Category: Challenge to Action

Could the ANSWER be in Prayer?

I have a sense that…the answer to…countering the culture of death through pro-life action, and probably even to addressing the issues in our own personal lives…is somehow caught up in PRAYER…which, after all, shouldn’t be so surprising, when you stop to think about it!

Somehow there is a relationship between prayer and hope…and that’s recently come to the fore for me as I read the comments of Fr. Joseph, MIC, in the Summer, 2024, issue of Marian Helper: Inspiration and news from the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception.

I had somewhat forgotten that 2024 has been declared as the Year of Prayer by Pope Francis, leading up to the Celebration of the Jubilee Year of Hope in 2025. Fr. Joseph, MIC, (who is in fact Fr. Mark Baron, MIC, as explained in the notes at the bottom of his comments) recounts his ‘call’ – since January of this year – to emphasize prayer in his personal life and his ministry as Director of the Association of Marian Helpers.1

He closes his comments with an invitation, saying that, even though the Year of Prayer is half-way through, to ‘…take advantage of the graces the Holy Spirit is offering to us during this Year of Prayer for the upcoming Jubilee.’ Adding a challenge to, ‘…open our hearts to the Holy Spirit…to allow our lives to become a prayer to God…’ and, interestingly, he combines it with a request to renew our sense of ‘…awe and wonder in Jesus’ true presence in the Eucharist.’ He concludes,

Think about the fire that God wants to set ablaze in our hearts. Please join me in this call to faith, in this call to prayer, in this call to transformation, in this call to holiness.2

The invitation caught my attention and piqued my interest. Having been caught up in the grip of my own ongoing struggle to fathom the call from Our Blessed Lady, as she has appeared at Medjugorje, to ‘pray from the heart,’ prayer has become a focus of my life, as well. My problem is that, as a very word-oriented person, who processes my world cognitively, it is difficult for me to get a handle on what to ‘pray from the heart’ really means.

So, I betook myself to check out the reference Fr. Joseph, MIC, made to the Catechism of the Catholic Church to see what it has to say about prayer. I found it gripping. As always, the Catechism brings the teachings of the Church into sharper focus in what I find to be very understandable language…that, well, actually, speaks to my ‘heart’…that place in my being that is beyond my mental faculties of understanding.

Under the heading, Prayer in the Christian Life, it says, “‘Great is the mystery of the faith!’…This mystery…requires that the faithful believe in it,…celebrate it,…and live from it in a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God. This relationship is prayer.” (CCC 2558)

It terms prayer the ‘gift of God,’ saying, “‘Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or requesting of good things from God.’” Adding that ‘…humility is the foundation of prayer.’ It is when we acknowledge that we, ‘…do not know how to pray as we ought,’ that we are ‘…ready to receive freely the gift of prayer.’ It concludes that, ‘Man is a beggar before God.’ (CCC 2559)

There’s so much more contained, even in the 1st few paragraphs, but suffice it to say, I will be using the Catechism as a reference point for prayer over the rest of this Year of Prayer.

The Year of Prayer is to prepare our hearts…and minds…for the Jubilee Year of Hope, which connects prayer with hope in a profound way. If we are to counter the culture of death we need to be purveyors of hope, as Stephanie Gray Connors points out in a recent article in BC Catholic.3

Saying its not necessary for Catholics to be demoralized by the onslaught of Canada’s ‘extreme’ euthanasia regime, Connors, being originally from Abbotsford, BC, where she is visiting for the summer from Florida, is a pro-life apologist and urges that using logical argument and compassionate action are effective ways to counter the culture of death that we, as Canadians, find ourselves so immersed in.4

She adds, citing quotes from Victor Frankl, a psychotherapist who survived a Nazi Concentration Camp, that those contemplating ending their lives prematurely need to be offered hope…and meaning. She says hope starts with the foundation of prayer.5 And, we must find meaning to want to live.

I think that, when we explore the various means of countering the death-dealing culture of abortion and euthanasia that continues to proliferate across Canada, focusing on either political activism or educational approaches cannot succeed without a strong, solid foundation in prayer. 

So, perhaps there needs to be a coordinated effort…within what remains of this Year of Prayer, then, reaching on into the upcoming Jubilee Year of Hope, to ground our proposed actions and efforts in deepening our own personal prayer lives, and adding corporate prayer that is focused and intentional to pray, not only for ourselves and our efforts, but also for the purveyors and perpetrators of abortion and MAiD. How much, they, too, need to find a sense of meaning and hope that they would no longer see death as an answer to what ails the lives of individuals because they face suffering or challenging circumstances.

Life is never without its challenges, tragedies and triumphs, finding hope and meaning must be, as Fr. Joseph, MIC, concludes, recognizing Jesus in His REAL Presence…for us, as Catholics, in the Eucharist, and, for others, in being in His Presence in that profound meditative or contemplative stance of personal relationship with the Living God.

Jesus gave meaning to suffering and gave us the hope in something more beyond this life. We need to find ways of offering hope…and life…to not just those contemplating MAiD or abortion, but to those who are promoting and proliferating death in our Canadian political, educational, social and healthcare landscapes.

We need to come up with new ways of addressing the issues…not continuing to rely simply on tried-and-true activities alone.

That’s my take on it. Prayer is the answer…to what ails our society when it comes to the culture of death that permeates our response to challenges and suffering that we are bound to face in life…because we live in a fallen world, rife with sin, and brokenness, that leads to despair and death.

How do we become greater or better purveyors of hope and life than the anti-life forces we contend with?

How’s your prayer life doing?!? Can you add more prayer for yourself, and join with others, for a greater impact and effect on…the whole world?

1, 2 https://images.marianweb.net/archives/flip/mhe/Summer_2024/2/

3, 4, 5 https://bccatholic.ca/news/catholic-van/love-and-logic-are-the-catholic-response-to-maid-international-pro-life-apologist-says

Reflections…from Medjugorje

Medjugorje Report May 25, 2024

Medjugorje changes things… and it changes us, if we will only let it.

