Stop Cursing the Darkness. Start Praying and Sacrificing!

It takes a saint's prayer and penance to solve problems!

As the globe turns in our tumultuous times we are witnessing one of the worst crisis of faith in the Church and the world we have ever seen. Many inside and outside the Church are actively looking for ways to destroy or minimize the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church. Unfortunately this situation has brought some of the worst out in the Catholic blogosphere. This has also become the age of the whistleblower/drive by news bloggers and media organizations.

There are now hundreds of “Catholic” blogs, websites and media outlets that are dedicated to cursing the darkness. Some seem to think that they are the sole voices of orthodoxy among Catholics. It is one thing to write an occasional article pointing some problem in the Church that needs to be addressed and quite another to dedicate an entire website or media organization to listing out every perceived problem going on in the Church. Personally I find this whole idea contrary to a healthy Catholic identity, and it often causes more issues than it does help resolve them.

Many use the examples of Saints like St Catherine of Siena and others to bolster this whistle blower mentality. Unfortunately, most of them probably have never done one one-hundredth of the penance and sacrifice these Saints did before they themselves ever dared to criticize anyone publicly. Let alone did any of them dedicate their entire bodies of work to  doing such a thing. Instead most of them like St Catherine actually blamed themselves for not being holy enough as to the cause of the problems in the Church. Even when they did speak out, they spent far more time in prayer and penance to rectify the situation than they ever did talking about it.

I find that many of these whistle blower websites often use sensational headlines that do not reflect the actual content of the article that is linked to it. Many of these websites use headlines that are often slanderous. For example, I saw a recent headline on one of these websites that said, “EWTN for Hillary!” as if the entire organization was supporting Hillary for president, which is not even close to being the case. In fact, the article linked said nothing of the sort. One thing bloggers should remember is that God will hold them accountable for everything they publish online. One thing you will rarely see on these websites for example are the many articles and videos on EWTN that are being made on a daily basis where the exact opposite is being advocated. 

 

The danger of running a “whistleblower” webpage or media organization is that eventually everything sounds like a broken record and things tend to be sensationalized. This gives a distorted representation of reality and tends to make people react emotionally rather than intellectually. Its time for Catholics who see and understand the problems in the Church to actually start doing what the Saints did. They need to engage in much prayer and penance. What we need less of is emotional ranting and more practice of prayer and penance. Did we see Our Lord spending every waking hour complaining and condemning the many wrongs in His time? No, He did it when it was necessary and spent the majority of His time preaching the Gospel to everyone so they could receive eternal life. If anyone had a right to go around and point out everyone's faults it was Jesus, and He rarely did that. In my opinion, it is time to stop cursing the darkness and start doing something about the problem. It is our own sins that are the cause of the catastrophe we find ourselves. We all have short memories when it comes to our own sins, and then we minimize the harm we have caused the Church. We need to stop sinning, start praying and doing penance. If everyone would spend as much time praying and doing penance as they do reading and writing hit pieces, we would be out of this mess already. Anyone can sit around and point out everything they perceive as a problem in the Church and complain about it. But it takes a saint to actually do something about it.

But it seems to me that God's Church has a great shortage of good ministers because the cloud of our own selfish love has grown so big in our mind's eye that no one, apparently can see or know this truth. And therefore they do not love it, since they are so filled with sensual and particular love for themselves that they cannot fill their heart and their will with love of truth. And so the mouths of those who are made heralds of the truth are found to be lying and deceitful. And I dearest father can prove it so. For in the place where I am, the religious- never mind the laity, of whom there are plenty of bad ones and few good ones- and the secular clergy, and especially the mendicant friars, who are appointed by Christ's dear bride to announce and proclaim the truth, are opposing the truth and giving it the lie in the pulpit. I believe my sins are the cause of it... They have led the people into much heresy that it is pitiful even to think about it, let alone see it. And what makes them say and do these things is slavish fear of others, human respect, and the desire for stipends. (From Letter T284)