Challenges of Life

 As I am writing this now, I am in the midst of a personal trial.  I won't get into the details, but it is perhaps one of the most intense things I have dealt with in a while.  It leaves me at this point with a surreal feeling, and a great uncertainty, about thinking about even the next day.   Some of you have been there, so you know of those feelings.  At some point in the future, as a resolution happens and I can look back on it in retrospect, I will share more about it.  For now however, it is not something I can divulge a lot of. 

I mention that because I want to talk about a few things today.  The first is having a support structure.  I unfortunately come from a family - particularly on my mother's side - that is deficient in providing emotional support.  If you have a struggle, you are forced often to keep it to yourself lest you become the object of gossip and stupid jokes about everything.  My cousins on my mother's side are particularly notorious for this attitude, and they are not totally at fault - the older generations in our family have often been somewhat self-centered and callous about others, and the lack of empathy among them is to a degree that they would not know what to do if they were faced with a crisis of some sort.  To be honest, they would be in the same boat I found myself in, being that they would be unable to share their struggles due to the fact it would either be reduced to a joke or it would be a juicy item of gossip.  It is a scandal when someone cannot count on their family to be there for them, and when you are facing a situation practically by yourself, their absence is glaring.  My relatives are the type of people who, if you succeed, then something is wrong with you.  If you hit a struggle in life, then there is also something wrong with you.  It is a whole "damned if you do, damned if you don't" mindset they instill, and the result is a lot of emotional detachment in our family on that side of the tree. I don't remember even being hugged much by any of my family on that side of the tree - even my late grandfather would just handshake and any hugs given by female relatives were sort of obligatory and not out of real love or care.  And, as many of us grew older and went on with our lives, we never stayed in touch, we never helped each other without expecting something in return, and God forbid something bad happened!  If you ended up in that situation, you can be sure a lot of opinions would be circulating in the gossip of the family, and although you may not hear it yourself, you knew it was happening because they did the same thing to others and you have heard that.   The situation in my particular family is endemic of the increased atomization of our society - no one cares about anything but themselves, and the days when you had a close-knit community are long gone.  This, I believe, will ultimately be the downfall of our nation, and we are well into that now. Like a cancer, it has spread to other aspects of society as well.  I say it again - it is a scandal, and we have only ourselves to blame for this happening.  

In Scripture, there is a verse that talks about this too - it is one of the first Bible verses I have ever memorized, and it is Romans 12:4-5.  Essentially, it is an allegory of the Church as a body, made up of members with diverse functions. No one member has the same function as the others, and each is as important, but they also are integral to the whole body as the members working together are what makes the body function properly.  For instance, your lungs need to function by depending on the heart to both take oxygen through the circulatory system to the rest of the body and then bring carbon dioxide back to the lungs to be expelled via exhalation.  A complex brain coordinates it all, and itself is a beneficiary of the process as well, as proper blood flow keeps the brain functioning.  If one of those organs is missing or ceases to function, the body will die, and that is why every part of the body is important.  The Apostle St. Paul didn't make that analogy up on a whim - he understood that no one individual can function on their own, especially in a society that may throw a lot of adversity out.  We need each other, and the function of the Church is to bring that organic cohesion of all its members.  If I were to make this a bit more complex, in the Church there are billions of souls, and each soul functions as a cell rather than an individual body part.  As cells die, they are regenerated, and thus the body still functions.  But, one cell by itself cannot do much - it needs the cooperation of other cells to do the work it is designed to do.  Same with the Church.  Each and every person has a vocation - this does not mean every single individual has to be clergy or religious, but it does mean that even a non-Church vocation has benefit to the body as a whole.  And, each individual is uniquely created by God to do that function, and therefore no one is more valuable than the others - ALL are valuable.  That being said, let me move onto another thought in relation to this. 

The Church these days, much like the world, is administered by people who are more bureaucrats than they are servant leaders.  A lot of talent exists out there in the world, and many untapped reservoirs of valuable resource sit in pews in the average Catholic parish every Sunday.  Many feel a void, a sense of incompleteness, because they want to do something for the Church but are limited in some way.  Many are limited by finances, others are limited by other limitations, but the worst kind of limit is the one where they are just overlooked by either the clergy or the hierarchy, both on the parish level but also on the diocesan level.  Parishes lament often a lack of resources, and they also lament the lack of involvement in parish life of many people.  Yet, sitting in those pews at Mass every Sunday are many reservoirs of untapped talent, many of whom are really seeking answers and need direction and some inspiration to do something meaningful.  Yet, when they try, what often happens is that diocesan bishops, lay leaders on the parish level, and other bureaucrats tell these talented people that somehow they are "not good enough," and for some stupid reasons such as perhaps the person has a past (don't we all?), or perhaps they have an aspect of their faith that the leadership doesn't like (for instance, a tendency towards the TLM).  Whatever asinine reason, the door is slammed shut on potential talent who could really add to the witness of the Church, and upon rejection the person feels worthless or that they are no good to no one.  Some even think God has rejected them and will even eventually renounce their faith.  This too is a huge scandal.  And, to add insult to injury, the diocesan bishop will often allow someone who is not a person of sound faith or character to rise in positions of influence, and that person then does evil things - think of the defrocked Cardinal "Uncle Teddy" McCarrick, as well as the "Rainbow Jesuit" James Martin (although the latter is supposedly an ordained priest, he scandalizes the office so I refuse to call the man "Father").  Then there are faithless bureaucrats like Cardinal Cupich in office - they do things that contradict Magisterial teaching, yet it is faithful hierarchs like Archbishop Vigano, Cardinal Burke, and Bishop Strickland that get punished for standing for the truth.  I am personally sick of this, and it is time we take back the Church for Christ to whom it belongs and get rid of these hirelings like Cupich who are doing more harm than good.   They are in it for themselves, while there are more faithful servants of Christ who get ignored and treated badly.   Enough is enough.  And, while we are at it, I think that the entire Jesuit order, which has gotten more corrupt and faithless over the past couple of centuries, should be disbanded and excommunicated.  For the few good Jesuits that do exist, such as Fr. Pacwa, allow them to be taken into a more orthodox order.  What I am proposing is somewhat radical, but I am just sick of having our Church in the hands of faithless hirelings who punish good faith while exalting crap, and the time has come for change.  May Our Lady and all the communion of saints pray for us. 

As you can tell, I am writing in a state of frustration.  I know I need to surrender my struggles to God, and I truly do, but it is not the easiest thing in the world to do.  You start feeling better, and the thing looms over you and you get hit in the face with it again.  Many reading this know the struggle, but that is where we need to pray for each other more.  In this world, which is increasingly becoming more crazy by the day, we need all the help we can get.  Therefore we need each other to pray with, to help when help is needed, and to do so in a way that is not self-serving or contemptuous.  Any rate, those are my thoughts for this busy week, and thank you all again for allowing me to share.