Wherein Fr. Z rants, slaps some heads

Under another entry, someone posted:

I am losing hope.  I wish I had a time machine to look 100 years into the future and see what happens.

We are on the threshold of Lent.  This is a time of spiritual warfare.  This is a time of spiritual and physical discipline.

Put on your spiritual armor and join the battle.

Losing hope?  A traditional Catholic lose hope?

[CUE AMUSING ILLUSTRATIVE INTERLUDE]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBfb77G47hU&feature=player_embedded

As I have written elsewhere,  the enemies of Benedict’s vision at at their end.  They might think they have the big mo right now.  They may be emboldened.  What they will try, they will attempt in vain.

They may try to roll back what Benedict set in motion, or the good things he ratified from his predecessor.

They will fail.

There is a new generation rising up who have no time for their bitter retrograde agenda.  Are there some young ones who have followed the line of the aging hippies?  Yes, of course.  Will some of them rise to positions of prominence?  Yes, of course.  It has ever been so.   The Church isn’t Shangri-La.  The Church is the battleground for the salvation of souls.  The Devil is the prince of this world.  The demonic enemy rampages and devours.  The bishops and priests of Holy Church will be the enemy’s first targets.  The enemy will seek to divide, to spread doubts, to sew dissension among those who ought to be the most filled with faith, hope and charity.  The Church is, simultaneously, a rock and refuge for sinners as well as a vicious blood-stained battlefield.

It has ever been so.

Now is not the time to be discouraged or to back down or to lose vigor.  Press forward.  The Biological Solution (which works on all of us) is at work on the aging-hippies and their younger acolytes.  In finem citius!  Yes, they are still influential, but the dusk closing around them.

People write to me asking many things about what we can expect in a Church during a pontificate like this one, or in a diocese with a bishop like X or Y (not Z).  Sure, libs have the big mo.  But, as I understand it, the young priests and seminarians with whom I have contact are quietly going about their way according to the still entirely valid and proper vision Benedict XVI sketched out for us. 

Do NOT lose hope.  Do not flag, stop or relent.

Lent is here, the time of spiritual warfare.

Action Item: Convince a priest to learn the Extraordinary Form during Lent.  Imagine the howls of the fiends of Hell at the pain they will experience the first time Father says “Introibo ad altare Dei….”  Imagine the agony in Hell when a Bishop says those words.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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