By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
Life in this world is a gift from God: Don’t let it become a distraction from the one He offers us forever in Heaven.
We have more information, more images, more choices in our possession than ever before. Each of us has only so much concentration. If we don’t learn to discern and to make choices, to be engaged in the rate of our consumption, we will as a result have less capacity to focus on what is essential.
We live out our faith against a background of raw and crude public discourse and rude behavior that we would deplore in our children, our spouses, or ourselves. Unchaste music and entertainment multiply and family-friendly choices at the movie theater are few and far between.
The media offer us lifestyles incompatible with God’s plan by promising an illusory happiness that is not possible through the fantasy of changing one’s sex as easily as changing one’s name.
Could there be a more devastating distraction from God and love of Him than the rejection of His act of creation in ourselves as man or woman in His image and likeness?
Throughout history and increasingly among Christians the temptation to change one’s spouse in a vain search for worldly contentment provides another convenient distraction from the primary need to transform the self — rather than rearranging the people in one’s life like deck chairs on the Titanic.
Doctors are beginning to sound the alarm about the dangerous effects of pervasive smart phone use on young people. Many take the equivalent of an adult bookstore to bed with them, and go off to school with a companion in their cell phones that they potentially spend more time with than anyone else. Experts are saying that with a habit of more than two hours a day engaged with their phones, youth are increasingly at risk for depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation.
Many young people now wear earplugs so often that these accessories appear to be surgically attached. It is impossible to engage them in conversation, so absorbed are they in a virtual world of their own making.
These are just some examples of the numerous sources of distraction that require our taking responsibility for managing them before they manage us.
Distracted driving has exponentially increased the dangers of being in a car. Even a speedboat recently plowed through another boat at top speed because of cell-phone distraction. The three occupants of the victim craft had only just enough time to dive out of the way before the oblivious pilot ran it over.
The choice to welcome the good aspects of information technology must never be taken without serious consideration of the potential side effects.
In our faith also, we can become distracted from the necessity of grace without which we can be saved. The teachings of Vatican II were not taught or learned properly, resulting in imbalances and errors in living our faith.
People still got the message about going to Mass, but at the same time dropped taking time out to do anything else for their faith. The Mass itself became noisier and filled with more distractions as children’s Christmas plays and other novelties were grafted erroneously onto the unbloody sacrifice of the Son of God.
The Mass became more and more a one-stop shopping for everything Catholic all week long. Comments and aberrations began to take center stage as the Mass was cancerously malformed from divine action to human entertainment.
Years ago, I encountered a situation where even necessary components of the Mass — such as the Gospel or the homily — were thought to be excisable in order to keep the popular Christmas Eve Mass shorter while including the children’s pageant. That pageant is never authorized to take place during Mass.
The bad fruits of the “Vatican II mentality” are abundantly evident in the millions of Catholics who faithfully go to a Novus Ordo Mass and Communion almost every weekend but never go to Confession.
The Holy Spirit is the Presence who blesses and accompanies those who receive the grace of faith in Baptism and Scriptures teach that a sign of the Holy Spirit is the confession of sins.
Distractions from the forgiveness of sins by the obscuring of the sacrifice of Christ in the Holy Mass in the liturgical abuses following on the introduction of the new Mass have had a devastating effect on the salvation of souls, the highest law of the Church.
But there is a group of faithful who get it right.
I have never before in twenty-five years of priesthood seen such a necessary focus on the forgiveness of serious sins as I have with the faithful who attend the Traditional Latin Mass. Even innocent young children who have not yet received their First Communion are learning early and often to have an intimate relationship with the forgiving Jesus in absolution, who is as essential for our salvation as is His true and real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament.
For these and other reasons I am convinced that I must increasingly focus my preaching and teaching on this greatly neglected sacrament without whose benefits in the case of mortal sin the reception of the Eucharist is useless and sacrilegious.
Distraction from integral teaching on all seven sacraments, to include Confession, is the reason for a deadly sacramental materialism which focuses exclusively on reception of the Eucharist while neglecting true and authentic care of the soul which must be restored to a state of grace after mortal sin through sacramental Confession and absolution.
As we approach Lent we have an opportunity before us to “prep the battlefield,” as we used to say in the Army, in the battle against mortal sin and for the salvation of souls. Preaching and teaching on the Sacrament of Confession and elimination of distractions from the essential by a proper celebration of the Mass will aid us.
Turn off all distractions each week with a planned period of silent prayer. Joining eucharistic adoration at your local parish provides this opportunity. It’s as important to your spiritual life as going to the gym is for your physical well-being.
Focusing on the Mass and its celebration as the unbloody, saving, and irreplaceable sacrifice of Jesus Christ with His mercy applied to us in the most powerful way through sacramental Confession and absolution will lead to truly graced and saving reception of Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
@MCITLFrAphorism
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress