Strike A Blow For Jesus

“STRIKE A BLOW FOR JESUS!”

Part 1 – The Darkness Before the Dawn of Easter

                “Strike a blow for Jesus!” Those were the words I would so often hear from Fr. O’Halloran at Holy Cross in the late sixties and really right up to his passing in February, 2008. How different Holy Cross was when I went there from 1965 to ’68. There were so many truly holy priests there, Jesuits even, who witnessed to nothing less than a bold proclamation of Jesus by their words and by their lives. Fr. O’Halloran, or “OH” as we called him then, Fr. LeBran, Fr. Brooks – all of them were courageous for Christ.

                What would they say now about a “Holy Cross” that has removed the Cross from its college insignia in so many of its college mailings and online posts? And more than that what would those holy priests say about the removal from that emblem of the words “In Hoc Signo Vinces”? What incredible words! “In Hoc Signo Vinces!”, or in English, “By This Sign you will conquer!” - incredible words that the Lord spoke to Constantine during his vision of the Cross. Oh sure, one can still see the true emblem on the college’s official website, but more often than not an enclosure now from the college will come in the mail with some silly insignia devoid of the Cross. To specifically describe this now politically correct and non-offensive logo, it is a little circle with tiny rays protruding from it, and that’s it! The logo looks like the emblem emblazoned on the Japanese Zeroes that attacked Pearl Harbor.

                Yet for me, “Lift high the Cross!” and restore to the college emblem the awesome words of the Lord to Constantine! How much today an ever-deepening dark world and an increasingly sinister society need to hear those words. Yet at Holy Cross, and in so many Catholic colleges and high schools today, that message of the Cross and the power of the full Gospel of Jesus is snuffed out, covered up, and even replaced by liberal blather – by secular and progressive bombast where the sum total of the Gospel message is simply compassion, tolerance, and diversity - and nothing more. Gone is the proclamation of Paul and the Apostles – a proclamation of conversion to God through the Risen Jesus alive and still with us, now present in power to our lives through the transforming Love that is His Holy Spirit. 

                Where even is there any bold proclamation of Jesus today from our Pope and Bishops? The Holy Father comes to the United States and there is no mention of Jesus and the power of His Gospel aside from what is read during the Mass in the Scriptures and Liturgy. Instead we get this grave concern about completely opening our borders and a totally nonsensical focus on “the bogus gospel of global warming”.

                In the meantime the “War on Christians” (Quoting cover of “Newsweek”, February 12, 2012) going on for years and years throughout the Middle East - and really throughout the Moslem world - gets no mention. Where if anywhere in media – or for that matter, in Church preaching, proclamations, and publications - can you find any continuing coverage of the theme in the lead article  that “Newsweek” edition, written now over four years ago: “The Rise of Christophobia – From One End of the Muslim World to the Other, Christians Are Being Murdered For Their Faith”. Is this is the “great tribulation”, the beginning of the “great tribulation” of biblical proportions spoken of by Jesus to come before the End of times? I believe so.

                Yet in the face of this tribulation, the Christian Holocaust – the persecution, torture, murder, and crucifixion of Christ in His people – the “Christian West”, her pastors, priests, bishops and pope, remain largely silent. “Nothing to see here… Move on!” It is sheer lunacy for the Church to give a sense of urgency and alarm to bogus science, to unfounded fears of global warming, while ignoring the horror of the current Christian holocaust. Why does the ludicrous image occur to me now of Nero fiddling while Rome burns? It is because to Our Lord and His Mother the true crisis of our times is not climate change but the tragedy of Jesus, in the person of thousands of people of Christian Faith, being slaughtered, crucified and killed by the enemies of Christ.    

