Category: Reflections on Life Today

Think about THIS…

This is a departure from the usual commentary on ‘Life’ issues, but, still…I think its an important aspect of…life when it comes to…justice for all.

I am of the opinion that the mainstream Western media, several international governments, including Canada, and some notable religious leaders, are missing the point when it comes to dealing with the conflict (WAR) between Israel and the Palestinian military faction known as Hamas.

These individuals are viewing the situation though the eyes and mindset of the Western world and its humanism and rationalism…which doesn’t compute when applied to the Islamists and their reasoning and motivation based on a radical spiritual ideology.

The media, Western government leaders and religious leaders fail to rightly discern the real reasons for the conflict and so apply misguided assumptions about what is happening. They routinely shift the blame for the disastrous results for Palestinians in Gaza onto Israel instead of laying it at the feet of the Hamas organization holding sway over Gaza and its Palestinian population.

There are two reasons that fuel the Western mindset that result in the misunderstanding of the situation. This abysmal lack of understanding of what is happening causes these pundits to be unable to discern the roots of the conflict and to offer inappropriate, unworkable solutions to resolving the clash and bringing peace. Both of the reasons that cause them to arrive at wrong conclusions about the conflict are found in the precepts and tenets of Humanism.

Humanism…which is the prevailing philosophy or belief system guiding most Western governments today…does NOT believe in a spiritual realm and promotes the belief that human beings are good, in and of themselves…they are ‘bad’ only because of things inflicted on them by others. They further assume that human beings are intelligent, rational beings who can resolve conflicts based on engaging their intellects and entering into dialogue and negotiation which will lead to peaceful resolution of conflict.

Therein is the problem…dealing with the situation without any reference or belief in a supernatural, spiritual realm, and believing that all people are people of good will totally lacking in malfeasance or nefarious motives is inappropriate and inapplicable.

It overlooks the fact, that, first of all, for the particular brand of Islam practiced by the Hamas leaders and their military, this is a spiritual battle. Indeed they are waging a ‘Holy War.’ One that they are enjoined to engage in directly by the Quran and their spiritual founder, Mohammed. It is a battle founded upon and grounded in the intent to kill all Jews and to overrun and extend their own rule over the territory designated as Israel.

It is a spiritual injunction to rid the world of Jews and the state of Israel based on sura’s found in their Holy Book and interpreted by their Imams and religious leaders as being the basis for ‘jihad’, their ‘Holy War’, with the goal to rid the land of the infidels…that being, as a matter of fact, both Jews and Christians. These religions, and their adherents, are not seen as compatible with this particular interpretation of Islam.

So, if this battle is founded upon a spiritual basis, it changes the assumption that it can be settled by dialogue and negotiation. The brand of Islam being practiced does not allow for an intellectual coming to a compromise solution that allows Israel to exist and be populated by Jewish people. To them, when the chants of, ‘Death to the Jews’ sound across the Gaza strip, they mean it, as much as they mean to be rid of Israel, the ‘little Satan’ and America, the ‘big Satan.’ The leaders of Hamas, both political and militarily, are not about to negotiate to a truce that peacefully allows Israel to exist and Jews to continue to live there.

Because those who are offering solutions, and making demands that Israel halt its military actions to negotiate with the Hamas military arm, do not believe in God, and wrongly believe that all human beings are rational, intelligent beings who can arrive at reasonable settlements, they are blinded to the reality of what is fueling this conflict itself.

Reason is not the answer to a spiritual belief that the coming of the Islamic Mahdi1…the equivalent of the Jewish Messiah, or the Christian return of Jesus…and the establishment of the Caliphate, a worldwide kingdom in which no infidels are left alive, to be governed by Muslims based on sharia law…is dependent on the shedding of blood…of anyone who gets in their way…Jews or their own Muslim fellow believers.

They truly believe that anyone…be they military or civilian…who dies on their side in this conflict is guaranteed a direct route to a heavenly…supernatural realm beyond this one…with great benefits beyond what they have experienced in this earthly realm. It is a great thing to obtain death in such a conflict to end the challenges and struggles of life, here and now, with life in a paradise beyond imagining. Death for them is a reward for honoring and living out their Islamic beliefs to rid the world of all who do not embrace their faith.

These, then, are not people for whom peaceful co-existence with their Jewish neighbors is to be seen as a victory. Only the complete destruction of Israel and the death of all Jews is the accepted outcome.

So, when the international governments are calling on Israel to stand down, negotiate with Hamas, to end this conflict…and the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza2, they are, if you will, ‘…barking up the wrong tree….’ The ones who will not come to a settlement and stop the conflict and the attacks against Israel and the Jewish population are actually the ones in the other camp…the Hamas leadership and military, not Israel.

Israel is battling for the right to exist and to protect their own citizens…a right, given and protected by international law, that is not being respected by…the Hamas government or its military, or by these international nations who lay the blame for the unwillingness to be at peace on Israel, instead of those warring against them, based on the spiritual roots of the beliefs of these individuals and their interpretation of the Quran.

When there is a failure to acknowledge or comprehend the spiritual roots of the battle, based on the general lack of belief in the supernatural, and the added belief that all people are rational, intelligent beings of good will, who want only good for themselves, and the other, the solutions to the conflict cannot be seen for what they are. What is being proposed and demanded doesn’t ‘fit’ with the realities of the roots of the conflict.

Demanding Israel change things, without acknowledging the source of the conflict and the malice of intent to destroy them on the part of Hamas brings Westerners to the wrong conclusion about who is at fault and what it takes to establish peace.

1 Brittanica Definition: Mahdi, in Islamic eschatology, a messianic deliverer who will fill the earth with justice and equity, restore true religion and usher in a short golden age lasting seven, or eight, or nine years before the end of the world.

2 Watch “LIVE FROM ISRAEL: FAMINE IN GAZA? Fact or Fiction?” on YouTube

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

Which way forward…

This was a post that was written following the unprecedented, unprovoked attack on, among others, a civilian population enjoying a holiday event last October, 2023…but, for whatever reasons, this didn’t see the light of day…to become published. However, I intended to use it to initiate a more regular blogging schedule, again, then move on from here:

Breaking the Silence…

Since the earlier post that heralded in the New Year of 2023, I have come through nothing short of a miraculous cancer journey, complete with surgery that removed the right section of my colon, an amazing recovery, and being declared ‘cancer-free’ all within the rapid-fire space of a three-month timeline…but that’s a story for another time. Suffice it to say, it’s now the right time to make a comeback…and, to begin to reflect and write and share my thoughts, again. So, this begins another phase in, what has proven to be, a rather intermittent, blogging journey.

Musings…

Very recently, I had occasion to gaze out my bedroom window at the shifting kaleidoscope of color in the leaves of the trees and these musings came to mind…beginning with concern about heightened fears of further COVID spread and feeding off the most recent current events rocking and shaping our world, beginning with the shocking terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians, and the even more shocking response from around the world leaving me wondering: What comes next?!?

Sunday, October 22, 2023

The other morning when my husband drew back the bedroom curtains, I was immediately struck by the noticeable change in shade of the fall leaves beyond my window. There had been a subtle shift from the blazing, light-reflecting amber gold of the day before to a dull, faded yellow hue, with more bare branches standing stark against the morning sky as the tree released its shriveling leaves.

My first thought was that winter was on the way! There would be no more lingering gleaming, golden leaves, vying for attention against a bright blue sky, with touches of red in the landscape of neighboring shrubs, or with the still green foliage of the late turners standing in stark contrast.

It came with a twinge of nostalgia that what had been a lingering fall, with pleasant temperatures, sunshine and fall colors abounding, for weeks on end, would all over very quickly. The remaining leaves clinging to branches would flutter to the ground, carpeting the lawn with sodden, rather than crisp, brittle leaves.

Soon enough snow would cover the landscape with a uniform blanket of white, and we would be hunkering down to weather the dark, frigid, cold ensuing days of winter that would soon envelop our world.

It always catches me off guard that spring, summer, and fall, when all is said and done, seem to be so fleeting. In the blink of an eye, the bleakness of winter has returned and largely ignored, until it settles, unbidden, upon us.

Given the trajectory of our world, proven in the previous couple of years, as the flu season is once again upon us, I wonder if this might not be a metaphor for the potential of bleakness heralding in the rather unwelcome return of restrictions of social involvements and travel, involving again social distancing, masking and vaccine mandates, lockdowns and other impediments to carrying on even a semblance of what would be seen as normal social interactions and healthy community life. Might this be about to break upon us, once again, unwelcome, and as distasteful as enduring the same scenarios over the previous 2-3 years?

It may be that the pleasant return to near normalcy of the previous several months has lulled us into an expectation of the worst being behind us. Being able to enjoy the welcome ‘springtime’ of non-restrictive living for this past year or so, might have caused us to become complacent, or cling to an optimistic hope that it is really all behind us, and, surely, it could never happen again! Could it?

The re-introduction of restrictions, masking, lockdowns, and all the paraphernalia we have become familiar with, might surface yet, again, still fueled by a renewed pandemic of fear, pitting people against one another, in the guise of healthcare safety, as the desired response to another outbreak of the lingering COVID-19 viral infection that is rebounding, as it is wont to do. It is, after all, a virus, and that’s what a virus does, and it is, after all, fall, and moving into winter.

