September 15, 2013
Praise Be Jesus Christ, Now and Forever!
My niece made the announcement of her engagement recently which was greeted in my family with a great sense of joy. We really love the young man she is marrying. We couldn’t be happier with whom she chose to spend the rest of her life. He is the executive chef at Costantino’s restaurant on Federal Hill and my niece is a school teacher. She and her fiancé are an anomaly. They are living in separate dwellings, they are choosing to get married in a Catholic Church, and before he proposed he first asked her father for his daughter’s hand in marriage.
My niece, Alessandra was born in August of 1984. I had just graduated from High School and was getting ready to enter college. I remember how optimistic I was about the future and the world at the time. The country seemed to be moving in a more conservative direction after the unraveling of culture and society in the 1970’s. Ronald Reagan was president and Pope John Paul II was in the throes of his reign and guiding the Church toward a more Traditional form of Catholicism that would have been more recognizable before the fall of our culture. As well as J.P.II, we had tremendous spiritual leaders like Mother Theresa, Mother Angelica, Fr. Benedict Groeschel and Cardinal O’Conner who were guiding us. I remember believing back then that the Church was poised to make a huge comeback in the new millennium.
As I sit and Ponder my thoughts now, I realize 13 years into the new millennium the optimism I had in the 1990’s in the seminary did not come into fruition. Our culture has taken a devastating turn away from Christianity as we have evolved into a society where all traces of Christianity are trying to be eliminated from view. Nativity Scenes, prayer banners and phrases like “Merry Christmas” are being rooted out and considered “insensitive” to others. Our country has elected the most anti-Christian, Leftist President and our Diocese will have no ordinations to the priesthood this coming Spring. Mass attendance has declined over the last decade and many Churches are in financial peril and closing all over the North East as well as other parts of our Country. Many young people have rejected Christianity and the philosophical beliefs of the Christian faith. They are living together before marriage, making millionaires out of pop culture artists, (who have no shame in the way they perform) and they are having fewer children. Our Nation in 2013 is very distant from overturning Roe v Wade and we have accepted same sex relationships as normative as we have redefined the nature of marriage from being between one man and one woman. This diversion from Christianity is being driven by Liberal politicians, the mainstream media, Hollywood, the music industry, many College professors, some Protestant ministers and parents who are failing to teach their children the authentic Christian faith. These are forces many of us have been working very hard against, but they have proven to be a powerful opponent and too difficult to overcome. As I lament over how many have gone astray and have rejected Christianity and the culture passed down to them from our grandparents and great-grandparents, I think of how the hopes I had in the seminary have been dashed.
Even though athletic Youth programs are scheduling games on Sunday morning, work schedules are making it more demanding on their employees and cultural rot is gripping our every day lives in America I do feel a little flicker of hope illuminating in the darkness as I reflect on my niece and her fiancé and the few other couples in the world like them, who haven’t given up on Christ and their relationship with His Church. I also find solace and hope on Sunday, when I look out into the congregation and see people sitting in the pews who are saying, “Don’t give up, Father, we’re here, we believe, we are rejecting the secular culture and believe in the truth of the Gospel.”
With God it is never too late as His soldiers march on in battle knowing that with Him the war is never lost. We are always victorious when we are on His side because the victory has already been won on Calvary. With that hope I know it is not impossible to turn things around if we stay focused on Christ, because as Jesus assured us in Sacred Scripture, “With God, all things are possible.” Mt. 19:26.