“Be Prophetic. Be Faithful. Pray.”
Most Holy Trinity Monastery
67 Dugway Road
Petersham, MA 01366-9725
On May 17, 2016 Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship gave the address to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. This annual event, which brings together many dignitaries, heard the Cardinal urging American Catholics to resist “ideological colonialism” which our country, along with the European Union and most of the post-Christian West now seeks to impose upon the people of Africa and the rest of the Third World.
To understand what Cardinal Sarah means by “ideological colonialism” consider the following. The United States now makes it official policy to issue an official diplomatic protest to a country if that country passes a law declaring that marriage is only between one man and one woman.Also the United States has cut off foreign aid to one African country for doing this (Uganda) and has threatened to do so to other countries that do the same. Big American foundations are pouring millions of dollars into Third World countries to promote both contraception and abortion. For some time now the United States has decided that it has the right to determine what the world's population should be and has acted accordingly.Add to this that each year (for the past 8 several years) the United States proclaims a month (usually June) to be “Gay Pride Month” and American embassies in the Third World (all over the world actually) will flag the rainbow homosexual flag under the American flag and organize events to promote the Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual lifestyle often in direct opposition to the laws of that country. These countries have protested to the United States but the media ignores this.
While covering itself with the mantle of “human rights” the above is indicative of a growing persecution against religious believers in general and Christianity in particular. Cardinal Sarah called attention to this by saying, “Nowhere is [religious persecution] clearer than in the threat that societies are visiting on the family through a demonic (emphasis writer's) 'gender ideology' that is being experienced in a world increasingly cut off from God through ideological colonialism. Cardinal Sarah hit it right on the head: this is from the devil. And the devil's goal? To destroy the image and likeness of God that is within each and every one of us by being created in His “image and likeness.” In this newsletter we will briefly look at this evil and see the roots from which it springs and, based on Cardinal Sarah's address, how we should respond.
Cardinal Sarah locates the proximate cause in what Pope Francis calls “globalized indifference.” The Cardinal continues, “It is the result of giving in to the delusion that we are self-sufficient, that man is his own measure in a pervasive individualism. It is manifested in the fear of suffering in our societies, our closing our eyes and hearts to the poor and vulnerable, and in a very despicable way, in how we discard the unborn and the elderly. When he prophetically announced the Second Vatican Council Saint John XXIII remarked that the human community was in 'turmoil' as it sought to establish a new world order where humanity relies entirely on technical and scientific solutions instead of God.”
“Today we are witnessing the next stage – and the consummation – of the efforts to build a utopian paradise on earth without God. It is the stage of denying sin and the fall altogether. But the death of God results in the burial of good, beauty, love and truth. Good becomes evil, beauty is ugly, love becomes the satisfaction of sexual primal instincts, and truths are all relative. So all manner of immorality is not only accepted and tolerated today in advanced societies, but even promoted as a social good. The result is hostility to Christians, and, increasingly, religious persecution.”
The gender ideology which forms the backdrop for this is simply the modern-day manifestation of an old heresy that ravaged the Church particularly in its first few centuries: the heresy of Gnosticism. Today's gender ideology is simply ancient Gnosticism repackaged for today. At its heart Gnosticism denied that we were made in the image and likeness of God. Gnostics believe that we are “spiritual entities” that have become trapped in a human body which is not the real us. The body, like all matter was evil, so salvation meant saving this spiritual entity or divine spark from its imprisonment. In effect, instead of seeing ourselves being given life directly by God Himself, created in His image and likeness, and given a vocation in life to which we are called to be faithful so that one day we could be with Him in Heaven for eternity, we instead have to create our own existence. Nothing is to be accepted as a “given” by God, not even your own body. So if you think that the “real you” is a woman “trapped” inside the body of a man, then you have to “create” yourself. As Catholic philosopher Benjamin Wiker puts it: “We are seeing it [Gnosticism] in a new form today in the notion that the material world, as it's been “given” to us by evolution is radically defective, and we therefore need to transform it completely by human will. This new Gnosticism is rooted in modern science and sees the human body itself – even the distinction of male and female – to be something that is fundamentally flawed and in need of transformation by human technological power.”Notice the primacy of the “human will” in all of this. Here is why Cardinal Sarah refers to this as demonic. Ultimately this goes back to the offer of the serpent to our First Parents in the Garden of Eden: “Your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). In gender ideology itself and in the drive to force this upon our country and around the world, we are usurping the role of God for ourselves and seeking to supplant God with our own wills: our Declaration of Independence from God.
We didn't get to this point all of a sudden. Several elements influenced us over the years and have become “truths” to this modern anti-culture. They include the following: (taken from Benjamin Wiker) First: the belief that the goal of science is not the discovery of truth itself but the relief of human suffering. Second, the acceptance of an entirely materialistic view of reality; third, the Darwinian belief that things in nature are randomly rather than divinely contrived; and finally an aggressive secularism rooted in atheism.
