Saturday I linked to this wonderful post by Steve over at The Fifth Column. I urge you to go and read that. A few of us in the comment section however opined that the conclusion need not be so gloomy. That there is a return to orthodoxy on the horizon and perhaps the future is not as bleak. This is Steve’s reply:

Well, Tom, what can I say? When Simeon prophecied to Mary, he didn’t exactly end on a high note either.

Your point about an increase in orthodoxy is well-taken, and that is precisely why I end the way I do. We could chastise Simeon, “What’s with all the sword and piercing talk? The Saviour is here! Life will only get better now!”

Except we had to watch the crucifixion first.

The more orthodoxy becomes prevalent, that is, the more little Christs we have walking around, the more crucifixions we are going to see. That’s what makes them little Christs, after all. I can predict that this culture will finish its descent this way precisely because I think we ARE getting more orthodoxy. The battle lines will become stark, even more stark than they already are. Our children will have to fight these battles. Pretending they won’t is whistling in the dark, and it doesn’t serve them or us or God.

He’s right.

Now more than ever the best way we can prepare for this battle is prepare our children. To raise them in the faith, to do whatever it takes to make sure they are well catechized and that we have fully catechized ourselves.

To that end a lot of what I read around St. Blog’s is disturbing in this way. You have bloggers searching for holiness, but they remain comfortable in the “dialogue,” “I have a right to question” phase of their development. To coin an Amy Wellborn phrase, that’s a bunch. Because you will never be truly mature and ready to do the hard work of becoming holy until you just will it. And that’s not my philosophy, that’s Aquinas. You want to be holy, you want to be spiritual, you want to go to heaven, then just do it and if you want to know how… then ask the church. All the rest of it is just a self-imposed blurring and obscuring to keep from doing the hard stuff, or as Steve calls it, the little crucifictions. Maybe we have the luxury of goofing off to spend years and years in purgatory, but our kids won’t. The enemy is at the door.

The other thing at St. Blog’s that bothers me is this bit about not judging. That too in my opinion is a protective layer that keeps one from moving to complete holiness. Christians aren’t called to focus on themselves and even hermits pray for the welfare of others. To say, “well I can’t tell someone they sinned because they had an abortion, or because they contracept, or because they miss mass etc. etc.” pick the sin du jour doesn’t help anyone It doesn’t make you holier for keeping your mouth shut and it doesn’t help the person that is in sin either. In fact for the no-judgement Joe, according to the catechism, it’s really a sin of omission. Do folks get mad even you speak the truth in love, yep, you betcha! Offer it up.

Lastly, on the same topic, I ran across this very well thought out and articulate post on sexual moral issues through Alicia’s Blog. This guy is definitely going on the blog roll. This was my favorite part:

Recall that we are made in the image of God. Part of being made in His image includes the ability to make other people in our image. We are fecund because God is fecund. It follows, then, that being fecund is good. In fact, every increase in being is inherently good, because there is no more fundamental a good than being itself, by sheer virtue of the fact that all things partake of God’s Being. Sex, then, is not merely a “Yes!” to our beloved – which, as an act of love, is also a “Yes!” to God – but is also a “Yes!” to being itself – which is, as I say, also a “Yes!” to God’s sheer goodness of being.

Amen!

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