Monday Musings - Our Obligation To Evangelize

In a recent interview by Aleteia, Cardinal Robert Sarah was asked a number of questions, including the following: Can evangelism be intensified in France, which is confronting a robust Islam?

(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

We would be wise to take note of this well-respected prelate’s response which is descriptive of the tragic reality in, or aspirations of, many other nations today, including our own:

“France has in any case renounced its Christian roots; the Gospel is no longer its reference. God no longer has a place in its society. The only place where it is tolerated is the private domain, and even then, it is confined to house arrest. Man has taken the place of God. It enacts laws in total opposition to the laws of God and those of nature. You believe that men, or women, can marry between themselves…While everyone is fighting for the abolition of the death penalty, the murder of unborn children is legal, as is divorce. While we are fighting genital mutilation everywhere, we are legalizing the mutilation of people who want to change their sex. What a diabolical contradiction.

The evangelization of the West will be more and more difficult. But it must be undertaken with burning zeal, without fear or shame. Evangelization is not a confrontation. Rather, it is God who comes to offer His Love to every man and woman, whatever his race, religion or continent. God has an immense respect for our freedom because He is Love, and Love is powerless and incapable of forcing the conscience and the heart. But all men have a right to the Gospel.”

Remember the good Cardinal has told the Truth:  all men have a right to the Gospel. So, each of us professing to be Christian, must remember  that by the way we live our lives, we "may be the only Gospel many will ever hear". 

Will our words and actions draw them to the eternal Truth and salvation?

Worth Revisiting - Help Me Understand

Thank you Allison Gingras  (Reconciled To You) and Elizabeth Riordan (Theology Is A Verb) for hosting Worth Revisiting.

Be sure to stop there every Wednesday. You will enjoy your visits.

Here is my contribution:

Help Me Understand! Should Not the Salvation of Souls Be Our Primary Concern? 

[Originally published July 3, 2012 - We may have dodged a bullet temporarily. But sadly, nothing much has changed since I first posted this.]

I understand that in a democratic society, the Catholic Church and its members must try to shape social and political policies and to have their voices heard on the pressing moral issues of the day. There is no doubt that an increasing number of recent actions (beyond the HHS contraception and sterilzation mandates) taken by the Obama administration pose real and imminent threats to our God given and constitutionally recognized fundamental right - freedom of religion. Freedom loving people of all religious persuasions and those of no religious affiliation must stand up and defend this fundamental principle – one which no man, no government, no nation has the right to restrict.

 

Nonetheless, I am at a loss to understand how political strategizing and judicial skirmishes, no matter how well-intentioned and necessary they both may be, should take precedence over the Church’s primary duty - the sanctification and salvation of souls. 

 

The Catholic Church has a duty to preach Christ’s Truths in their completeness, not just the more palatable and less controversial ones, to all peoples, not just those who identify themselves as Catholic. The fact that many if not a majority of Americans, Catholic and non-Catholic, may not believe abortion, contraception, sex outside a sacramental marriage, sterilization and in-vitro fertilization are intrinsically evil acts – neither changes those Truths nor exempts the Church from explaining and teaching those Truths to everyone. Jesus charged us to “make disciples of all nations” did He not?

Revisiting Wednesday - Stop Searching For Loopholes and Make The Salvation of Souls Priority Number One!

Thank you Allison Gingras at  Reconciled To You and Elizabeth Riordan at Theology Is A Verb for hosting "Revisiting Wednesday" each week and those Catholic bloggers who re-post their favorite articles there. 

Go there now. (and every Wednesday). You will be inspired by the variety of spiritual insights these authors share.

 I am sharing the following post:

Stop Searching For Loopholes and Make The Salvation of Souls Priority Number One! 

(Originally posted in a slightly different form on April 19, 2013)

More than fourteen months ago, I offered my few cents on the unprecedented attack on our religious liberty. Sad to say, not much has changed since I wrote those words. If you not already done so, I suggest you read those comments here if the rest of this entry is to make sense.

 

The current Administration still refuses to acknowledge our God-given right to freely practice our religion. In fact, it has expressed frustration and annoyance with our on-going verbal refusal to acquiesce to its intrinsically evil regulations and our stated unwillingness to bow down to their “god” of reproductive rights. One of its agencies had actually classified Catholics as terrorists. Litigation, though not yet finalized, has resulted in mixed and unsatisfactory results.

 

Despite the on-going exposure to the reality of abortion in the Philadelphia house of horrors, the intent of New York’s self-proclaimed Catholic governor to remove virtually all restrictions on abortions performed in that State, and the unwillingness of Planned Parenthood representatives to publicly condemn the practices exposed at the Gosnell clinic and [the selling of body parts] elsewhere, our President continues to attack those who stand up and defend the life of the unborn and vows his allegiance to Planned Parenthood. He has even publicly asked “god’ to bless this evil, earthly arm of the Great Deceiver.

  

The defeat of evil will not occur through litigation or legislation. The unending battle against the dark forces roaming this earth is, has been, and always will be a spiritual one. It will cease only by God's grace and power and in His time. Until then, we must individually and as His Church battle this evil through prayer, fasting, and the courageous proclamation, assent, defense and faithfulness to God's Truth. We may even be asked to suffer civil and economic punishment for defending that Truth. How many of us are ready to do so?

Only God knows but I suspect that number will not be huge. Why? Let me offer a few reasons.

What Happens To This Nation When Our Churches Are Empty? - Clay Christensen on Religious Freedom

Guest Blog - My Lay Dominican Brother Was Willing To Pay The Price For His Faith. Will You?

