Qoheleth says, “Ask not why former days were better than the present, for it is not in wisdom that you ask this.” (Ecclesiastes 7:10)

I don’t wish to ask why former days were better, but I do wish to affirm that our own days are particularly troubled. I do think that in 1,000 years, when they’re facing their own major crisis, people will say, “Let’s remember that the Church got through the early 2000’s.”

We have several large global conflicts occurring and a looming major global financial downturn centered around the inevitable collapse of the US dollar. There are serious questions about the relationship (including financial) between the Holy See and China, no doubt emanating in no small part from the machinations of a now-laicized cardinal, one of several high-profile sexual deviants that seems to have been recently populating the halls of Roman power. We have a cadre of American and European bishops which in large part seems unaware of the gravity of the duty to guard the sacraments and to preach the necessity of the pain and resulting glory of the Cross, exacerbated by a culture of self-referential appeals to being “merciful,” “welcoming,” and so on by men whose consciences are often so seared by their own past mistakes in ministry (or in their personal lives) that they now seek to paper-over them retroactively by taking advantage of their fleeting moments of ecclesiastical power to tell others that real suffering is not actually obligatory for a good Christian, at least when, you know, it’s difficult and there’s an easier path.

Meanwhile, we are told that climate change and the 1962 missal are the real problems, and that a Meeting about Meetings is going to help pave the way for the Church to flourish in the third millennium… A Church where apparently we are not supposed to use the prayers of the saints of old and are able to ponder whether we have been misled all these centuries about the proper recipients of both sacraments and sacramentals, and where we are supposed to think that the one-time murderer Moses didn’t really understand the true meaning of the 5th Commandment which he handed down from Sinai but that he was really on to something by not forbidding divorce and remarriage.

What to do? Pray, fast, study, grow in personal virtue, assist each other as we can… Preach without fear, if you are a cleric. But remember too that we are always doing better than Good Friday. The Cross is more absurd than anything – and it is there that we find the highest Wisdom, with Christ’s love most on display.

So there’s a little zing to get things moving. Don’t expect posts this spicy every day.

Have a good weekend…
-Eamonn