This time, though, I think it will be with an added twist…an even more blatant hostility to those who don’t ‘buy in’ to the narrative popularized by the political elites and mainstream media. It could well lead to violence against the outliers who will be cast as a threat to the health and wellbeing of all, in the pandemonium of very strident voices claiming that it is for the only good of the sake of safety for the community…and all who don’t comply are a dangerous threat.

I fear that, soon enough, the same vaccine mandates, travel restrictions and vaccine passports will all be re-instituted and the non-compliant will be even more vigorously hounded, harassed, isolated and driven to the fringes. more stridently than occurred in the first go-round of insanity that gripped the world 2-3 years ago. For the many, or any, who did not speak out before, who silently, conceded and went along with it, for whatever reasons, it will be too late to stand up and be counted anymore. They will all be swept up in the fearmongering and finger-pointing that has become so common place in our world of today.

The perpetrators of the only ‘acceptable’ woke narratives will show no mercy or reason, and it will be enough to ‘know’ that a person disagrees with the touted ‘party line’ to silence, marginalize, isolate, criminalize, and eliminate those with dissenting voices.

Any and all, and especially believing Christians, who try to stand against the injustices of loss of freedom, whether it be in silencing sane voices of dissent, or sounding the alarm for dehumanization, marginalization, hostility and hatred towards those whose voices differ from the mainstream, inculcated narrative which is being heard in the corridors of power, the halls of academia, the corporate towers, and the bellowing and blaring in our streets already, will be targeted in ways not seen in a long, long time.  

We are graphically witnessing this kind of bigotry and alienation in the outcry against…not Hamas for the terrorism perpetrated on innocent civilian victims, within the boundaries of their own national boundaries…but against Israel who are a sovereign nation needing to protect their own innocent citizens from the atrocities of this deliberate, with malice aforethought, unprecedented terrorist attack.

As with the insidiousness of the creeping policies that broke in waves over pre-World War II Germany, that eventually saw millions swept up in the frenzy of hatred against the ‘enemy,’ the Jews of that day, we are already seeing them, once again, targeted in our cultural frenzy over ‘colonialist’ ideologies. It may soon sweep the whole world up into it. As we witness what the worst level of violence means for those who oppose what is taken to be the only ‘truth’ allowed. Battle lines have been drawn and, now, we can only wait to see how the violence and hatred begin to play itself out, as has already been paraded before us so graphically, in cities around North America, on university campuses, and in nations around the globe, including the horrendous mob attack on innocents arriving at a Russian airport where the mob fired warning shots at the police to stand back and let them maraud and hunt down Jewish travelers and threaten their lives and the Jewish students locked inside a University library while fellow students pounded on doors and windows trying to gain entry to get at them.

Civil discourse is no longer allowed, or even expected. There isn’t a place for dialogue or negotiation when the other person’s ‘right’ and freedom to believe differs from the accepted ‘narrative’ regardless of who is touting it. We have deteriorated to mob rule, where ‘might makes right’ when there is even a perceived variance from what is held to be ‘true’ by another person.  

As the Jewish people are witnessing, what they thought was a haven in nations who declared loudly and vociferously, ‘Never again!’ has proven to be a false hope for them. And this is in danger of proliferating to the basest level of discourse, for the most mundane reasons.

Watch for more of this, across our peaceful, civilized democracies. Third World conditions in nations where despot’s rule will soon be evidenced, even in our local, small communities throughout Canada and the US where people believed they would always be safe. If the Jews are no longer safe in Western countries, then no one of any faith will be, either. Especially, if the enemy of our souls has his way. Today, more than ever, we need to PRAY! PRAY! PRAY!

Where should we be in all of this? What kind of persons do we want to be…and on which side?

I am reminded of a recent comment by an Israeli commentator who is a Messianic Jew…who has said, the enemy grounded in Hamas/Hezbollah operatives, are right now coming for the ‘Saturday people,’ but once they have done that, they are going to move on to attack the ‘Sunday people.’

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

Two Deaths…

“Grandma, it’s all right. You can go now“

My eldest Swedish Canadian cousin died at home on Christmas Day in 2018. Our families had grown up together in rural SK until she married at 18. The day after their wedding, she and her new husband, along with her entire family, moved to Vancouver Island, BC primarily to deal with her serious health issues, stemming from asthma.

The health challenges would plague her all her life.

She was 83 and her entire family kept vigil with her at her bedside through her final days and hours. She and her husband of 65 yrs. were residents of a senior’s supported living condo in Victoria, B.C.