Based on the above we now believe that we can finally attain heaven-on-earth. This gets taught (more like indoctrination) in all levels of education and all our political, economic, media, educational and social elites share this worldview. If you do not subscribe to it, you will be excluded and punished. We must also acknowledge that this 'new Gnosticism” has penetrated the Church. Those who advocated abandoning Christ's teachings on marriage at the recent synod on the family hold the above worldview in some form.
As we are in an election year in the United States some words of wisdom from Fr. Thomas Nelson O. Praem (Nobertine Fathers) from St. Michael's Abbey in Silverado, California (a true oasis in the desert) and President of the Institutes on Religious Life are in order. “You can't remain neutral when it comes to Christ. You're either for Him or against Him. So a secular society cannot remain neutral for long. Either it turns back to Christ, or it becomes demonic. There is no communion between light and darkness. Either you are moving toward the light who is Christ, or toward the darkness, and the prince of darkness.” (Note: you cannot dialogue with intrinsic evil). As we began with Cardinal Sarah, we will conclude with his wisdom. He says:
“First: Be prophetic. The Book of Proverbs tells us: 'Where there is no vision, discernment, the people perish. Discern carefully – in your lives, your homes, your workplaces – how, in your nation, God is being eroded, eclipsed, liquidated. Second: Be faithful. Do not be afraid to proclaim the truth with love, especially about marriage according to God's plan, just as courageously as St. John the Baptist, who risked his life to proclaim the truth. The battle to preserve the roots of mankind is perhaps the greatest challenge that our world has faced since its origins. In the words of St. Catherine of Sienna: 'Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through fear.' Third: Pray. Pope Benedict XVI in God is Love encourages us: 'People who pray are not wasting their time, even though the situation appears desperate and seems to call for action alone.'
For in the end: it is 'God or nothing.”
From a Symbol of Death to a Promise of Life
We see it soaring atop church spires and standing solemnly over graves. It ornaments our places of worship, and dangles from the neck to rest close to the heart. It flashes through our field of vision when an ambulance speeds by on a mission of mercy, and lends a reserved dignity to the crests of great universities.
It is the sign of the Cross: the universal symbol of Christianity, which lends its eloquent simplicity of form to the distinctive virtues of our religion. Faith, hope, and charity. Righteousness, compassion, and mercy. Humble appreciation for learning, and for conveying the fruits of accumulated knowledge. Comfort in the trials of living, and the promise of life after death.
These are the impressions we take for granted after 2,000 years of Christian civilization. But it was not always this way. In ancient times, the cross was an object of fear and loathing; and it was in this guise that the cross was made the instrument of painful death for our Lord, Jesus Christ. It was only in the light cast by his resurrection that the cross took on a new symbolic meaning.
Christ’s apostle St. James was the first to perceive the cross not with fear, but with reverence and awe. In raising up the cross, and bowing before it, St. James showed the world that Christ’s resurrection marked a decisive turning point in history. The old era’s symbol of death would henceforth be known as the Christian era’s symbol of everlasting life.
But perhaps we can gain an insight into the Exaltation through another story, about another cross. The story is not a part of our holy tradition (although perhaps one day it will be). For this cross was exalted, not in 1st-century Jerusalem, but in New York City, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.
This Sunday marks 15 years since that dreadful event, and we can all remember the horror and outrage we felt as we confronted the incredible loss of life, and the prospect of an evil enemy who would willfully extinguish those lives. One couldn’t help wondering, at the time, whether anything could ever arise to redeem the despair of that day.
And yet, something did arise. Digging amid the ruins of Ground Zero, where the Twin Towers had collapsed only a month before, one of the rescue workers discovered something he felt to be a miracle. Two steel beams from the wreckage had fallen together, and landed in the form of a cross. The cross was set upright in the middle of the wreckage, to cast its shadow—literally and symbolically—over the scene. News spread quickly, and soon firefighters, police officers, and construction workers were making “pilgrimages” to the cross, to pray and reflect on the 9/11 attack.
In that bleak landscape of despair, the “Hero’s Cross,” as it came to be called, became a source of spiritual strength. At a blessing service before that site, a Franciscan friar offered these words: “Behold the glory of the cross at Ground Zero,” he said. “This is our symbol of Hope. Our symbol of Faith. Our symbol of Healing.”
And it is certainly the message St. Paul wished to convey, in the words which began this essay: “To those of us who are being saved, the cross is the power of God.”
As we pray for the souls of those who were cruelly taken from this world on September 11, 2001, and as we ask our Lord to grant peace to those who have suffered loss and hardship in the long aftermath of that day, let us also bow down before the Cross of Christ: the unexpected sign of God’s love for, and solidarity with, mankind—which exalts us, even in our pain and suffering.
And let us always proclaim that through the Cross, God has truly revealed His power to the entire world.