                But perhaps the “times they are a changing” once again for the better. At least I feel it. How about you? And shouldn’t it be so? For where sin and darkness abound, do not Grace, Light, and the Power of Christ’s Love draw near and even abound all the more? (Romans 5:18) And for a fact the signs are there that this is very much what is happening in our contemporary world. I see and hear and feel so many signs of the wind and light of Christ’s Spirit once more moving “all over this land”. In fact, there is a palpable sense of the Lord and especially Mary, His Holy Mother, “on the move” in America as well as everywhere in the world beyond our shores.

                It is so evocative really of the story line in C.S. Lewis’ “Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe”. There, Aslan, the Great Lion, is an unmistakable Christ figure and type of our Lord. And even from the outset of the story, Aslan is “on the move” throughout the Land of Narnia. That growing sense of His Presence, intensifying by the moment, is for Narnia’s citizenry exciting beyond what words can express.

                Why? Narnia you see has been for ages mired in a deep freeze, a deep freeze where it is “always winter, and never Christmas” – if you will, a dramatic metaphorical parallel to the direction of America since the ban on prayer in public schools in 1963, with a deeper thrust and cut into the heart and soul of our country with the Roe v. Wade abortion decision in 1973.

                In the land of Narnia the deep freeze and the winter without end is due to the power of an evil Queen, the White Witch. She is mean and cruel, an evil Beast if you will, cold, ruthless, without heart, soul or humanity. In the thought of C.S. Lewis, the Witch has brought to Narnia what is to this author the essence of Hell, a place without Joy or Love or Christmas, a place that knows only the coldness of stone and the silence of death.

                But now her wicked spell is unraveling as Aslan, the Great Lion, is on the move. Like a Bridegroom coming to claim His Bride, Aslan is coming  to reclaim His land and His throne, and as He draws ever nearer the signs of spring “appear upon the earth.”  “Vines are in blossom”; flowers “give forth fragrance”, and the sound of birds singing echo throughout the land. (Song of Songs 2: 12 and 13)

                The parallel to our own day and time cannot escape my notice. The “deep freeze” of Narnia is so evocative of the coldness, the demonic darkness and decadence that has over the last fifty years spread like a disease across our country, metastasized like an ever-expanding cancer throughout the U.S. and even throughout the world beyond.

                Consider just the silent scream of over fifty million infant deaths in our country from the horror of abortion. Their silent scream is before the throne of God the thunderous roar of millions of human heartbeats, heartbeats that cried out to Heaven for vengeance before they were silenced in the culture of death entrenched all over America.

                And what of the heartless people, many devoid of all humanity, who have legalized such atrocities, and even performed them? Like the White Witch in Narnia, these people have had their way in this country for decades now. They have their way with U.S. courts, with Congress, and for eight years now even with our country’s executive branch. Like a virus they have entrenched themselves in our schools and universities, and even in our churches. They have infected the young all over our country with tainted thinking, with ideas that somehow infants are less than human and people less than sacred. Barring God and His word from the public forum, they have worked to eradicate any and all reference to the idea of humanity’s God-given dignity – to humanity as the children of God, with human souls made in the divine image.

                The result of their deadly infiltration and indoctrination? A sick society filled with depravity and debauchery, a diseased culture inhumane and Godless, a society without a soul, a society that less and less knows Joy, Peace, Love, and Christmas; a society that gives us “things”, every “thing” in fact, but leaves our heart empty and unfulfilled, cut off from the “Bread of Life” that is Jesus; a society that offers more and more only a foretaste of Hell – or to use the image once more of C.S. Lewis,  a society that offers only the coldness of stone and the silence of death. 

                So sin abounds in our midst today. But I can say with Faith to the point of unshakable conviction Grace abounds all the more. Grace, God’s Life, the Spirit of His Son, is more and more “on the move” all over the U.S. today. The Spirit of His Love, a Love like only God can Love, surrounds us, anoints us, and like an intensifying Light of dawn is working to dispel the demonic darkness that for too long has cursed our culture. You might say that Aslan is “on the move” throughout our country today, and as His Presence draws near the spell of the White Witch can do nothing but unravel, and her power finally can only diminish and fade.

