.

We have islam carrying out their perpetual agenda to pursue and kill Christ and His folowers and the President of the United States has them positioned in every city waiting for the right time to riot and bomb, set fires and kill us all.

It's an emergency situation. Most of us are people of good will who may make mistakes in casting the net into the deep.

Those who are goners are going to become obvious and manifest themselves.

We have our work cut out for us and everyone has their role. Many victories lie ahead. Many heroes are sitting beside you, leading their parishes in ministries or as priests. There are heroes in the Chancery, in the USCCB and in Rome.

The Mystical Body of Christ is absolutely magnificent. I just can't get enough of it.

n.b. There is a Latin Mass at s
St Pauls in Cambridge at 7pm tomorrow evening to celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. See you there!