In the Gospels Jesus speaks of the Kingdom of God being at hand. He also says that His Kingdom is not of this world. I think this has always been clear. We live in a world full of sin. Human nature is constantly trying to do what it desires rather than the will of God. Throughout history there has always been a constant struggle between building up the city of man versus the city of God. If you think about it we are not creative when it comes to sin. The sins of today are not much different than the sins of Rome or other cultures throughout history. The problem is we don't learn from these things. While this has always been the case I think that we have been reminded in the last few days especially that we are pilgrims on a journey.
As many of you know Obama gave an executive order last week that all health insurance programs must provide coverage for contraception and sterilization and Religious organizations are not exempt from this. This means that Catholic Hospitals would be required to provide these services under this executive order. This is a gross violation of our right to freedom of religion. This is direct religious persecution from this administration. We as Catholics cannot sit back silently. We need to write letters and speak out against this issue. The Church has always thrived in moments of persecution and I think President Obama is about to wake a sleeping dragon. And truly sleeping has this dragon been in the United States. We have lived cushy lives as Catholics here in the U.S. How many Catholics in other parts of the world have undergone intense persecution that produced martyrs? We have become complacent here because we have always lived in a country where we are completely free to practice our faith. We are not above being persecuted in this country! Lines are being drawn in the sand and the time is coming where we as Catholics are going to have to decide on what side of that line we will stand. Complacency and lukewarmness will no longer be an option. I don't know if we will see blood martyrdom but I will not be surprised if we see that here in this country in our life time. On the one hand this is a scary thing we are witnessing beginning to take place in our country but on the other hand I can honestly say I am ready to take a firm stand for Christ and His Church no matter what the world around me is doing.
The beautiful thing about this is that no matter what Obama and his cronies through at us we have already won. We are part of the winning team because we are on Christ's team and He has already won the victory. His Kingdom is not of this world and while we have a moral obligation to stand up for truth and what is right we have to realize that we cannot build an earthly paradise here. Don’t get me wrong I am extremely angered by what Obama has done but I have to remind myself that God is the one truly in control. At the end of the day every knee will bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord! We don't have Obama hope, we have real HOPE! At the end of all this suffering, persecution, and muck is the eternal life. We have the joy of Heaven and the great gift of entering into the divine life of the Holy Trinity where all our desires will be fulfilled and every tear wiped away! Someday all the horrible things we stress about will merely be a distant memory and we will wonder why we ever worried about them to begin with. Let us trust in the faithfulness of our Heavenly Father and continue to persevere in this life by striving for virtue and being lights in the midst of the darkness. Because as Thomas More said a society will never be so bad that a good man can't live virtuously in it. In other words the "light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it."
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