Things are not ok

Things are NOT ok.Look around the world, look at the news, look at social media. You might notice that things are not the way they should be. I will say that things are bad. I would even venture to say they are getting worse. There is no doubt that, in the culture at large, this is true: things are getting worse.Maybe we once found refuge from these bad things in the good of the Church. But this is not as certain as it might have been a month ago. The Pennsylvania Attorney General, Archbishop Vigano, and a whole cacophony of confused voices have made it more difficult to convince ourselves that things are ok, even in the Church.But there’s no reason to despair.There’s a strange war being waged in our world, and we are caught in the crossfire. Lumen Gentium described a situation that is very visible to us today: “very often, deceived by the Evil One, men have become vain in their reasonings, have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served the world rather than the Creator” (LG 16).In fact, the relative peace we have experienced in the Church is just a blip on the historic timeline. The state of the Church, the state of TRUTH, is persecution and spiritual warfare, intensifying all the way to the end. Maybe you’ve heard this quote from Pope St. John Paul II (then Cardinal Wojtyla) during the 1976 Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia:

“we are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has ever experienced… We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, between the Gospel and the anti-Gospel, between Christ and the anti-Christ….”

 This is a big deal. This is a big war. A cosmic war. A war with a capital W, which will determine the contours of eternity. But in the midst of the battle, something might be obscured, and we need to keep bringing it to the front of our minds:This battle is not a battle of politics or personal opinions or beliefs.This battle is not about progressives and conservatives.This battle is not between the weak and the powerful, between left and right.This cosmic war with a capital W is a spiritual battle. The New Testament gives plenty of evidence that the battle was going on then, and had been raging since the beginning. Ephesians 6 reminds us that “our struggle is not with flesh and blood, but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens.” (Eph 6:12) The real war is the one fought from before the world began, the war that was started by the one who is a liar and a murderer from the beginning; it is the war fought for our eternal souls. We know that victory is already won; but we’ve still got to bear the battle. I presume, if you are reading this, that you are engaged in that battle already.But what are our criteria for success? How do we know whether we are winning or losing?In our culture, we seem to collectively think that social media “likes” and mainstream media coverage are signs of success. Or maybe we are able to look past that and we believe that success is measured by who shows up for what, who “likes” and reposts what on social media. But Spiritual battles are fought and won in the spiritual Realm, so this battle will not be won primarily through activism or social media debates or petitions or letters to those in charge; all of these are often necessary, because we have to take the Truth to where the Truth is being denied, and that discussion takes place in the modern Areopagus, which is virtually on social media.But this is a spiritual war of ultimate truth against the ultimate lie.And the lie is big and powerful.It will ridicule you.It will marginalize you.It will outshout you.It may torture you, or in various ways, crucify you for speaking truth.Yet we are called to lovingly speak the truth in the face of the Lie.In order to speak the truth in love, we must first of all know the truth and pray to be filled with love. Our assertions and corrections will have no traction in any heart if they are motivated by a desire to be right or prove someone wrong. But neither can we make any progress toward Truth if we constantly cave in and compromise on taking steps toward the fullness of Truth!There can never be a compromise between the Holy Spirit and the spirit of the Age.We must walk in the light of the Holy Spirit so we know when to speak and when to remain silent, and what we are each being called to do in each moment to support our part of the battle. All the while, we cannot allow ourselves to forget that the struggle is a spiritual struggle, because the REAL battle is the one fought within each person. Souls are at stake, and these are the most precious casualties to the Lord!There’s a war going on, but it’s going to be ok, because our Savior promised that His grace is sufficient, that He is with us always, and that the Gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church.