One of the first things I heard regarding Medjugorje, when I visited there for the very first time more than 20 years ago, was that ‘Mary is a real person, and she is personally present.’ I have found that to be remarkably true.

There is something qualitatively different about this place than any other place on earth that I have been. I believe it is because Mary has set her foot down on the hillside, and it has become the closest place to heaven on this earth that anyone will ever have occasion to be.

Since the Apparitions of Mary to six, at the time, young people/children, began in 1981, more than 40 million people, from all faith, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, have visited this remote village to be strengthened and renewed in their spiritual journey. Many who have come as unbelievers have left as believers, countless others have received physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual healings. The fruits speak for themselves.

Mary has said that the She is spending these years among us here as a, ‘…special time of grace granted by God.’ She says, “I have come to tell the world that God exists. He is the fullness of life, and to enjoy this fullness and peace, you must return to God.”

An example of the messages being delivered by Mary are these most recent ones, received on April 25, 2024:

Dear children! I am with you to tell you that I love you and to encourage you to prayer; because Satan is strong and every day his strength is stronger through those who have chosen death and hatred. You, little children, be prayer and my extended hands of love for all those who are in darkness and seek the light of God. Thank you for having responded to my call.

And this one from May 25, 2024:

Dear children! In this time of grace, I am calling you to prayer with the heart. Little children, create prayer groups where you will encourage each other to the good and grow in joy. Little children, you are still far away. That is why continue to convert anew and choose the way of holiness and hope so that God may give you peace in abundance. Thak you for having responded to my call.

My present 2024 pilgrimage to this holy site was made more special by staying in the pension of Ivanka Ivankovic-Elez, one of the visionaries.

The first to catch a glimpse of Mary on the rocky hillside of Podbrdo on June 24, 1981, Ivanka was a 15 yr. old girl who had recently lost her mother. The Feast Day of St. John the Baptist was a holy day…and, thus, a holiday…for the people of the area, including the mission hamlet of Bijakovici, which neighbors Medjugorje, and was the birthplace of five of the visionaries. The church of St. James the Apostle, a Franciscan mission, is the home parish of the visionaries.

Telling the friend who was with her, as the two strolled towards home that evening, that she had seen “Gospa”, i.e. Our Lady, the friend retorted she was crazy.

To meet her, Ivanka, is an unremarkably, ordinary, middle-aged woman with nothing that sets her apart from others her age and background. Her face neither shines, nor does she levitate…or carry herself with any sense of superiority or marked blessedness. She is a humble, down to earth, wife and mother, who is presently is looking forward to the marriage of her youngest son, Ivan, in June. Ivanka cooks for the pilgrims who stay at the Elez Pension, and son, Ivan, acts as server and driver for the pilgrims. She gives warm, welcoming hugs and smiling blessings.

Speaking to the dozen pilgrims during our stay, she began by saying she wasn’t above asking the Madonna, “Why did you choose me?” Sometimes, it is out of curiosity, wanting to know what it is for, other days, it is with an anger that while it is a great gift, it is also a great responsibility. It has marked her life since her teen years in ways that she did not imagine would happen to her when she was a child.

“I am a human being like you. I get knocked down, but I get up again. I find the strength to follow the path that God has given to me. As we all must.”

Many say to her that she is blessed to see Our Mother Mary, but, on the other hand, while she realizes the great gift God has given her, she says, with the blessings come many temptations, crosses, and problems.

The gift of having seen the Mother of God, is to gaze upon an indefinable beauty, not just to see her with the eyes, but to see her with the heart, as all of us must strive to do.

“I am not chosen by God because I am better than anyone else, it depends on making ourselves open to God for each one of us to see him.”

It is not that God is far from us, she says, but, rather, that we are far from God.

When she first saw Gospa, Our Lady, who later identified herself as the Queen of Peace, Ivanka was 15 yrs. old, living in Mostar. She was in Bijakovici visiting her grandparents for the school holidays and helping them working in the fields, the lot of most of her friends, and the children and young people of the community.

Because it was the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist, no one was working, and the young people were free to take a walk outside the village into the countryside. She and Mirjana, also visiting, but from Sarajevo, had walked away from the village and were awaiting others to join them, but they didn’t come. Becoming bored with the wait, the two of them began to return down the path to the village.

“I don’t know what caused me to turn my head, but when I did, I said to Mirjana, ‘Look. It’s Gospa.’ Without looking herself, Mirjana said to me I was crazy. And we kept walking.”

Coming upon Mirjana’s sister, she took one look at Ivanka and asked what had happened to her because she was white. At the same time, the others who they had awaited came up. They looked and also saw a beautiful young woman, dressed in grey, holding a baby in her arms and motioning for them to draw nearer. Frightened by what they were seeing, none of them dared respond.

They dispersed to their homes and families, and, in tears, some of them began to tell parents and family what they had seen. The overriding sentiment from the adults was to forget about it because no one really saw things like that.

Ivanka says it was the longest night of her life. Sleep did not come, and she lay awake wondering, indeed, if she was losing her mind. Everyone was saying that it simply was not possible. (At this point, no one in the village had ever heard of Marian Apparitions. The remoteness of the village, and still being under Communist domination as part of what was then Yugoslavia, information about places like Lourdes and Fatima had not reached them.)

Such news in the closeknit community meant that the next evening when they ventured back to the hillside where they had first seen the Lady in Grey, many villagers gathered at the base of the hill to witness what was happening. Ivanka’s grandmother had told her that whatever it was she saw up there, it wouldn’t be there again.

But the original four who had seen her, and two others who had not been there the evening before, saw a light that seemed to pull them up the hillside. Despite the thornbushes, stones and rocks, and with no path, they all ran up to the spot where they saw the same young woman again. No one could stop them from running up the hillside, nor could anyone keep up with them.