                Yes, I believe that an intensifying Fire of God’s Love more and more present in power is casting out the demons among us. I believe that an awesome Light of God in the Spirit of his Son is dawning anew among us in decisive and dynamic ways. Throughout our society and even in our larger world, so many occurrences, so many happenings – some small and some large - lead me to believe that “yes!” the Spirit is alive and moving powerfully among us. And as with the citizenry of Narnia there is excitement for me as well in the face of my Lord and King drawing near. There is excitement beyond what I can express in words or tears. There is Joy that knows no bounds, the Joy of Resurrection when Jesus shows us that He is alive and still with us; the Joy of Pentecost - the Joy of His Presence once more filling out lives to the point of overflowing, once more anointing our lives to the point of “abundanza!” (Jn. 10:10) Yes, today we “…see Him again, and our hearts rejoice, and no man can take our Joy from us.” (Jn. 16:22)     

[Keep in touch with my websites and blog sites for Part 2 of this reflection: “The Signs Today of Jesus and Mary On The Move”. It should be finished in no more than a week or two. God bless you my friends, Doug M. +]            

  

The Christmas Train

December 10^th, ‘15

To all my friends,

                Throughout my forty years plus of teaching I always began every class with prayer to Jesus, followed by a story that would speak to the theme of that day’s lesson. Especially at Christmas time all my lessons plans in Theology class were oriented toward themes that related to Christ’s first coming on Christmas night. Truly “the world could not contain the books that would have to be written” (Jn. 21:25) to record the lessons streaming forth from the heavenly light that dawned on Christmas night.

                In all those beautiful years of teaching I for one was never at a loss to find yet another lesson that called out to me from the Christmas story - and not only from the Christmas story but as well from the “miracle stories” of Christmas that all of us experience during the Christmas season each year. “The Christmas Train” which follows is one such story, one such “miracle story”.

                “Mr. Michaud, are you going to tell us a story?” At the start of class my students never asked any other question of me more than that one. And though it happened long ago, I can still see the faces of an Emily, a Mike, a Molly, an Eric, a Kelly, a Peter, or Gen asking that question always with enthusiasm, and always with a twinkle in their eye. It was a question repeated   thousands of times throughout the years. And it was question never asked more of me than at Christmas time. Truly one of my most cherished memories of my students, whether at Guertin, Feehan, or CM, is how in the glow of candlelight they would all settle in at the start of class for the daily Christmas story, and never with more eager anticipation than for the story that follows, “The Christmas Train”.    

Enjoy! Merry Christmas!

Doug  +

THE CHRISTMAS TRAIN

It was 1954. I was seven years old. My family lived in the poorest section of our town, the Spruce Street section of Lawrence, Mass. My father hadn’t started his business yet. So there were times when he struggled to find work and would often be gone out of state (Connecticut at Pratt-Whitney aircraft) during the week to find employment and bring home an income. He always did. As a child then I always remember awesome food on the table, and I always felt the security and warmth of our Spruce street home.

What I didn’t know then, and only learned as an adult, was how my grandmother – my “Bacchie” – helped us during those days of hardship. She lived with us when I was small, and with her savings and social security she helped with the mortgage, the necessities of food and clothing, the utility bills, and even with money for the movies.

I’ll always remember her in her rocking chair, saying her daily rosaries and watching my brother Paul and I play our games – Monopoly mainly, and my brother Paul always won. I remember too that so many days ended with me being rocked to sleep in grandmother’s arms, all the while as she continued to pray her rosary ever in her hands.

One day as she watched and rocked and prayed, I was on the parlor rug, looking through the pictures in the newspaper. It was a month before Christmas and the paper had all kinds of toys pictured in the store adds. I remember like it was yesterday the first moment that I saw it: the picture of the Lionel train set. My excitement at the sight of it was palpable and Bacchie noticed right away.

