Just Which Boat Are We In?

A Franciscan priest visited our church this year to conduct the annual retreat. I enjoy attending these presentations to hear an inspiring message or pick up a new perspective I'll find useful as I try to behave better.

On the first day, he brought home to us the appalling decline in Mass attendance since the year 2000* and the various reasons for it, starting with the Industrial Revolution and ending with the COVID upheaval. He also stressed the enormous pull of the internet and social media and its drain on people's attention and time. He said that these days people have "no firm, strong, points of reference" and likened today's society to the early days of Christianity, when people held widely different [incompatible] values.

Nevertheless, Father said, the small fishing boat that might represent Christianity in those early years grew and grew into the worldwide phenomenon of the Catholic Church. And that boat grew by attracting people to it with kindness, he said--"And they'll know we are Christians by our love," as the song says.

But today Father sees the Church not as an ocean liner but as a lifeboat on a churning, secular sea. 

(I have heard this vision before, but usually describing a faithful remnant of Catholics who hold fast to time-honored teachings of the Church and the words of our Lord in a time of dilution of doctrine.) 

Father called upon us now to evangelize and to start in "the only place possible: our humanity, the mystery of you and me." He discouraged us from relying on "Argument from authority (Bible, Church, or Natural Law)" and from drawing on "apologetics."

Say what? Now, I am all for a gentle and loving approach. Christ himself commanded us to show kindness, forgiveness, and true charity toward others, especially those we hope to share the Good News with at some point. And every Catholic with an ounce of sense knows that you must not bludgeon someone outside the faith with endless quotes from the Good Book or the catechism, or with complex doctrine and rationale. But the Bible, Church teaching, and a recognition of Natural Law--how God designed things to work on this planet--form the backbone of Christianity. 

Father urged us to win over others simply through love and a sincere interest in getting to know them. These are always the prerequisites, of course. But a huge part of the attraction of  Catholicism is its logic and sense of order. Converts embrace its ability to explain how things really work and what it takes for humans to get through this difficult life and enter into the glories of Heaven afterward. 

And people are actually joining, or returning to, the Catholic Church in increasing numbers. In early 2026, across the U.S., a surprising crowd of catechists completed their Christian education and joyfully joined the Catholic Church on Easter. 

The fact is, the Catholic Church, despite its problems, was never intended to be a lifeboat. It is more like an aircraft carrier--stable, capable, able to sail on through fierce storms and wars, to refuel those who land on our deck. We are the Church Militant, charged with combating the evil that swirls through this world. We fight it in ways big and very small, including those beautiful acts of kindness that Father was talking about. We spread the Gospel where we can, share Truth with those who will listen. 

So even if most of us do our good works on a small, personal scale, let us remember that we are part of a huge and glorious crew that includes even the angels and saints in heaven! And the wise soldier will keep handy the most powerful weapon of all, Our Lady's Holy Rosary. God bless!   

 ______

*In fact, Catholic Mass attendance in the United States has fallen steadily since at least the 1920s. 

Lifeboat image: Last lifeboat of Titanic survivors, courtesy of alamy.com
Aircraft carrier photo courtesy of Bing Images. 

Come One or Come All

 A few days ago I stopped into my church's Adoration Chapel to spend a quiet hour with Christ, displayed in the consecrated Host on the altar. And I planned to say my rosary there and reflect on each rich mystery as I like to do. 

To my surprise, I found the chapel full of people, some kneeling and some seated, praying together the Joyful Mysteries. I slipped into a spot in a far pew as quietly as possible and joined in. The devout group finished the rosary and proceeded to recite a number of prayers and a chaplet before adjourning. 

Scripture extols the benefits of raising our voices to God in the company of others. So why would I feel somewhat ill at ease with these good people moving through the rosary's prayers in unison? I thought about it. 

I realized that, when I pray the rosary alone in my room, it goes slowly as I reflect on each mystery. I imagine Mary and Joseph's distress when they realized that their beloved Son was in fact not with their group journeying back to Nazareth. I ponder how Mary could have borne the sight of her completely good Jesus being driven up the hill to Calvary like a criminal, bleeding, with a rough cross on his torn shoulder. And I imagine how cold and uncomfortable the stable must have been on the night the Blessed Mother gave birth to her divine Son.

We each have our own way of saying the rosary, whether in company or alone. If you are fortified in the presence of others sending up prayers together, that is marvelous. If you prefer to retreat, hermit style, into a quiet place to move through the Hail Mary's and Our Father's at your own pace, so be it. Sometimes, in my lingering way, I do not reach the end of my rosary before I am called away. But I simply pick it up again later in the day and finish.

Either way, we know that, as Blessed Fulton J. Sheen said, "The power of the rosary is beyond description." 

Charlie Prayed the Rosary

The late Charlie Kirk is known for his zealous evangelism for Jesus Christ and an unabashed defense of his Christian faith. Several news sources, since his death on September 10, have also mentioned that, in fact, Charlie had begun attending Catholic Mass with his wife Erika, honoring Mary, and saying the rosary. 

He did express in an interview his objections to the controversial leadership in the Vatican, which got in the way of his formally joining the Church.

However, it is wonderful to know that Charlie knew the comfort and power of the rosary in his life. And this is available to all people of all Christian denominations. Mary waits for all of us, with her hands out, full of love.  

May Jesus and Mary speed your path to Heaven, Charlie. Thank you for all that you courageously, unblinkingly, did in this world in the short time you were among us.

________

Photo courtesy of FirearmDiscounts.com  (yes, ironic)

 

The Secret Box

I love yard sales and estate sales, and my husband and I are lucky enough to be able to drive around town each Friday or Saturday morning to "see what's playing." Of course you never know what someone might be selling or even giving away just to get it out of their house and into yours.