Ivanka pauses in her recitation of the facts of what happened, then says, “How can you describe with our poor words, the love of God? How can you describe the peace of God, the blessings and happiness? There are no words to describe it.”

There was the same young woman again. She was wearing a long, grey dress, with a white veil. She had blues eyes, dark hair, and stood on a small cloud. Never had any of them seen anyone so beautiful. The Lady spoke and said to not be afraid. And that she would be with them.

It was a tradition in the village and area to say seven Our Father’s, Hail Mary’s and Glory Be’s and sprinkle the house with blessed water every Saturday evening. One of the girls had been advised to take Holy Water and sprinkle it towards whatever they saw saying, “If you come from God, stay. If you do not, go away.” Ivanka says when the other girl did that, the Lady smiled and stayed.

The first message that the visionaries were given were the words, “Mir. Mir. Mir” “Peace. Peace. Peace.” Later the Lady would identify herself as Queen of Peace.

Ivanka saw Our Lady daily from then until May, 1985. Early on, still mourning the death of her own mother, she had asked Gospa where her mother was, and was assured that she was with Mary. The greatest gift came with her last Daily Apparition of Mary on May 7, 1985.

“I saw my mother and she hugged me and said to me, ‘I am very proud of you, my daughter.’ This was an enormous gift – a gift for me, and a gift for you. If you ask if there is life after this one, I can assure you that there is. She was real and I felt her hug like a real person.”

She goes on to say, “God gives us hugs. He asks us not to wander, but to come back to Him through conversion, prayer, fasting, confession, and Holy Mass.”

God is asking us to change our lives, and the first step in that is to be at peace with ourselves. He invites us to make use of Confession, to throw out of our hearts what is impure, to open our hearts to be cleansed and healed. He invites us to go to where Jesus awaits us, both in Adoration, and Holy Mass. He will give us new life, heal our lives, but we must choose which way we will go.

Ivanka’s special mission is to pray for families and she says that each one of us has a special mission from God.

“I have a family, like you. I experience the same problems that you do. We must put God first in our life, then it is easy to carry the problems. Bless your families. Start each day in prayer. Say, ‘O God, stay with me and my family.’ At the end of the day, say, ‘Thank you, God.’ It is one single drop in the ocean of prayer, but it means the world for you.”

She concludes, that if we have everything without God’s peace and love, we have nothing.

“What Our Lady said to us, I am telling you. Do not be afraid. Our Lady is leading us to Jesus. I pray for you. You pray for me.”

With six seminarians in our midst, she encouraged the pilgrims to pray for seminarians because the world needs holy priests, going on to say that there is a battle between good and evil going on more strongly than ever. With prayer and blessing, we can be instruments to stop the evil. The greatest weapon is the Rosary.

“If you are feeling lonely, and abandoned, pray the rosary. If you want to walk through life with smiles, have Our Lady next to you, she will take us to her Son, Jesus.”

“If we make one small step, it will lead us to having heaven on earth. The hardest thing becomes the easiest if we have an open heart…to Our Lady and Her Son, Jesus.”

In the end, it seems that the real message of Medjugorje…and Our Lady’s lingering presence there, is…for us all to live with an open heart, a heart that is open to God, open to respond to the call to convert, pray, fast, read scripture, go to confession, and attend Mass. All must be from the heart, a heart that is ready to believe who God is and to receive what He has for us.

This openness of heart must be the enduring source of our life, alone. Nothing else will suffice to prepare the purity of heart needed for us to be in communion with God. From a heart turned to God will come the peace, healing and new life we seek and long for, a heart that pleases Him and gives us access to Him and the eternity He holds in store for us.

Shades of Foreboding for 2023???

“The one who wants to win the world for Christ, must have the courage to come in conflict with it.”1

St. Titus Brandsma

Backdrop to Today’s Blog Post:

A favourite gift from this past Christmas was a small paperback volume (under 200 pages!) titled, Saint Edith Stein: A Spiritual Portrait, from Pauline Books & Media by Dianne Marie Traflet. It traces the spiritual growth of this Jewish daughter, born on the Jewish Day of Atonement in 1891, in Breslau, Germany. She was the last of 11 children, and by her teens had already rejected her family’s spiritual heritage and embraced atheism.

A brilliant, renowned scholar and philosopher of her day, she subsequently embraced the Christian faith, becoming a Roman Catholic, and a nun. Stein died in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz in 1942. Her crime? Being Jewish, of course.2 Sincerely converting to Catholicism, and entering the religious life, could not protect her from the wicked plans of evil men to eliminate the Chosen People of God.

Among other victims of the Nazi concentration camps, who have achieved the status of sainthood, are the Polish priest, St. Maximillian Kolbe, and a Dutch priest, Fr. Titus Brandsma, who was elevated to sainthood on May 15, 2022. As a Carmelite Friar, he was in good company. It is the Order of St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. Therese of Lisieux, and, yes, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross…otherwise known as St. Edith Stein.

Franciscan Media says of St. Titus Brandsma,

During his brief time at Dachau Fr. Brandsma was well-known for his kindness and spiritual support of other prisoners. His death on July 26, 1942 was a result of the Reich’s program of medical experimentation on prisoners. He gave a wooden rosary to the nurse who administered the fatal injection; she later became Catholic and testified to his holiness.3

It also adds the comment, in regard to St. Titus, “Conscience often creates martyrs. That was the case for Titus Brandsma. Many people ‘go along to get along,’ not realizing that by doing so they are destroying themselves internally.”

Reflecting on the lives, and the times, of these two particular Saints, triggered the thoughts that follow. It gives me pause to wonder, as we enter this new year, if we need to look more closely at what’s happening today, and how our times compare to theirs. How do you see it?

