If You’re a Man with Any Testosterone…

…I don’t know how you watch Field of Dreams to the end without weeping.

Retreat, and Engage

Bullfight as painted by Picasso

Hello everyone, it’s your friendly absentee blogger checking in again. I’m just in time for belated-yet-timely Pentecost greetings. Belated, because the feast was yesterday. Timely, because it has an Octave (in the real calendar) and we’re in early days.

Personally, I have struggled just a bit during Lent and Easter. Nothing dramatic– I’m not Skojec-ing here. I don’t know about you, but the absolute slow-walking destruction of Western Civilization and the institutional Church causes me some spiritual difficulties. Not that I am losing my faith in the Church– far from it. Thanks be to God, it has not waivered. As I’ve written about before, Unam Sanctam is still in effect, and outside of the Church there is no salvation. No, I love the Church and am grateful for my blessings. Seeing her passion should make every Catholic angry, and at the same time filled with contrition for the personal sins we have committed that assist the Church’s enemies in a mystical way at the very least. We cannot say that as a Church, a country or a child of God we do not deserve punishment, whether by horrible pope or antipope or other means.

No, for me the struggle is a kind of spiritual lethargy, which many feel. There is only one thing to do about it. Fight on. Never give up. Every day is a spiritual battle, and no matter whether we win the day or lose it, tomorrow will be yet another battle. I am reminded of the exchange between Gabriel Syme and Sunday in The Man Who Was Thursday:

You are the new recruit? All right, you are engaged.”
“I really have no experience…”
“No one has any experience of the battle of Armageddon.”
“But I’m really unfit…”
“You are willing, that is enough.”
“Now, really, I know of no occupation for which mere willingness is the final test.”
“I do. Martyrs. I am sending you to your death. Good day.”

Lots of truth in that. And so we press on. I am just back from a very beneficial retreat, during which His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke gave a talk. During question time, he laid out a very helpful, true and effective plan of action: Be ready to suffer. Offer up your suffering. Unite it with the Sacrifice of Christ. Love the Church. Suffer for the Church.

That I can do. To help you suffer, I will, among other things, try to reengage in this space. Let’s fight on. If all I have is a slingshot, I’ll use it.

I pray we live and suffer with Christian charity and joy.