First we must understand where we are. Psalm twenty three reminds us that we are walking through that valley of death. Staying close to the Lord we are protected, walking far from him, we are alone in the valley of death.
Then we must understand our role. Jesus in the gospel does not say to the people to take his message to their leaders. He says this parable to them directly. You have got to make the choice if you are going to follow Christ today and you need to choose how seriously you are going to follow him. If you make a half hearted resolution then you will not be able to follow him when times are tough. You can see reality in all that have left the Church or in those who have decided they will follow Christ on their own terms. We all are called to commit ourselves to Christ everyday and right now.
Third we are all called to be leaders in our own life. We need to live the leadership in the respective roles given. It is a leadership that recognizes our need to seek Christ, one that realizes that we are dealing with dangerous forces that seek, not to injure us, that seek not to take us out of commission for awhile, that seek not to kill us, but our total and complete annihilation. They cannot accomplish this when we root ourselves humbly in Christ. Let us lead others in our families, in our society to the same Christ and lead those around us away from those forces that seek their very destruction.
THE IMPERATIVE NATURE OF OUR CALL TO SERVE
You will find an attitude in those persons who have sought to silence us, it is a bullying attitude that has no sense of love, mercy or justice, it is one of hatred for everything Catholic. Such people are already succumbing to the powers that seek to destroy humanity. As long as they remain in alliance with them knowingly or not, they are on their way to their own self destruction.
This week we also saw another event that should wake up the world. It was the attack on the school in Russia. The attackers were allegedly people of God who tortured and killed innocent men, women and children. That is the kind of evil that comes from those who seek to walk alone in the valley of death. They do not become victims of such violent people, they become such violent people. The Russians, surviving 60 years of Atheist oppression were not fully equipped to deal with those who have given themselves over to such evil. They did not understand the spiritual forces they were dealing with. The attackers have demanded their own country. Such a country will be a living nightmare for those who choose to live there if it is filled with people who have given themselves over to such evil.
You and I are called to understand our faith is not a cute social thing to do on Sunday mornings. It is a gift God gives us that at this time helps us understand the war against us. That war cannot be fought if each and everyone one us does not take our call and election seriously and does not take up the appropriate leadership role to which each of us is called. True leaders are men, women and children of faith, who develop a solid relationship with God at home and in mass here, who humbly approach the life giving power of the sacraments and give themselves over to our lord fully, not in half measures. Then they have the spiritual vision to see the path the Lord cuts out for us to walk safely through the valley of death and to lead others onto to that same path and into eternal life.
Fr. Robert Carr
Fr. Carr is the editor of Catholicism Anew and the Parochial Vicar at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston. He also writes for Can
