By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
Every action causes an equal and opposite reaction. In an age of great social change and experimentation forced down upon us from the highest levels, we are witnessing a responding challenge on the part of the people. The most sacred of things have been repeatedly and boldly profaned, to include above all human life in the rampant slaughter of preborn boys and girls as protected by “legal” abortion, and the destruction of family life and the security and well-being of children through the redefinition of marriage by the Supreme Court.
It has always been posited that the will of the people to change the game in a democracy and challenge the status quo ante is a potentiality.
For so long the American Christian majority has behaved like a sleeping giant. Perhaps that somnolence may have been rudely jolted: We may now be witnessing a behemoth rudely roused from contented slumber.
As we observe the presidential primary electoral process unfolding with a social ferment that is destroying old stereotypes and challenging us to think in new ways we see a variety of reactions. The so-called establishment is scrambling to keep what they see as their lock on power and assumed ability to define the terms of debate. Their horror at the results of the will of the people in the overwhelming advance to the Republican nomination of a thrice-married reality-show billionaire is only a sideshow. Democracy was designed to respond to the lowest common denominator for the sake of subsidiarity. We are seeing the results of that as a political outsider finds himself entering the ranks of political power about as elegantly as a bull in a china shop.
Election is not canonization and the microscopic inspection of the morals of each candidate is a bit hypocritical, given our long national acquaintance with the results of investing another human sinner with the reins of power. Any political candidate will have weaknesses as well as strengths. The question is, which weaknesses are deal breakers in choosing a president? Is lying, cheating, and betraying fellow Americans acceptable behavior in someone who seeks the presidency of the United States? Is bad manners, a foul mouth, and an insulting sense of humor worse?
A TV show has become reality in some of the more extreme exchanges between a hoarse, shrieking grandmother versus an old man with bleached hair and their rivals.
The “Trump phenomenon” may mean that a new party is in the offing but if it can’t win elections any more than the old one did, what good is it? We will find out what the will of the majority has in store as we pray for the education and good moral sense of the American people as much as for the preservation and integrity of the democratic electoral process of our American experiment in governance.
Freedom is a social and political ideal because it is first a human one as invested in each of us by the Creator. Just as freedom comes from God, so freedom finds its highest end or goal in God. He made us in His image and likeness in order to share His life forever.
The disciplines of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving in Lent prepare us to better accept the freedom of eternal life in Christ through His Resurrection. Detachment from things that will not last frees us to make room in our hearts and minds for those things that will last eternally. Freedom from the things we give up during Lent gives us a taste of the possibility of living freely in love for God.
For many it is a lack of forgiveness which chains us to the past that inhibits human and moral freedom to live in love of God and others. A strong source of conversion can always be found in the realization of the way in which an attitude or reaction is hurting ourselves. Lack of forgiveness is an abuse that comes from self and only decreases the chance of healing after abuse by others. Anger and other reactions are a form of self-injury that has no power to confer the detachment and serenity we need to move forward in faith and life.
All of us are growing in Christian maturity in the patient love of God in Christ. All of us can share what we have learned through cooperation with grace with the others who accompany us. Be serene and patient with people who are afraid they cannot live without sin: They need to see you are living with God.
Your priest needs your help as he learns to become a better pastor of souls. Learn to share your struggles with him at least through the confessional if not in spiritual direction. Priests are also learning how to cooperate in a more fruitful way with the graces of Ordination in order to shepherd souls rightly in the Lord.
There is no freedom more important for any of us than that won for us by Jesus Christ in His Passion, death, and Resurrection, for “dying He destroyed our death, rising He restored our life.” All of us are called by Almighty God to drink more deeply of the foretaste and promise of our eternal life. We can do so no more greatly in this life than through a worthy and graced reception of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. A good Confession in preparation for such reception at Easter is our primary task in Lent.
With the eternal horizon in view as evidence of a strong spiritual life guided by faith, the “musical chairs” of the periodic exchange of the seats of power in the halls of government is exposed in comparison as a gambit of very small stakes indeed.
Thank you for reading. Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
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(Visit Reverendo Padre-Kevin Michael Cusick on Facebook and @MCITLFrAphorism on Twitter.)
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