The price of the train was $4.95 – can you believe it?! Yes, in 1954 it was $4.95 for a train set of six cars made out of real metal, not plastic. There was a figure eight track set, a mountain tunnel, a railroad crossing signal with barrier bar gates that dropped down and came up again after the train passed. On one of the railroad cars – a log car – there was a crane to lift the logs off the train. The logs were part of the train set too.

The steam engine was solid black metal with chrome silver plating. It blew smoke as it traveled the track, and pellets were provided to make the smoke. You only had to put them into the smoke stack, and the electric train heated the pellets and made them smoke.

The caboose was awesome too. It was flame red and had a rear door that opened to a back platform with a railing. There was a little railroad conductor figure that could attach to the platform and ride there at the rear of the train.

My heart was so set on the thought of having that train, and Santa was most assuredly going to get it for me that Christmas. With my mom and dad I was insistent that this was exactly what was going to happen. They weren’t so sure though. They told not to get my hopes too high. The price of that train was expensive (Remember five dollars then would be a thousand dollars today!), and Santa had to buy toys for other children as well. I remember that even days before Christmas I was praying for the miracle of having a train that was too expensive to get just for me.

But then Bacchie was watching and listening to all this pleading. She had seen my excitement, and she knew how much that train would mean to me. On Christmas morning the train was there, all laid out on the parlor floor right in front of the Christmas tree!!!

What a glorious Christmas morning that was. How ecstatically happy I was. My Christmas train! I played with it day after day, week after week. I never grew tired of playing with it. And all the while my Bacchie would watch me while she rocked in her chair and prayed the rosary.

What I never knew as a child was that Bacchie paid for the Christmas train. Times were hard for my parents, and the money for a Christmas train was not to be had. I remember hearing from my mom only as an adult how Bacchie had gone out and purchased that train for me. I remember how moved and inspired I was to learn that.

What a lesson in true Love it was for me – in unconditional Love. For Bacchie all that mattered was my happiness. She didn’t need to have me know that she paid for the Christmas train. It was enough for her to rock and pray and watch me play with my “miracle gift” on Christmas morning.

And so the beauty of this person who showed me from my earliest years a Love like only God can love… I felt that love in her arms, in her embrace – the love I still feel now in the arms of Mary our Blessed Mother.

It was in fact one of two of Bacchie’s dying wishes the following year to have my brother and I brought from school to her hospital bed. It was so she could embrace us one more time before passing on to Christ. For as long as I live I will never forget the Love that I felt in that final embrace. It was Divine Love. It was the Love of Jesus reaching out to me from within her.

Her other wish? It was the wish to be buried by her husband, a man that abandoned her and their farm after conceiving twelve children together. He had left her, but she had never left him. Again her unconditional Love for a man who broke her heart, mirrored the Love of Christ, mirrored the Love shown forth from the Cross, a Divine Love, a Love like only God can love. It was that Love in Bacchie that brought her home to the Lord and to the Heart of the Father. And it will be a Love like that burning in our hearts which will bring us home to God as well.

To all my Facebook friends and to all my LinkedIn colleagues, a most beautiful and blessed Christmas to you and your loved ones, and may your New Year be filled with happiness, filled with a Love like only God can love.

In the Love of Jesus and Mary,

                                                         Doug +       

What MATTERS Is The Miracle of All Human LIfe Made in God's Image - Whether Black or White, Red or Yellow, and Blue Blood Too!

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

                                                      ― Marianne Williamson

                      “An immortal soul is beyond all price. There is no trouble too great, no humiliation too deep, no suffering too severe, no love too strong, no labor too hard, no expense too large, but that it is worth it, if it is spent in an effort to win a soul for God.”

                                                         - Author Unknown

“Black lives matter!” Of course they do! But unfortunately that statement represents a short-sighted focus, a misguided focus – the myopic focus of one generation of Americans after another now being taught in Godless schools and universities; of generations of young people with Godless attitudes and a values void largely due to the exclusion of God and His truth from the public forum.