Last weekend at a small sale with a random collection of merchandise I spied a little, light wooden box that was open, and the chilly breeze was trying repeatedly to blow it off the table. Inside were a few very old-looking Catholic artifacts--a St. Christopher badge, two small 5-way medals, and an ancient brass rosary accented with bright spots of verdigris. 

I bought the medals from the seller for a couple of coins and left but couldn't stop thinking about that little rosary. I have a habit of taking in orphaned rosaries, but had told myself that I needed to draw the line sometime.

We drove by the sale the next day and found it still on. Obligingly, my husband parked the car and I hurried to see if the box was still there. It was. As I examined the rosary again, its corpus tied on with black thread, the seller said that those items had an interesting history. I was all ears. They belonged to an uncle who was raised Catholic but married a Protestant woman. For whatever reason, he put aside his sacramentals and became a Protestant too. But in the little brown box saved from a bottle of English Leather, the uncle hung on to his old rosary (which no doubt belonged to a relative before him), and his medals, and maybe the sense of holiness and promise that he'd found no other faith could supply.

Did his wife know that he harbored these remnants of his old religion? I doubt it since the seller told me that this was his "secret box."

 Of course I bought it with its contents, took it home, and polished up each item as much as possible. I imagine that the owner might be happy to know that his collection of special but secret things is in new and respectful hands and out in the light of day.

Do you have a rosary in your own version of a secret box? One you seldom use but keep tucked away for another time, or for the memory it holds? I encourage you to take it out. Pray it. Leave it out where you can admire it and remember Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and the lives they lived. If you have little time to spare, just grab it and pray a devout decade. Every prayer matters.

All Hands on Deck

Recently Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke published a novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe, and it is a long one--9 months, actually. It consists of a one-page prayer, imploring Our Lady to intercede for us in defeating "the growing darkness and sin that envelop the world and menace the Church."

When have we needed her help more? New shocks are being published daily that show the appalling depths to which so many of our fellow men, our leaders, our captains of commerce, our medical providers, our educators, and even our shepherds have descended. The mess has grown so big that many of us cannot imagine that anything short of an act of God will fix it.

To that end, Cardinal Burke asks us all to join in this novena. It is an urgent call to Heaven for help, for illumination, and for widespread conversion as happened in Mexico after the Virgin Mary appeared to Saint Juan Diego in 1531. You'll find the prayer here.

While this daily prayer is only one page long, some of us are so pressed by the duties of our lives that we can scarcely find time to eat meals. So here I humbly offer a condensed version for those in such situations.

Virgin Mother of God, we fly to your protection and beg your intercession against the growing darkness and sin that envelop the world and menace the Church. We humbly implore your intercession for our continuing conversion to Christ, your Divine Son, and the conversion of millions more who do  not yet believe in Him. In our homes and in our nation, lead us to Him Who alone wins the victory over sin and darkness in ourselves and in the world.

May we fully trust God's promise of salvation and His never-failing mercy toward all who turn to Him with a humble and contrite heart. O Virgin of Guadalupe, lead all souls in America and throughout the world to Your Divine Son in Whose name we pray. Amen.

To be prayed daily from March 12 to December 12, 2024. (Don't worry if you're starting late.)
Excerpt from the 9-month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe by Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke.

In these chaotic and frightening times, do not succumb to the temptation of despair! Pray to Mother Mary, and keep that flame of hope alive.

The Gift Too Easily Avoided

The famous author Oscar Wilde said this about two years before his death in 1900:

I told you that I was going to write something. I tell everybody that. It is a thing one can repeat each day, meaning to do it the next. But in my heart—that chamber of leaden echoes—I know that I never shall.

As a writer, I certainly know what he means. But here in this Lenten season, I find that his statement describes my feelings about going to the great sacrament of Confession.  "I will go next week," I say, reviewing for the tenth time the listing in the bulletin for what days and times the priest is available. 

What makes some of us hesitate so? Do we have too many sins to admit to, or can we scarcely come up with one in the space since our last Confession, certain therefore that the priest will think we are holding back or maybe place us, mentally, in the same warm space where the Pharisee of the Bible stood when he thanked God that he was not like the rest of men?

Today I finally went, after praying that the Holy Spirit would give me the words to say and the grace to learn from what was said to me. It turned out to be, as usual, a mystically curative experience. 

We pray 53 times with each Rosary, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death." How happy, I believe, the Blessed Mother will be with us if we go to that mysterious date having unloaded the burden of our sins all along the road of life, rather than collecting them in a giant sack that we hand to her while pleading, "Dear Mother, can you please do something with this?"

Best wishes for a good Confession.

 

Holding Hands

Father Peter Linh offers a beautiful vision of what happens when we pick up our rosaries to pray:

One day, on my turn as a priest to give a brief homily to [the congregation] on Wednesday, I didn’t know what to share with them. I prayed to our Blessed Mother: Please tell me what you want me to tell them. After a moment of silence, then listening, I had a feeling that she wanted me to tell her children that the Rosary is her very hand. I felt she wanted to say to us: You are my children indeed. Anytime you feel anxious or troubled about anything, hold the Rosary, then pray. When praying the mysteries and holding the Rosary in your hand, that is the moment I am holding your hand and you are holding my hand. Don’t be afraid! I am holding your hand. Again, whenever you need me, hold my hand by praying the Rosary. 

Redemptorist  Rev. Peter Linh, CSsR

Thank you, Blessed Mother, for all your love and care. How do you listen to all the prayers sent up to you, the urgent pleas for help as well as the timid requests from your countless children across the world? We cannot know. But we can believe. As we hold your rosary beads in our hands, let us in some way feel the soft pressure of your own hand in ours. 

(Don't forget that the Feast of the Holy Rosary is coming up on Friday, October 7. Read more about it here.)