Thoughts on entering 2023…January 1, 2023

TODAY…the beginning of a New Year, on the cusp of things we know not of, or can barely imagine, might befall us, in our modern, civilized, Western culture. I foresee it will be so like what was to befall Europe, unbeknownst to anyone but those in the highest echelons of power and authority, who knew already what they purposed and planned, as the world careened into pre-WWII in Germany, which would engulf it, and its neighboring nations. All were about to be caught up in the maelstrom of madness proliferated in the minds of men with evil intent, focused on the annihilation of the Lord’s Chosen ones…to continue and further the hatred against them, which began when the Lord called Abraham, and set apart his seed to be a holy people, consecrated in covenant relationship to the One True God, for all eternity.

Hatred of Jews, hatred of Jesus Christ, hatred of all those called to be uniquely separated and consecrated to the Living God, in the Name of His Only Begotten Son, still awaits us, as men with the same evil intent of those who plotted the destruction of Jews, through the millennia, are once again in the ascendency. With the same evil intent, they now plot the destruction of Christ and His Church, to establish their godless purposes to, themselves, ‘be like gods,’ in their own hearts and minds…to reign over and supplant godly men and women who believe that God is God, and there is no other. (Dt. 4:39; Is.46:9)

While we who believe know their efforts are doomed to fail, the chaos and strife they will engender is about to engulf people of all stations and status, of belief and unbelief, of all stripes. All, together, will be caught up in conflict that sets families at odds, drives division between friends and neighbors, rips asunder communities, parishes, countries, and nations. None will remain untouched or unscathed. Such will be the lot of those alive today as they watch civilization teeter on the edge of anarchy and destruction that they, falsely, believed could never happen, in their day and age, ever again.

The lessons of the past, from more than 75 years ago, have not been well learned, nor taken to heart, as they might have been. To displace God is to displace civility, genuine respect and regard, care and concern, for one another. Those things that form the foundation of ‘taking care of your fellow-man,’ to quote my un-saintly, deceased father who passed to his reward more than two decades ago. He was a man who sought peace among people and nations that could not be found in his atheism or communism, because that peace is only available in the personal surrender of hearts and lives to live for, and embrace, the reality of ‘knowing the One True God, and Jesus Christ, whom (he) has sent.’ (Jn. 17:3)

This was the ‘Truth’ that Edith Stein discovered that gave her the grace to face incarceration in a Nazi concentration camp, and the gas chambers, with equanimity. The same was true for Fr. Titus Brandsma who died from a lethal injection, as part of the human experimentation on the living practiced by Nazi medical personnel. As Canadians, with the legalization of Medical Aid in Dying, we might want to pause and wonder where it is leading when medical professionals become acclimatized to the thought of putting patients to death and normalize the death dealing in their own hearts and minds. Will healthcare continue to be life-saving, or is it destined to become more death-dealing, based on the beliefs of the current political leaders who form our government?  

Only in serving the Living God, bending the knee, and bowing the head, declaring that Jesus Christ is Lord, will the peace the world seeks come to reign in the hearts of men and of nations.

I close with an observation by St. Titus Brandsma,

Among the many questions which I ask myself, none occupies me more than the riddle, that the evolving human being, proud and spirited in his progress, turns away from God in such great number.

It is disconcerting that in our time of such great progress in various areas, we face, like an infectious disease, an insidiously spreading violation and denial of God.

Why is the image of God so obscured that so many are no longer moved by it? Is the failure only on their side? Or is there something asked of us to make it shine brightly again over the world and might we hope that a study of the concept of God will at least alleviate this greatest of all needs?….

Despite the great progress in many areas, the human mind must be terribly dazzled that it no longer has the capacity to see God. This obstruction of vision, however, is not a total blindness. And without ignoring that this defective vision results from an ailing mentality which has clouded the eye, I ask myself if the object to be viewed is placed sufficiently in the light and whether we should not try to illuminate and place it so that even, through this ailing defective vision, it will be seen again?5

I think, that in today’s modern world, the ideas espoused above, still hold true as much as they did back in the day when St. Titus first voiced his concern. Are we the ones called to try to illuminate the Gospel truths so that they will be seen again…at the risk of our freedom…or our very lives?

Footnotes:

1 https://olmlaycarmelites.org/quote/titus-brandsma

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Stein

3 https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-titus-brandsma/

4 Ibid.

5 https://carmelitesph.org/triduum-titus-brandsma-day-2/

Once more…into the fire…

During the Fifth Week of Lent, all those who follow the Common Lectionary once again found themselves reading in Daniel 3, the recounting of the three Hebrew youths in the fiery furnace…who stand against the dictate of the most powerful political leader in the world at the time, Nebuchadnezzar, and declare they will not bow down to the golden statue he has erected, even on pain of a fiery death in the flames of the furnace.

Trusting in their God to deliver them, if He so chooses, they wind up being tossed, bound, into the blazing hot furnace, only to be seen walking about, in the midst of the flames, apparently unharmed, with a fourth figure that Nebuchadnezzar declares looks like, ‘…a son of God.’ He calls the three out, and though they were clearly seen in the midst of the flames, their clothing is intact and there isn’t a sniff of smoke about them…which causes Nebuchadnezzar to declare, ‘Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who sent his angel to deliver the servants who trusted in him: they disobeyed the royal command and yielded their bodies rather than serve or worship any god except their own God.’ (Dan. 3:95)

There is another historical account of a saint who went through the fire and survived, one, St. Martin of Tours.1 In the account of the incident, he becomes trapped in a room where his straw mattress, which he cast aside as too comfortable for him to sleep upon, catches fire from a faulty stove beneath the floor of the cell in which he is sleeping. At first, he tries desperately to escape the flames, but the rusted bolt of the door defies his attempts to dislodge it. Finally, he resigns himself to the care of the Lord he serves and lays down amidst the flames.