After struggling with a myriad of health challenges for a prolonged period of years, she finally elected to stop any further treatments earlier in December and was referred to palliative care. Her personal physician continued to journey with her, including spending several hours with her at her home on December 24 – a testament to the quality of the person this patient was and what she meant to her primary healthcare provider.

Early on Christmas morning, waking in her own bed, surrounded by her nine daughters, granddaughters, and great granddaughters, she opened her eyes and asked for her husband. He was called into the bedroom from the adjacent living room, where he and his 6 sons-in-law and grandsons had been spread around the small space slumbering, as best they could.

The 65th Christmas

He leaned across the bed to his wife, and she looked up at him and said, “We’ve had 65 Christmases together.”

She lingered through the day, not fully aware of her surroundings or those with her. In mid-afternoon most of the family adjourned to the daughter’s home, a short way away, where the traditional turkey had been prepared, to share in festive turkey sandwiches.

When they returned, the two granddaughters who were nurses, who had remained behind, called the husband in to see her again. As they left the bedside, he climbed up on the bed beside her and took her into his arms.

He whispered to her, “Grandma, it’s all right. You can go now.”

Within seconds, her breathing stopped, and she quietly slipped into eternity.

A different kind of death

A friend in my Ladies Bible Study shared the experience of a friend of hers who had journeyed with a lady who chose Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD), within about the same time frame as the death of my cousin. Medical Aid in Dying is the term utilized by the Government of Canada in its legislation to avoid use of the terms ‘physician assisted suicide’ and euthanasia. [Any doctor today would tell you that every licensed doctor has been providing ‘medical aid in dying’ since time immemorial.]

The person in question was invited by friend of hers who was terminally ill to be present during the procedure to medically end her life. While the first person was very reluctant to participate because she did not support, nor believe in, the use of physician assisted suicide, because she valued the friendship, and the trust placed in her to be asked to journey with her friend through this end of life experience, she reluctantly agreed to be present for the medical procedure that would terminate the life of her friend.  

The night before the medical appointment to end her life by lethal injection, i.e. proceed with the ‘medical aid in dying’ procedure, the lady who was terminally ill held a family dinner that had the whole family gathered as if in celebration of a very festive occasion. There was great food, good company, laughter, dancing and singing. The patient herself presided at the piano and led the company of children, grandchildren, and close friends in a sing-along into the wee hours of the morning.

Everyone said their good nights and goodbyes as if they were just completing a stellar social occasion.

The next morning, the friend returned to be with the patient who had her appointment with death. She reported that the woman had dressed to the hilt in her best dress outfit, complete with her usual string of pearls.

The patient laid down on her bed in her bedroom, then paused, and asked the Chaplain who was present to say a prayer. She then extended her arm to the medical practitioner in the room, said, “Let’s get this done,” and received the fatal, lethal injections in her extended arm.

The friend of the patient who was a witness to the whole procedure, from the social gathering to her friend taking her last breath, was traumatized. She commented later that, it was “…like putting a dog down.” She vowed she would never participate in a physician-assisted-suicide again and, to this day, still has nightmares around witnessing the procedure.

The Difference

I have shared these scenarios with care workers training for visiting in institutions. They immediately “get” the difference between these two deaths. Do you?

Truth be Known…

The astute observer of my blog entries will notice that the previous article has been edited and the attribution of the piece removed.

A dear friend, who was quicker on the uptake than I was, alerted me to the fact that, on checking with Snopes (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-paradox-of-our-time/) the piece I attributed to George Carlin was, in fact, disclaimed by him and not attributable to any number of other purported authors whose names were associated with authoring it.

Snopes says:

        “The true author of the piece isn’t George Carlin, Jeff Dickson, or the Dalai Lama, nor is he anonymous. Credit belongs to Dr. Bob Moorehead, former pastor of Seattle’s Overlake Christian Church (who retired in 1998 after 29 years in that post). This essay appeared under the title “The Paradox of Our Age” in Words Aptly Spoken, Dr. Moorehead’s 1995 collection of prayers, homilies, and monologues used in his sermons and radio broadcasts”

I stand corrected, and am a little peeved with myself that I failed the ‘test’ of reprinting something without verifying its veracity. It is a good lesson for all of us who receive the forwards from well-intentioned family/friends/acquaintances to check them out before sending them on — or posting them to your blog!

We are maybe a little too quick to accept that what we receive is truth when, in fact, it borders on fiction.

How much of what is seen online, in the news headlines, or through other media, is really what it represents itself to be? And, how much of what we read can we rely on, without questioning it? A good lesson in caution to not believe everything we read…from any source, without checking it out.

A lesson learned.