It's the end of the world as we know it

Ok, not really but I know we're all feeling it. Roughly 48% of us are feeling chastened. Blind sighted. Betrayed.

Depressed.

Worse than a nightmare, we awoke to something far more frightening: a truly post-Christian American landscape.

Worse than a hangover, this headache--this heartache--will not go away in a few hours with the help of a little aspirin. How exactly does one heal and remedy the fact that over half of our fellow countrymen are morally and spiritually impaired?


Following along on Leila's FB feed last night, someone posted this article, eloquently and poignantly penned as the polls were closing but before the results were tallied. The part which rung in my head was this:

 “What will the Church do?”, I responded very simply.  She will do what she has always done.  She will embrace the persecution, all the while fighting it, and martyrs will be made.  The Church knows exactly what to do in times of persecution, for she has been done that road before.  In fact, she thrives amidst persecution.  And this too is a blessing.  The Christian contradiction is the transformation that the Cross brings to suffering.

Around 10pm, when the results of the swing states (most devastatingly, my own native Ohio) began to look ominous, the little election party we were hosting broke up. Heads began to ache. Hearts began to break. A good night's sleep was the only thing that offered any last shred of hope.

Maybe - just maybe - we'd wake up to an eleventh hour victory.

But we didn't. And still those words rung in my head throughout the night:

martyrs will be made...times of persecution...

"Please God" I prayed through the night. "Please don't abandon our nation." 

A first glance at the news lines this morning, one would be tempted to think He had.


How could this be? Prayers were said. Fasts were made. Vigils were held all around the world, even at the Vatican itself. Our own parish hosted a 55-hour adoration for the election from Sunday through Tuesday evening. People flocked to sign up. Multiple people were there each hour to adore Our Lord around the clock.

But you know and I know that our prayers and supplications did not fall on deaf ears. The only possible explanation...the only comfort...is our belief and confidence in Divine Providence and knowing that God "allows all things to work for good". (Romans 8:28) 

"all things"

Yep, even (and maybe most especially) when it doesn't make sense to our human understanding.

A quick glance through the Old Testament or any history book will show that history is filled with stories of God permitting a great tragedy or sorrow to befall His children for a greater cause.

• Joseph sold into slavery by his brothers saves millions during the 7-year famine.
• The Israelites were lost in the desert for 40 years to rout out those who clamored to the Golden Calf and allow time to raise up a new generation of His Chosen People who would be dependent on Him and Him alone
• The Dark Ages of history produced the monasteries which preserved civilized culture, in particular the written word, and some of the greatest saints

What greater cause could there be than for the prodigal son (or rather, a whole nation full of them) to return to the Father? Here's the thing: even if Mitt had won, he could not stop the moral train wreck toward which our country is plunging at a dizzying speed. Temporarily given us a leg up? Yes. But our nation is in desperate need of an spiritual overhaul. No man sitting in any office can heal the hardened hearts of the people he governs. Only the Divine Physician can do this.

And sometimes he needs to do this through very difficult and painful means.



So this brings us to today. What to do now? How will we manage? What if, I regret to ask, our worst fears of living free as faithful Catholics in America are made a reality?



I was wondering this very thing when my children came downstairs this morning and were eager to know if Mitt won. There was stunned silence as I broke the news to them. They had been so confident in their prayers. They had been told (by myself and others) that God cannot deny the innocent prayers of children.

Their little world has been rocked.

Hard truths of our fallen world are being taught earlier than I had wanted.

But as a mother, I found myself needing to temper my own sorrow and disappointment. I needed demonstrate for my kids that this is not, in fact, the end. Hadn't we just read in our studies this week that Jesus told the first pope,

"You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church. And the gates of Hell will not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18)

Bear with me here, but perhaps this is the best thing that could have happened for our nation. Perhaps this is an opportunity for tremendous GRACE to be poured on our nation. Grace like we've never known before.

In my head, I know conditions are ripe for great persecution for Catholics. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago chillingly predicts:

I expected to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. 

But my heart is not yet ready to accept it. Or is it? The Cardinal goes on to say,

His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.

The Church has never and will never be dismantled. We are certainly not the first in history to endure religious persecution. Perhaps our heads have been solidly buried in the sand for too long to think that history just might repeat itself. Perhaps we have been duped into believing that we live in too civilized a society that martyrs could yet be made in droves...right here on our own domestic soil.

Make no mistake. The landscape that is being created for our children by the current administration is going to create for them a totally different life for them than what we have enjoyed. But we should take heart and trust in the opportunity for grace that He has promised.

"and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it"

We're on the right team in this fight. We have this assurance from Jesus Himself. We may suffer but when the time comes, the grace will be there. We need to trust in that.


And yes...His grace WILL be sufficient.