Recounting the story, in Pilgrim Road: A Benedictine Journey through Lent, writer, Albert Holtz, O.S.B., resorts to describing the end of the incident in the words of St. Martin of Tours biographer, Sulpicius,

At length recovering his habitual conviction that safety lay not in flight but in the Lord, and seizing the shield of faith and prayer, committing himself entirely to the Lord, he lay down in the midst of the flames. Then indeed, the fire having been removed by divine intervention, he continued to pray amid a circle of flames that did him no harm.2

Holtz asserts that St. Martin admitted to taking too long to resort to prayer as his source of safety and saw the incident as an attempt of the devil to snare him. Holtz goes on to suggest that we all know what it is to panic in the midst of an unexpected threat and forget that God is there with us. He says,

In the flames of difficult situations, when everything seems to be coming apart, I take too long to hand things over to the Lord. I, like St. Martin, the great Bishop of Tours, take too long tugging at the bolt and only later remember to stop trying to control things and turn confidently to the power of prayer.3

A survivor of the Nazi death camps, Corrie ten Boom barely missed being sent into the fiery furnaces at Ravensbruck, Germany. Ten Boom was a Dutch, Christian woman, who together with her sister, Betsy, both in their 50’s, and their father, Caspar, were imprisoned for assisting Jews to escape the Nazi persecutions that swept across Holland with the invasion of the German armies. Her father and her sister both died while imprisoned. After 10 months, Ten Boom was released through, she learned later, a clerical error. The week following her release, all the women her age were sent into the crematoriums.

After World War II ended, Ten Boom became an internationally known writer and speaker who recounted her experiences, and spoke of the God who sustained her, and forgiving her captors and tormentors. Her experiences were chronicled in the film, The Hiding Place, filmed by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Worldwide Pictures.4

Having the people she addressed marvel at her deep faith, Ten Boom rebuked them saying it wasn’t her own faith that sustained her, but the person of Jesus, Himself. According to one account written by the last of her traveling companions, Ten Boom discounted the strength of her faith, saying,

‘My faith was so weak, so unstable. It was hard to have faith. When a person is in a safe environment, having faith is easier. But in that camp when I saw my own sister and thousands of others starve to death, where I was surrounded by men and women who had training in cruelty, then I do not think it was my faith that helped me through. No, it was Jesus! He who said, “I am with you until the end of the world.” It was His eternal arms that carried me through. He was my certainty.’5

She added that if it was based on her level of faith, others would think they needed her level of faith to survive the difficulties and suffering of life. She concludes,

‘If I tell you that it was my faith, you might say if you have to go through suffering, “I don’t have Corrie ten Boom’s faith.” But if I tell you it was Jesus, then you can trust that He who helped me through will do the same for you. I have always believed it, but now I know from my own personal experience that His light is stronger than the deepest darkness.’6

Jesus is the One to take us through the flames of adversity…whether in the person of a 4th Man in the furnace, or as the strength and arms to sustain one in imprisonment and inhumane treatment by those ‘…trained in cruelty,’ as Ten Boom recounts.

When we face the fires of adversity, we must already know how to be sustained by the reality of Jesus as our personal Friend and Savior. If we only believe in our heads, and not in our hearts, our trust will falter and fail. Coming into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord is what will stand us in good stead when things become what we have never imagined could happen here among us in North America…Canada, the Western world. But, we cannot suppose that what has been faced by multiple thousands of Christians in other areas of the world, will never happen to us. The current trajectory of our governments and the anti-Christian sentiments becoming the ‘norm’ in our present day society do not bode well for our freedom to practice and believe our Christian faith.

Pray it would not be so, but, just in case, prepare in your heart for the possibility. We cannot continue to be the only location on God’s green earth where we do not experience what Our Lord experienced by being hated by the world and, ultimately, martyred for believing that He is who He says He is, the Anointed One of the Lord, the Only Begotten Son of the Father, Creator of heaven and earth, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. If we believe, we will share in His death, and, then, in His resurrection…Hallelujah!

As the ancient proclamation declares, Christ is Risen. Truly, He is Risen.

Let us Rejoice and live life in and through Him, daily, whatever threatens or befalls us.

1 https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/fathers/view.cfm?recnum=2098

2 Albert Holtz, O.S.B., Pilgrim Road: A Benedictine Journey Through Lent, Morehouse Publishing, 2006. p. 135

3 Ibid. p.136

4 https://www.christiancinema.com/digital/movie/the-hiding-place

5 Moore, Pam Rosewell, Life Lessons from Corrie ten Boom, Chosen Books, Grand Rapids, MI, 2004. p. 114

6 Ibid.

Never Forgotten…

Even if these forget, I will never forget you… Is. 49:15 (NRSV)  

Was reading recently from a Daily Devotional that features excerpts from the writings of Charles (Chuck) Colson, the highest-level staffer in Pres. Richard Nixon’s White House to be imprisoned for the Watergate scandal.1 Just prior to his imprisonment he became an evangelical Christian and remained faithful to his commitment to Christ for the remainder of his life. While this compilation of his writings was published in 1994, much of his commentary still sounds ominously appropriate and curiously applicable to our current, everyday state of affairs.

Colson referenced Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in a recent reflection. He was the Soviet dissident who was imprisoned in 1945 for writing a letter critical of Stalin. He spent seven years in the infamous Gulags, a system of forced labor camps under the Communist regime. Following his release from the gulags, Solzhenitsyn wrote extensively about his experiences, eventually winning a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970.2  

Colson recounts a particular episode in Solzhenitsyn’s life when he came to a place of desperation and despair. So deep was his hopelessness that he resigned himself to death at the hands of the cruel guards who oversaw their work. Colson writes:

Like other prisoners in the Soviet gulag, Alexander Solzhenitsyn worked in the fields, his day a pattern of backbreaking labor and slow starvation. One day the hopelessness became too much to bear. (He) felt no purpose in fighting on; his life would make no ultimate difference. Laying his shovel down, he walked slowly to a crude work-site bench. He knew at any moment a guard would order him to get up and, when he failed to respond, bludgeon him to death with his own shovel. He’d seen it happen many times. 3