Let’s be honest. Up to recent years, it has not been too difficult to live as a Catholic in these United States. But that is changing. Efforts have been underway for some time to undermine our right to the free exercise of our religious beliefs.

For the most part, we have sat silently, acquiescing to such a radical agenda.

In the not too distant future, each of us may have to make the same type of choice my Lay Dominican brother, Roman Gorski, had to make some years ago in his native Poland – forfeit his physical comfort, and freedom or lose his soul.

He has given me permission to share his story, not to bring attention to himself but in hopes it will serve as a clarion call to all Catholics and Christians in this nation – be ready to suffer for your Faith.

Although lengthier than most of the work I have shared on this blog, the article is well-worth your time.

Strengthened by Faith by Mr. Roman Gorski, O.P.

(Image Source: From the House Tops)

[This firsthand account by Roman Gorski, who lived in Poland at the same time as Blessed Jerzy Popieluszko, tells of his struggle to keep the Faith in an atheistic regime.]

On October 16, 1978, I was in a streetcar in my college town of Lublin, Poland, when a stranger en­tered the car and announced: "Have you heard the news? Cardinal Wojtyla from Krakow is our new Pope." It was shocking news and hard for me to believe. When I arrived at my college dorm, my colleagues were also excited­ly talking about the new Pope. Why did this news make us so happy? Why was it so important to us? In Poland, for all practical purposes, it was challenging to keep the Faith and now the person in the highest position in the Church comes from our country. It was like a miracle from Heaven, and a sign for all Catholics that God is still in charge, no matter how powerful governments may appear.

I grew up in a very patriotic Cath­olic family. To understand Poland it is essential to know that Church and politics cannot be separated there like in other countries. Members of my family fought against the Russians in the 1863 insurrection. My grand­mother's twin brothers joined the battle against the Russian Army in the First World War and again in 1919 against the Bolsheviks. One of the twins died in combat, killed by the Soviets. Only nineteen years later, in September, 1939, we faced another war when Po­land was attacked by Germany from the west and the Soviet Union from the east. Our allies, France and England, abandoned us in the fight. During the German occupation, in the Second World War my father and grandfather joined the Resistance fighters, only to be forsaken by the so-called Big Powers that they had defended, and our country was given over to Soviet domination. 

The Soviets established a repressive, Godless system, which lasted almost 50 years, ending in 1989. During this period many Polish patriots were killed or arrested. The Church was persecuted. The press, radio, TV, and publications were all censored. The word "God" was removed from school textbooks and public life. The regime wanted "to put God in the closet," but no matter how they tried, the Communists could not take Him out of our lives and our souls. They knew this and they were afraid to close all of the churches in Poland until they "converted us" to their atheistic ideology. They wanted to "own us," but we were not for sale!

Help Me Understand! Should Not the Salvation of Souls Be Our Primary Concern?

I understand that in a democratic society, the Catholic Church and its members must try to shape social and political policies and to have their voices heard on the pressing moral issues of the day. There is no doubt that an increasing number of recent actions (beyond the HHS contraception and sterilzation mandates) taken by the Obama administration  pose real and imminent threats to our God given and constitutionally recognized fundamental right - freedom of religion. Freedom loving people of all religious persuasions and those of no religious affiliation must stand up and defend this fundamental principle – one which no man, no government, no nation has the right to restrict.

Nonetheless, I am at a loss to understand how political strategizing and judicial skirmishes, no matter how well-intentioned and necessary they both may be, should take precedence over the Church’s primary duty - the sanctification and salvation of souls.

The Catholic Church has a duty to preach Christ’s Truths in their completeness, not just the more palatable and less controversial ones, to all peoples, not just those who identify themselves as Catholic. The fact that many if not a majority of Americans, Catholic and non-Catholic, may not believe abortion, contraception, sex outside a sacramental marriage, sterilization and in-vitro fertilization are intrinsically evil acts – neither changes those Truths nor exempts the Church from explaining and teaching those Truths to everyone. Jesus charged us to “make disciples of all nations” did He not?

Instead of using the present attack on our religious freedoms as an opportunity to simultaneously explain, with clarity, courage and love, why the Catholic Church teaches that the acts listed above are intrinsically evil, our current approach suggests we will defer that portion of our duty until after the public fight over our religious freedom has been resolved.

We may never have a better opportunity to save souls or a wider platform from which to explain God’s teachings in these areas to a broader audience than that which God has presented us with now. In fact, we may not have the freedom to do so at all in the future.

It seems to this simple man, that at least for now, too many are content to just preserve the rights of some Catholics to believe these Truths and wait to an unspecified time in the future to explain why all of us (Catholic and non-Catholic) should believe and live out these Truths in our individual lives. What of the lives ruined and the souls lost in the interim?

When was the last time you heard a homily on any of these evils? When did you last hear a priest preach on Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae (Human Life) or on Evangelium Vitae (Gospel of Life) written by Pope John Paul II or suggest that you prayerfully read and study these documents? When was the last time you read an article in your local secular or diocesan newspapers or had a parish speaker explaining the compelling reasons behind these fundamental teachings of the Catholic Church and the eternal consequences to those who reject them?

The more than forty years of silence in local parishes and in many Dioceses on these issues goes a long way toward explaining why more Catholics are not engaged in this most vital fight to preserve religious freedom in this country.

Make no mistake – the Catholic Bishops are absolutely correct to warn us of this unprecedented attack on religious freedom and to call us to pray and fight to preserve this God-given right. 

But let me ask you this: What if we are successful in preserving religious freedom but continue silently condemning untold souls to eternal separation from a loving God because we lack the courage to teach and challenge them to live the Truth?

Now is the time to end the silence!

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