“Black lives matter!” Of course they do! But why settle for such an insipid statement that asks us to think so small about any human life – to think simply that life matters, that somehow and for some reason a human life is a plus and not a negative? And God forbid that you should ask that secular society for some rational explanation as to why you should think this! But leave it to our abortion culture, and now our infanticide culture, to think in such small terms, in such dull and mundane terms, about the value of a black life, a white one, a blue one (police!), or a red or yellow one.

The fact is that our society and schools, silent and without feeling for the killing of our children, have wandered far off from the Light of God. Our society and schools have totally lost a sense of the wonder and miracle of each and every human being. In Judeo-Christian tradition – largely ignored by mainstream media today – the basis for this wonder and awe in the face of even one human soul is the concept of dignity. It is the incredible concept that every human being, irrespective of color or creed, is a child of God made to uniquely mirror the divine image.

The dignity concept tells us that each and every human soul is “beyond all price”. Every person has inestimable worth and value.  It’s not a question that a human life – any human life - simply matters.  It’s more the case that a human life, any life made in God’s image, has “power beyond measure” to  make a decisive difference in this world – power in fact to make all the difference in the world. And a society that respects human life has a moral imperative to make sure that each any every human life has that chance, has that possibility.

I can recall an event back in the 1970’s that perhaps can illustrate the power and potential of one human soul. The Holy Father, John Paul the 2^nd, was hosting a youth rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City. During his presentation there was a power outage and for moments over 25,000 young people sat in total darkness. Then one young man lit a candle. Applause rang out through the massive assembly, for all could suddenly see in the glow of that one light. What was that light worth? What difference did it make?

In fact, that light made all the difference in the world. They say that the overthrow of the Communist regime in Romania started in the same way – with the lighting of one candle by Daniel Gavarol. What else can happen with one light, one life? If it’s a single light in a steeple of an Old North Church and the year is 1776, that light has infinite potential, unlimited possibilities, and incredible power to make all the difference for the future of our world.

So also is the power and potential of the light that is each human life. Each of us has that same power to decisively grace the world with our own unique light, a song that only I can sing, a poem that only I can pen, a book that only I can write, an idea that is uniquely mine - for when God made each of us, “He made an original, not a copy, a copy, a copy…”

The potential of each human life? Don’t think small here, and settle for an idea that somehow it is a question that a life “matters” versus having no value. Open to the infinite possibilities and unlimited potential of each human life - and especially open to the “power beyond measure” of that life if that person is open to the help of God. “God times one – you can’t put that number on the board!”Look at Mother Teresa! Just one person open to the promptings of Grace, responding unreservedly to the irresistible leadings of the Holy Spirit, and the Light of that one life has forever changed our world, has lit our world with the radiance of the noon day sun.   

So what is that light worth, the light that is each and every human life? Compare the potential light of each human to the Light of Jesus. Oh yes, the comparison is valid. St. Paul tells us that all the honor, wealth and prestige he had before knowing Jesus was as dung to him. The Light of Jesus, the Person of Jesus, was worth more to him that all rank and privilege, than all the gold and silver in the world. But doesn’t Paul in saying this also mirror to us the love in the heart of the Father for His Son? Furthermore, as God’s children made in His image, this inestimable value of the Son is precisely our worth as well in the eyes of God? Were we not bought with the price of His blood? In union with Jesus are we not now like Christ a child in the arms of our all-loving Father?  

Only a Judeo-Christian society resting securely on its biblical foundations can even begin to see the grandeur and glory of even one human life. For the Bible forces us to see the incredible sanctity of life, to see life through the eyes of a Father’s love for us. God’s Word compels us to contemplate all human life as the Father of us all Himself sees it: the life of even one person as infinitely precious in His sight; the human soul as worth more to have than the chance to have the whole world (Mt. 16:26), or the chance to gain the glory and wealth of all creation.  What more does the Lord’s Love shown forth from the Cross tell us, if it does not tell us this?