Seated there, Colson describes Solzhenitsyn becoming aware of someone beside him. He raises his eyes to find an elderly, wizened man seated with him. Hunching over, holding a stick, the man traces a cross in the sand at Solzhenitsyn’s feet. Solzhenitsyn, who had rejected the Christian faith of his childhood well before his incarceration, staring at the rough outline experienced an ‘aha’ moment. Colson continues,

As Solzhenitsyn stared at the rough outline, his whole perspective shifted. He knew he was one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire. Yet in a moment, he also knew that the hope of all mankind was represented in that simple cross – and through its power, anything was possible. Solzhenitsyn slowly got up, picked up his shovel, and went back to work – not knowing that his writings on truth and freedom would one day enflame the whole world.4

Colson concludes, “Such is the power God’s truth affords one man willing to stand against seemingly hopeless odds. Such is the power of the cross.”5

While Solzhenitsyn had been born and baptized into a Christian tradition, he had rejected any association with Christianity and embraced the atheism presented to him through the Marxism taught within his education experience. It was an experience in the prison camp that brought him back to embrace the Christian faith. A poem recorded in his book, The Gulag Archipelago, reflects that faith:

I look back with grateful trembling
At the life I have had to lead.

Neither desire nor reason
Has illumined its twists and turns,
But the glow of a Higher Meaning
Only later to be explained.

And now with the cup returned to me
I scoop up the water of life.
Almighty God! I believe in Thee!
Thou remained when I Thee denied…6

What was true for Solzhenitsyn as he sat on that work-site crude bench, is still true in our present day circumstances. The power of the Cross to change lives, and history, is still equally valid here, now as it was for him in that Soviet gulag some 75 years ago. It is the purpose for which we must stand, even in the face of risks to our personal safety and freedom, just as he did.

There is another reference that I have just read that puts into perspective the meaning of the Cross, which begins with the birth of a Baby, in a stable in Bethlehem, more than 2 millennia ago. Albert Holtz, O.S.B. writing in his Lenten devotional, Pilgrim Road: A Benedictine Journey Through Lent, says this:

It is only in coming as a baby that God can assure the powerless that salvation doesn’t lie in might and mastery. It is only by being born in a stable that God can persuade the poor that salvation doesn’t lie in wealth and economic security. It is only by being born unnoticed in the obscurity of a small town that the King of Kings can convince the unloved that salvation doesn’t lie in fame or popularity. Emmanuel, God-with-us, comes as Mystery to be seen only with the eyes of faith. God comes as a surprise, in a shocking reversal of this world’s wisdom.7

When we understand the mystery of God, the Word made flesh, coming to dwell among us as that Babe in a manger, and the meaning of the cross…the instrument of his horrendous death…and the purpose and meaning of this God-with-us paying the price for our salvation, it is then that we see that each life has purpose and meaning, even if it is not to have international influence and effect as Solzhenitsyn’s life has, or a Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, or a Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Yet, we all have a role to play, a part in the tapestry of history that is being woven as each one of our lives play out. The nameless who have given their lives for freedom are as much heroes as those we are aware of and celebrate.

Our lives are no less meaningful and purposeful when we live for the purposes of God, and stand for Truth and Freedom, as any of the well-known martyrs of the faith.  We will be judged on our faithfulness and obedience. And, St. Mother Teresa, another Nobel Prize winner, says, we must be known, not for our worldly success, but for doing small things with great love.8

The Lord sees us, and knows us, and does not forget His own. If we are His, we need not fear, whether it is the threat of death from the COVID-19 pandemic or a war on our own soil. He continues to be Emmanuel, God-with-us, if we embrace Him in our hearts and trust in His everlasting Love.

1https://www.npr.org/2012/04/21/150918213/chuck-colson-watergate-figure-and-evangelist-dies-at-80

2 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aleksandr-Solzhenitsyn

3 Charles Colson, with Nancy R. Pearcy, A Dangerous Grace: Daily Readings, Word Publishing, 1994. Pp. 69-70

4 Ibid. p. 70

5 Ibid

6 https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/webfm_send/558

7 Albert Holtz, O.S.B., Pilgrim Road: A Benedictine Journey Through Lent, Morehouse Publishing, 2006. p. 113

8 https://time.com/4478287/mother-teresa-saint-quotes/

Would I have gone into the fire…

Recently, I was reading Azariah’s Prayer from Daniel 3. Azariah was one of the three Hebrew young men who were tossed into the fiery furnace for refusing to bow down to the golden statue erected by the Emperor. His prayer is a plea for mercy and deliverance from the evil that has befallen them because of the nation turning away from their God.

Azariah, aka Abednego (his Babylonian name), and his companions were among the Hebrew captives deported to Babylon when Jerusalem fell into Nebuchadnezzar’s hands. They proved to be such quick learners, intelligent and astute, that, along with Daniel, they were placed in high level positions of authority within the Babylonian administration. Out of some jealousy of their success from their native born equivalents, Nebuchadnezzar was prevailed upon to have a statue of himself cast in gold and to issue a decree that everyone in the Empire was to bow down to it on penalty death by being thrown into a fiery furnace for lack of compliance.

When it was reported to Nebuchadnezzar that the three young Hebrews stood tall before the statue, and refused to bend their knee, the other courtiers incited Nebuchadnezzar to call them in and demand their obedience to his decree. He was apoplectic that they refused to follow his orders. He commanded that they be thrown in the blazing, fiery furnace which was to be heated to 7x’s its usually temperature…the Bible relates that the soldiers who threw the three bound men into the fire were themselves incinerated because the heat of the furnace was so furious.

