Posted on 07/29/2012 8:04:52 PM PDT by Salvation
In our culture of death, many Christians are preoccupied with crisis intervention so as to minimize damages inflicted on an eroding, lukewarm Christianity. Although the ones doing this are often making heroic sacrifices, the Lord, being all-powerful, is not interested in mere damage control. Some Christians, more bold and less tamed by secular humanism, dare to challenge our anti-Christian culture. They intend to infiltrate the world and compete with it. They set up Christian businesses, watch Christian TV programs, read Christian newspapers, etc. These are steps in the right direction, but the Lord wants so much more. The all-powerful, all-loving God wants us not merely to infiltrate the world but to permeate it. We are to act as the leaven, through which "eventually the whole mass of dough" begins to rise (Mt 13:33). We are to turn the world "upside down" (Acts 17:6, our transl). We are to flip the secular humanistic culture by discovering and inventing the means of permeating it with the Gospel (Catechism, 899). This seems impossible, but "nothing is impossible with God" (Lk 1:37).One Bread, One Body
<< Monday, July 30, 2012 >>
St. Peter Chrysologus
Saint of the Day
Jeremiah 13:1-11
View ReadingsDeuteronomy 32:18-21
Matthew 13:31-35
PERMEATION
"Eventually the whole mass of dough began to rise." —Matthew 13:33
Prayer: Jesus, every knee will bend and every tongue proclaim that You are Lord (Phil 2:10-11).
Promise: "I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to Me, says the Lord; to be My people, My renown, My praise, My beauty." —Jer 13:11
Praise: St. Peter warned heretics against trying to "hurl themselves against the Rock of Peter."
The reading of Responsorial verses from Deuteronomy 32 in the Mass this past Monday provided something of an insight into our problems in these current days.
We have discussed on this blog before how scripture, among other things, is a prophetic interpretation of reality. And, as the verses were read at Mass, I thought of our current times and how these verses describe what is going on. As such it prophetically interprets reality, speaking of whence our problems come and where they ultimately lead. Please understand that what I am doing here is applying these verses to today. I realize that biblical scholars may place emphasis on understanding them as a Jew would have in the 8th century B.C. But here, I want to largely read them in the context of current times.
First lets review the pertinent verses
You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you, You forgot the God who gave you birth….What a fickle race they are, sons with no loyalty in them!” “Since they have provoked me with their ‘no-god’ and angered me with their vain idols,I will provoke them with a ‘no-people’; with a foolish nation I will anger them.” (Deuteronomy 32:18-19)
As I reflect on these verses, I think first of Post-Christian Europe, (but America is not far behind). For the text speaks of a people, a segment of the Church, who have forsaken God. Corporately speaking, they have rejected the God who made them.
Even a casual reading of the history of Western Culture must reasonably conclude that until the middle of the last century, the Christian faith was what both made and untied European Culture. It was from the life of faith that many pagan and waring tribes began to find unity and settle into nations. As the Roman Empire waned in the West, the Church even provided years of governance in the leadership vacuum that was created. It was largely in the context of faith that the great universities were founded and grew, as did hospitals, monasteries, which preserved and collected learning into libraries. The Church and the faith also inspired great art, architecture, music and culture. Feast days, Holy days and the modern calendar itself, sprang from the life of the Church. In her schools of theology and universities came forth the scientific method, and many other methodologies and philosophies that have blessed the world.
More could be said, and it need not be argued that the centuries of Christian faith were without blemish, and had no problems. But it is a simple fact that the Christian faith nourished and underlay what we have come to call Western Culture and brought significant blessings.
Yet in recent decades the Christian faith has been largely rejected through secularism, materialism, and outright Atheism. As early as the 1950s, CS Lewis and many others were lamenting the descent of Europe into unbelief. It has only worsened, and now most polls show that the majority of western Europeans no longer believe in the existence of God. In many countries Mass attendance is below ten percent.
In America the descent has been less steep, most still believe in God, but the faith here is increasingly syncretistic and only 27% of Catholics attend Mass. Mainline Protestant Churches usually fare worse and the Evangelicals are only a little better.
Has the Christian West forsaken God? Largely yes. We have forgotten the God who gave us birth, and the faith that formed and blessed us: a fickle race, sons and daughters with little loyalty, as the verses above say.
And what does the verse go on to say? “Since they have provoked me with their ‘no-god’ and angered me with their vain idols, I will provoke them with a ‘no-people’. It is interesting to see this verse in the context of the dangerously low birthrates in the West. For it would seem that as we have forsaken God, and embraced the things of this world as idols, we have thus adopted a lavish lifestyle wherein children get in the way and cost too much. Our no-god becomes a no-people as we increasingly abort and contracept ourselves out of existence. It is no wonder that our economies stop growing as we stop growing, and that the elaborate social safety net we have constructed becomes unsustainable as the old outnumber the young. Yes, our no-god is becoming a no-people.
In the final line God says, “with a foolish nation I will anger them.” In ancient Israel God punished the infidelity of his chosen people by allowing the non-Jewish people around them to invade and often destroy the nation and exile them: the Canaanites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Romans all in their turn brought punishment to ancient Israel.
What of us? The traditional denizens of the Europe are being replaced by Muslims. And while we should hesitate to call them a “foolish nation” as the Scripture does, it should be noted that the Hebrew word nabal translated here as “foolish”, can also be understood as referring simply to those who do not share the religious and ethical vision of biblical believers. It is a true fact that the Muslim world thinks very differently from the Christian, and even post-Christian West, in quite a number of matters. And, while it remains to be seen how Muslims will adapt to a Western setting when they reach the majority status, it seems reasonable to state that the Europe of 2050 and beyond, may be a very different Europe from today. God may indeed afflict us with a foreign nation for our casting off of faith.
The scene in America is a bit more complicated in the short run. But it seems clear we are intent on following Europe’s decline into increasing unbelief and we too, if the Biblical text is, in fact, a prophetic interpretation of reality, will see similar decline in the decades ahead.
As always, I value your insights, additions and even rebuttals. how does this text from Scripture speak to you?
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