But is our sick society today capable of rising up as out of the darkness of a cave into the grandeur of this light – the light that is the inestimable value and worth of each and every human life?

As a father myself there have been so many powerful moments where I know I have seen that light, where the Grace was given to see the value of even one life through the eyes of God’s Love. Much as God Who “so loved the world”, as the Lord Who did not spare His own life for us, what would I not give for the life of my child, for one who is flesh of my flesh, life from my life?

There have so many decisive defining moments in my life that have made abundantly clear for  me  the answer to that question. But one some years ago I remember most of all. I remember it all too well, in every detail. Often in fact, I relive it as if it were yesterday, or as if it were only moments away in my recent past.

It was a day when I almost won “Megabucks”, a lottery game in our state – and as my luck with lottery games goes, believe me this “almost won” moment was for me a once in a lifetime experience. I had four of the six numbers. The fifth number was one digit off from the correct one. The sixth however was nowhere near to the right one.

I remember remonstrating with the Lord about this: “Lord, could you  not have given me wealth today?” And then I went on and on to Him about all I would do with the money to give glory and honor to God. I felt like the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7, haggling with the Lord for the healing of her daughter. Her importunate pleading paid off. The Lord was pleased with her persuasive protestations and her persistence. He answered her prayer and healed her daughter. But in answer to me the Lord was silent – or so I thought.

It was not even an hour later after this dialogue with the Divinity that my youngest son came home. He looked shaken and fear still cast a dark shadow across his face. In an agitated voice he told me that on the way home only moments ago he had almost been killed by a car while on his bicycle. The car had rapidly and recklessly backed out of a driveway, forcing my son out into the middle of the road only then to face an oncoming car. Miraculously he had dodged the first car and also avoided a head-on collision with the second.

There have a number of times in my life when I know the Risen Lord has spoken to me. One of those moments was then, as I looked into the face of my ten year old son and loved him. Just at that instant I heard the voice of God say to me: “Did I not give you wealth today?”

Tears filled my eyes. I had received this day the “wealth” only God can give, the “wealth” that money cannot buy. God had given me the life of my son. What would I give for that life? Would I give even “Megabuck millions” for the life of my son? You know the answer. His life to me was and is more precious than all the gold and silver in the world. Since that day to now my prayer before the Lord, the Father, their Holy Spirit has always been to fill my life with their “wealth”, the “wealth” that money cannot buy, and the “wealth” that once God gives it the world cannot take away.

What is that “wealth”? It is the lives of my children, my wife, my family, my friends – the lives of all the people God has given me to love as He loves: as His children made in His image and likeness; and as such, infinitely precious in His sight, of inestimable value and worth. This day the Lord rejoices over each and every one of His children, and renews them in His Love. This day He sings with joy even because of you. (Zeph. 3:17-18)

Proclaim then in whatever way you can the real value of each and every human life, all children of God marked with divine dignity and called to a most divine destiny. Stand up and stand out with the grandeur of this light of biblical truth in the face of a dark and demented world all around us today – a sick world that aborts its children, or even allows them to be born only to be slaughtered and sliced open for the harvest of vital organs; a perverse world where untold thousands of Christians and so many others are being killed in the name of some sinister and unholy crusade.

Tell that sick society the price paid in Christ’s Blood for each of those lives lost to the evil inhumanity and barbarism that is really out there in the world of our own day and time. Tell them the real value of each and every one of those lives lost – young or old, infant or aged, black or white or blue (police!). Tell them of the Gospel of God: of the call by the Father to each of His precious children, to each and every human life – the divine call to Holy Communion with God through oneness with His Son, the call of Love from the Father to an eternal intercourse with God, the call of the Divine Bridegroom to all humanity His Bride to become one flesh, one body, one heart, one life with Him forever.