In response to the threat to their lives, the three young men were clear that they would not be swayed to comply with what was clearly against their consciences, no matter what the consequences might be. We read:

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us[b] from Your Majesty’s hand. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” (Daniel 3: 16-18 NIV)

What struck me in reading this exchange, and Azariah’s prayer, was the question: Would I have gone into the fire as willingly as they did? Do I actually believe and trust, with such unswerving faith in this same God who delivered them, that He, too, will keep me and protect me in a similar way? Am I ready to stake my present existence and my eternal future on the certainty that God will be with me, whatever the challenges, and whatever the outcome?

Their response is instructive, “…the God we serve is able to deliver us….But even if he does not…we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

Will you…will I…stand strong in the face of the challenge by authorities who are empowered to incarcerate or even to martyr us? Will we still say, in the face of the ever present, very real threat, “My God will deliver me…and even if He doesn’t, I will not scar my conscience by choosing an action that is abhorrent to Him and, so, to me.”?

Both Fr. Maximilian Kolbe1, a Polish priest, and Dietrich Boenhoeffer2, a German Pastor, come to mind. Both chose to risk everything to stand for their firmly held, individual and personal, belief in the Living God of Scripture. Each eventually paid with their lives…being put to death, after their incarceration, for standing up for gospel values against the insanity of the Nazi policies and practices.

Both were vocal, and public, in their opposition to the National Socialist political machinery and its impact on day to day life in war-torn Poland, and in war-ravaged Germany, respectively. Neither backed down, and both paid the price by being imprisoned, Kolbe in the concentration camp at Auschwitz, where he volunteered to be starved to death in the place of another Jewish man who agonized over what would happen to his family with his death, and Bonhoeffer, in a prison in Berlin, from where he was taken and hanged shortly before the Nazi regime fell and Europe was liberated by the Allies.

As Christians, we face an increasingly anti-Christian bias in our media, as well as in the policies and practices embraced by most of our elected political representatives at every level. As we stand for life, family, and freedom, more and more, we are being challenged, marginalized, hounded and harassed, persecuted, demonized and criminalized…the question is, how long before we see, ourselves or others, put to death to rid the society/culture of the blight of those, like us, who put their trust and faith in the Judaeo-Christian God and uphold the Biblical values and tenets of faith that accompany those beliefs?

Kolbe and Bonhoeffer lived in ordinary, normal circumstances, under the accepted rule of law and freedoms enjoyed in a democratic nation…until those freedoms were unceremoniously stripped away. Freedom no longer existed, for them, because they were on the ‘wrong side’ of what was acceptable under the Nazi regime and its power brokers. Both men, and their families and associates, were summarily plunged into an inferno of flaming hatred and destruction neither could probably have ever imagined might engulf them within the culture and history of their respective nations.

Are we heading into a similar, unbelievable, unstoppable crisis such as warranted the outbreak of World War II…which, I remind us, was fought to protect the very freedoms we are now losing, and that seem to be quickly eroding on all sides? Voices of dissent are no longer being allowed to raise a cry of protest, to protect and guard us all from the overstep of forces bent on shifting the values of our society and culture, so as to be able to remove freedom from those who dissent…because they dissent.

If this is what’s happening now…what’s to come?

1 https://www.stmaximiliankolbechurch.com/about-us/biography-of-saint-maximilian

2 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dietrich-Bonhoeffer/Ethical-and-religious-thought

With Godlessness, Anything Goes…

“Times, they are a-changing…”

There has been a dramatic political and moral shift across our nation of Canada in the past few years. While it is a shift that has been in the making since the sexual revolution of the 60’s, in many ways it has caught those of us who are ‘of an age’ off guard. (See July 18 Post for further info.)

We never thought or expected to see physician assisted death being touted in some cases as a ‘treatment option’ nor to find ourselves as one of the few/only developed nations who have approved nation wide legal consumption of marijuana. The implications of such legislative actions are going to be widespread and insidiously endemic. It makes the fictional work of Dr. James Dobson, & co-author, Kurt Bruner, all the more compelling.

Godlessness…

I am well into finishing reading their trilogy of books I introduced in the July 27, 2018 Blog posting. There are three titles in the series,  Fatherless, Childless, and Godless.

In the Author’s Note at the beginning of the third book, Godless, Kurt Bruner identifies today’s beliefs that have shaped their fictional projection into the future and fueled their speculation of what the world of the 2040’s will be like. He adds, “…we confront the chilling implications of Dostoevsky’s claim that without God all things are possible.” The books depict this chilling ‘new world’ and the implications in, what continues to be, albeit currently a total fictionalization of reality, an all too likely scenario facing us in the not too distant future, especially if we do nothing  NOW.

Getting back to this trilogy of books, the authors are examining our world two to three decades in the future through a fictional scenario that highlights the impact of the population pyramid flipping to where the elderly population numbers, the tail end of the baby boomers, far outstrips the number of able body younger people. The drop in fertility rates for decades, coupled with the lack of replacement population, has placed an inordinate, heavy burden on the existing workforce. It has negatively impacted economic growth, precipitating desperate measures on the part of governments to off-set those deleterious effects.

One of the answers, posited by the elected officials of the day, to enhance transferring their financial resources from the aging population to the upcoming generation facing economic stress, is to encourage ‘heroic’ volunteers to ‘transition.’ That means to accept euthanasia, or assisted suicide, rather than using up their financial resources on their care as elderly, aging, and possibly ill, individuals — otherwise termed, in popular parlance of the (projected) day, as ‘debits.’

All ‘debits’, i.e. anyone who is not actively contributing to the economy but is draining limited resources, are encouraged to do the heroic, loving, caring thing and opt for allowing themselves to be put to death, whether they are failing, aging individuals or disabled, anyone who is unable to contribute to the economy is encouraged to ‘transition’.

Interestingly, the philosophical and theological underpinnings for transitioning are built upon the ancient philosophy of Manicheanism, a recycling of the belief that the body is evil and the spirit it good. To be freed from the decaying body and released to a higher spiritual plane is preferable to the suffering of aging, illness or disabling disease. We are seeing traces of the emergence of this belief even in our day.

