Little Crucifixions

“The Kingdom of heaven suffereth violence”, said Our Lord. He often spoke in double or triple meanings: first, one must do violence to oneself- not necessarily beating up oneself, but determining to forcefully restrain one’s errant desires and bad habits in order to prepare oneself for contemplation; second, that the Kingdom will provoke violence from the world because the world does not want anything which will demand fealty to God; third, the Kingdom is brought to fruition in the midst of a war, the war of the principalities of God against those of darkness.

There are many other examples of these sayings of Our Lord; sayings not necessarily meant to confuse, but to educate. It is as if He thought in multiple meanings, and expressed Himself based on how He thought. Perhaps, since He is the Author of Life, reality is that way. All concepts have many layers of meanings, the most simple and individualistic meanings laying on the surface, and the deepest meanings laying close to the heart of God. Like parallel lines, never quite meeting until eternity, we cannot know the ultimate meanings of things until we reach the heart of God.

I often wondered why Our Lord taught in parables, with their hidden meanings, double and triple meanings, perhaps infinite meanings, to hide the truth from those who did not have ears; and then later told the disciples what He meant for them to hear. Because He is love and mercy, He cannot do anything contrary to those- and so I suppose the surface meanings of the parables were things that would help the simple in some small way- and confuse the malicious or the selfish so that they would realize that they did not understand. This put them on the first step to humility and real understanding. Most people have the experience of telling another person “too much”- more than they can or are ready to hear. Doing this only provokes unreasoned anger and frustration, or fear of the unknown. Then a door closes and real conversation becomes less possible. Our Lord knew each person’s heart of those who were listening to Him, and how much they could hear. He spoke the very most surface message, and then began to teach the deeper levels to those whose ears were more ready- perhaps those who, after His teaching a large crowd, followed Him as He made to leave to the next place. “And He had mercy on them, like sheep without a shepherd, and healed them and taught them.”

In this day, we are re-approaching the Tower of Babel. It is being rebuilt, and the higher it rises, the less we understand eachother. Our new tower is scientific and comfortable, comfortable at all costs. It is built with the bricks of the poor nations, and the mortar made with the blood and bones of those we have killed because they had no voice- and we deemed them a burden. There is a low-level, Satanic language of selfish desire and individualism, but it is a language that few can really hear (only the very bad and the very good), like the rumbling at the beginning of an earthquake. But it is the dominating language. The languages above it, used to cover it, use very high-sounding terms like “freedom” and “democracy” and “choice”- but no one understands what anyone else really means by those terms anymore. They are no more than babble now in the world that speaks via the TV and the internet. Just listen to a talk show where a Catholic is trying to discuss something like abortion with a homosexual activist. We, as a species, are losing the ability to communicate with eachother, even as our language becomes more and more complex, and our physical ability to communicate via scientific means becomes easier. As our tower gets higher, our speech gets more confused. This is a punishment from God for our evils in this age.

The only structure left standing to counter the Tower of Babel is the Catholic Church. Nothing else will stand in the foul wind that comes from that tower. She is the guard and purveyor of Truth itself, and as modern people lose the ability to understand, She must begin, slowly, to re-educate in simple terms, as Our Lord did with the crowds. She must also appear mysterious, so that some people can understand that they do not understand as much as they thought. She cannot, however, lose Her very identity in trying to reach the lost. She must be able to both speak in parables and retain Her lofty and mysterious identity, with all its layered meanings, because She is the Spouse and Body of Truth and Love, and so must be there as a place of sanity and refuge. She was always thus, even at the hands of sinful men, Her liturgy and dogmas intact.

Now, we are in a situation where the Church herself, at least, the hierarchical part, appears to want to be an addition to that Tower of Babel. Her outposts are disappearing now, frightenly quickly in clouds of priest scandals and bishops capitulating to the culture, and even calling it good; in the quicksands of Babel speech spoken in the pulpit and the confessional, helping to cover the Satanic instruction instead of exposing it in ways the simple can understand. There may well be a time when the members of the Catholic Church will only be able to fill a space the size of St. Peter’s Square, and the Pope will bear the Monstrance in the midst of bullets.

And those other Christians, Protestants and others? Other people who believe in anything beyond themselves? Their institutions will be systematically corrupted or destroyed, and in the destruction, I pray that the people who are truly seeking the Kingdom will find it. I say again, even if it only be as large as St. Peter’s Square, the Catholic Church will be the only structure of knowledge of God standing; the Church will be the only refuge left for those who see the blood and bones mortar of the great and terrible Tower, who see that, under its bright paint of “freedom” and “choice”, lies a crematorium of souls.

Catholic Action now is to begin to educate in the name of Christ, to speak parables which lose none of their real meanings, like the movies of The Passion and Fatima which God is allowing, and Mel Gibson is producing. Since only God can do this, we must ask for His help. And since He is now angry and judging us, we must ask His Mother for help. This is her age, because we have gone too far even to approach Our Lord. We must again depend on the help and intercession of His Mother, to bring Him back into the world.

As Terri Schiavo lay dying, I prayed in sadness and some discouragement at the Tabernacle. I sensed that the Lord of Hosts was giving me a peace that passes understanding, a peace that all is in His hands, even this death of an innocent at the hands of the government of ‘freedom’. I asked for the proper words to the prayer always in my heart, that of asking somehow for Him to rescue us. The words were given me, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to Myself.” I understood then, that it is in these Little Crucifixions, like every aborted baby and every Terri Schiavo, every child starved by the greed of another, and especially every Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, it is in these that the Lord is again being lifted up from the earth for all to see. In these instances, every person who witnesses it is being drawn to The Lord. And as they are drawn, they make a choice to see Him as their God and love Him, or to hate and reject Him.

He is speaking now in more and more simple parables, more and more clear messages, to instruct the confused and simple, and to show the proud and selfish that they do not understand. Perhaps some of these confused and proud will turn. But many, like wolves who smell blood, will begin to turn rabid and attack. Yet He draws them in large and small ways. It is for the Catholics of this world, the lovers of Christ, to begin to educate everyone they can about these Little Crucifixions, so that when they are drawn to the Lord, they will love Him and be saved. It is also to us to educate ourselves and our children in the science of prayer, love and sacrifice, in the science of Mary, so that we can become Little Crucifixions, hung as signs around the Church, and as refuges for those fleeing the New Tower of Babel.