By SHAUN KENNEY
The National Catholic Prayer Breakfast was last week, with such luminaries as Knights of Columbus President Carl Anderson, Abby Johnson, Curtis Martin with FOCUS, and Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of the Diocese of Phoenix, among a crowd of 1,400 lobbyists, socialites, and prominent thinkers of various Catholic political sensibilities.
I attended my first National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in its early days — 2007 perhaps? — and like most I was impressed by the size and scope of those gathered. There goes this person, there goes that person. Defend marriage, defend religious freedom, and serve the Holy Father. Attendees seemed quite proud of what they had accomplished, and with other things to do, departed into the wilds of the District of Columbia.
Perhaps I am a bit more jaded now than I was a decade ago — but should we be asking what these various gatherings actually accomplish?
Most of the Washington set already knows most of the groups in the room. Most of the interns will either rise to accept or reject in toto the inertia that seems to characterize much of Catholic leadership in this country — both secular and religious.
After all, enthusiasm doesn’t mean change — and too few speak truth to power.
Some even endlessly insist that “pro-life” isn’t strong enough to pass anything even close to Humanae Vitae’s definition of the term.
And so we settle for less while the political religions of the left consume more and more ground. Twenty years ago, marriage was between a man and a woman. Today that is hate speech. Twenty years ago, children had a right to their biological mother and father. Today that is bigotry. Twenty years ago, public leaders would be drummed out for even the slightest flaws in character. Today they are embraced and celebrated as leaders.
Twenty years ago, we were told that the bishops of the Church understood both the nature and the depth of the sexual abuse crisis. Today we are told that this is clericalism, and woe unto those who question the preservation of the status quo.
Twenty years ago we had clear voices: Pope John Paul II, Michael Novak, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus and First Things, George Weigel, and Robert George. Today we have a Catholicism that typically kneels, not before Christ but before the state, and not just kneeling but abasing itself before government grants, access to polite society, and an idea of ecclesiae more Episcopalian than the faith of our fathers.
We will point to any number of reasons for this sufferance. Pope Benedict XVI in his recent post-papal address speaks to a culture that collectively has forgotten God. But we need to reflect on just whose fault that is.
I would offer two things. First and foremost, it is tepidity that holds sway over the Church. Chesterton used to speak of “bold and stupid men” who would advance the faith — and we could certainly use more. We might whine about the loss of institutions such as the media, education, bureaucracy, even the military. One solution? Become journalists, educators, civil servants, and soldiers. After all, this is what the early Christians did — and when discovered, they embraced their martyrdom.
Second and perhaps more direct is that this tepidity — this unwillingness to allow the sacraments to change our lives — is a real and omnipresent threat. Too often, we go through the motions as if we were taking a vitamin pill, as if divine grace were a formula we concoct and consume.
St. John Vianney remarked that in such a soul, “his Confessions and his Communions are not sacrilegious, if you like, but they are Confessions and Communions which bear no fruit — which, far from making him more perfect and more pleasing to God, only make him more unworthy.”
The soul must assent to its own salvation. Unlike our Protestant cousins, as Catholics we assent to this daily, hourly, even by minute as we choose between the harder right and an easier wrong. Yet when it comes to the sacraments, it is perhaps because we moderns seem to think that this is all ceremony, that the old Protestant jibe of “hocus pocus” reduces the Mass to a magic show. Or the Resurrection to a pretty story. Or Jesus Christ to a good and even noble man, but a man nonetheless.
The world tells us these things; our faith tells us very much otherwise. Our faith tells us that Christ was not a man but the Living Son of God. Our faith tells us that the Resurrection of our Lord happened; that apostles and martyrs gave their own blood for something real, not a myth. Our faith tells us that sacraments are more than just words, but rather a commingling of our own assent to God’s grace and the efficacious grace of the sacraments themselves.
Thus we arrive at the Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. If Pope Benedict is correct, it is in the Blessed Sacrament where we have forgotten God. Jesus Christ in the Sacrament is no vitamin pill. Tremendous and very real things happen when we unite our own bodies with Christ — as we must eat His Flesh and drink His Blood to have life within us; actual life!
Not only this, but Our Lady of Fatima begs us to pray the rosary every day for the peace of the world. St. Louis de Montfort reminds us of the rosary’s power in dark times:
“Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in Hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and will save your soul, if — and mark well what I say — if you say the Holy Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins.”
After the Holy Mass, nothing pleases our Lord more than honoring His Mother by praying the rosary. This was the belief of St. Louis de Montfort and countless other saints, right up to Pope St. John Paul II who, after being asked the secret of Fatima, would hold up his rosary and exclaim: “Pray!”
Thus the Real Presence and the rosary are the keys to the Catholic Restoration, not because we attend Mass or just say the words and count the beads, but because we are rejecting the tepidity the Curé d’ Ars says only brings the condemnation that we ourselves have brought upon the Church through our tepidity, through our slackness, and through the choice to rely upon our own strength rather than the strength of God.
“Humility,” writes Fr. Peter Arnoudt, “is the first of virtues: no virtue is acquired without it. Humility produces all other virtues, nourishes them when produced, and preserves them safe and sound.
“It is the virtue that inspires courage — disposes the soul for the greatest deeds. For the humble man, overlooking himself, and relying upon God, exchanges his own strength, and puts on the strength of God, upon whom he rests, and in whom he can do all things.”
Look around at our Church today and tell me that we see humble souls leading our flock, whether lay leaders or bishops. I see tepid souls of the sort St. John Vianney warned against; I see proud souls who would rather clink forks and knives together at conferences than stand outside a Planned Parenthood facility somewhere, praying for its doors to close. I see a Catholic faithful led by Catholic religious who conceptually believe but refuse to countenance the Immaculate Conception.
If we see that the souls of the faithful are unchanged, it is because we ourselves are not admitting the power of the sacraments; or more truthfully, because we ourselves are not allowing Christ to split the rock that has become our hearts. The Real Presence is there; the rosary remains. Surely we are better served by humble souls unafraid for Christ than tepid souls who need the invitation to the next rubber chicken dinner.
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Some good news. My friend attended Easter Services…and thankfully has been dry these last four weeks. Unfortunately he is also on the job hunt again after his employer looked up his background, but thankfully he met it with courage rather than disappointment. So again, the rosary works (and thank you to all of you who continue to remember him in your prayers).
St. Louis de Montfort, pray for us!
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First Teachers encourages readers to submit their thoughts, views, opinions, and insights to the author directly, either via e-mail or by mail. Please send any correspondence to Shaun Kenney c/o First Teachers, 5289 Venable Road, Kents Store, VA 23084 or by e-mail to svk2cr@virginia.edu.
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