All three books in the trilogy, published between 2011 and 2014, reflect this sobering theme, which, as I titled the earlier Blog post, depict very real possibilities that I find ‘chilling.’

What does this mean for me?

While I have read innumerable Christian thrillers, murder mysteries, and suspenseful action themed books, which have reflected all kinds of unsavory scenarios, none of them have been able to ‘creep me out’ like these particular books have. I think it is because the other scenarios would not be ones that I, personally, would be likely to encounter. But, here, in this instance, given my age and any unfavorable projected health prognosis, I could, very realistically, as an aging member of the baby boomers, personally face what is being depicted in these novels.

That is especially true with the advent of MAiD being so readily available, across Canada, and, as I mentioned, it being offered to patients, or suggested to family or close friends, as one of the legal treatment options available under the current restricted circumstances, which are bound to change, to those with a terminal illness.

I think we all become very vulnerable to the pressures to end our lives, both to avoid our own suffering, and to refrain from putting our loved ones through the anguish of watching. And, it is not unthinkable, that it could also be for the sake of the economic reasons, to potentially save our loved ones from having to invest our own hard earned financial resources, or theirs, into our ongoing care as we age or are afflicted with debilitating or terminal illness.

The pressure to take action and end our lives is, as these books depict, beginning to be viewed as the compassionate and caring thing to do. We should not have to ‘suffer’ our way through to a demeaning dependence that robs us of our dignity and casts us upon the care of others, instead of being healthy and robust and savoring our independence. The language of promoting euthanasia and MAiD as caring and compassionate is deceptive. While it sounds good, it does not perceive or respect the inherent dignity of the individual created in the image of our loving God, nor seek to protect and promote and support living until we die. Instead, as a patient who was offered MAiD pointed out, he wanted support to live, not support to die.

Capital Punishment is seen, and lobbied against, because it is barbaric and sears the consciences and lives of those who provide it. How can we think that to sanitize the killing of another person, albeit one who requests it, is acceptable because we move it out of the penal facility into a sterile hospital setting and surround the person with a medical team who will help this go quickly and well? What makes it less barbaric than to take the life of a convicted, perhaps unrepentant, criminal?

Defies reason, as far as I can see. But, I digress.

The Future is Now…

It strikes me that we have already taken the long walk down the road to ending life in Canada for too long to turn around. But, how do we protect and preserve the dignity and safety of those who do not want to take this, currently, elective option to end their lives when there has been a terminal diagnosis? What must we do to preserve the caring and ‘do no harm’ of the Hippocratic Oath, sworn by our medical professionals, so that pressure is not there to end one’s life prematurely and caring to the natural end of life is available for those who believe it is the way to finish their days?

It begs the issue of the funding of better and more available palliative and hospice care across Canada. More on that another time.

Promoting a Culture of Death or Preserving a Culture of Life.

The battle against ‘life’ in our current Canadian society has heated up another notch. It has taken a giant step forward, from the frontal attack and assault on pre-born life, the taking of innocent life in the womb for any reason, at any time, to promoting voluntary death by the elderly, aging and unwell. We have consolidated and condoned the sacrificing of sacred life on the altar of convenience, comfort and ease.

Only if we resolve to put ourselves, and our conscience beliefs, on the line to contend against the proliferation of this Culture of Death, which was spoken of by St. John Paul II so succinctly some two decades ago, can we hope to see the Culture of Life prevail. It is incumbent on us to stand up and be counted as for life, not against it.

Launching out…

“Launch out into the deep….” Lk. 5:4 (NKJV)

New beginnings often require launching out into the deep — going beyond the depths of where we have been most comfortable and to shake off our complacency, indifference, and inaction…such is the case for me at this juncture in time.

I spent close to 20 years, between the mid-1970’s – mid-1990’s, actively involved politically, including being a federal candidate in Saskatchewan in 1988. Initially, I became involved politically based on the concern for the loss of the way of life I had known growing up in rural Saskatchewan in the 1950’s. It was reflected in the decimation and loss of population of the small rural communities during the 1970’s-1980’s and the attendant loss of ‘community.’ As a result of my political involvement, I was subsequently drafted into the pro-life movement to become a pro-life political activist and speaker on the issues surrounding abortion.

As it became apparent that there would be no further introduction of legislation on abortion, and with the move to Alberta in 2006, where I was totally unfamiliar with the political history and environment, I was lulled into complacency.  With the conservative governments provincially and federally, it seemed there was no need for my ‘voice’ so, I dropped out of active participation in the political arena.

That lasted until the unprecedented, cataclysmic political tidal wave that shifted Alberta from a conservative to a socialist government, closely followed by the loss of power of the federal conservative government, catapulted me back into the political fray. With the election of the current liberal government, apart from the economic ramifications — running huge deficits to ‘buy’ the way out of recession and economic downturn — the shift and change in social values and moral principles became alarming for me.

This was capped with the introduction of Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) and pronouncements that, to be Canadian, I must adhere to, and carte blanche support, the rights and freedoms outlined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, ‘…including supporting reproductive rights‘ — which at the date of writing this, are not, as has been implied, protected under the said Charter.

It strikes me that we are being forced into compliance and conformity by the current policies and legislative agendas of the present federal government, as well, I might add, as the provincial government — but more on that later — in a way that threatens to challenge and fail to protect the conscience rights of Canadian citizens who do not agree with the stands being promoted and proliferated by the present day federal government.

It is time for all thinking, caring citizens of Canada to stand up and let their voices be heard, proclaiming loudly and clearly that we do not agree with the infringement of our rights and freedoms to, both, believe as we do, and, in good conscience, dissent from the politically correct agenda promoted by this government.

The rallying cry, perhaps, is — “It is time to launch out into the deep….” — to take a stand for a differing agenda than the one being propagated by our Prime Minister and his colleagues, focused on their politically-correct thinking. There is another voice in Canada to be heard — mine and yours. Join me!

“Launch out into the deep….” for yourself.