A New Year Is Upon Us
As the year comes to a close, we thank the Lord for his blessings in our lives but we also recall the pain and suffering that the Church endured in 2009. 37 priests and religious and laymen were killed this past year. The pope himself came under attack as he began the procession for the Christmas Mass. The outright persecution and subtle and sometimes not so subtle anti-Catholicism we have seen this year should reassure the faithful. The Church that Christ started will remain counter-culture and continue to stand against the changing mores of society, provoking ridicule, slander and persecution.
“The Church everywhere proclaims the Gospel of Christ, despite persecutions, discriminations, attacks and at times hostile indifference. These, in fact, enable her to share the lot of her Master and Lord.”
(Pope Benedict XVI, Christmas Message, December 25, 2009)Therefore, like St Paul, let us look to the New Year with the goal of becoming more and more like Christ with the hope of reaching heaven.
" 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." Phil 3:10
Happy New Year to All ! God bless you.
posted by Russ Rentler, M.D. | 4:34 PM
2 Comments:
I'm reading Hilaire Belloc, The Great Heresies, and this is so "right on" TJ... to follow our Lord, will mean we're going to be persecuted, and 'violently' hated as He was. But the faithful (if we persevere) will become stronger,even if fewer in number,a smaller HOLY Church is better or should I say, safer than a "Mega" church, winding up lost and adrift in false, man-made doctrine.
And Happy Holy Blessed New Year to you, too! :)
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