September 2020

A firm and clear grasp of Christian truth must be the basis of our relationship with God and with those we are trying to serve. One of the great weaknesses of both the pre- and post-Vatican II Church has been a widespread tendency to presume that Catholics already understand and are trying to live the fundamentals of the faith.

One of my favorite definitions of the Church is that it is the guardian to the tree of life. Ever since Adam and Eve were banished from paradise, the human person has been on a journey to arrive at the tree of life and be united with God for all eternity in heaven.

A significant element of the Enlightenment—that upheaval of learning and change which profoundly shaped the modern world—was an explicit rejection of God, the Church, and revelation. What Voltaire, a leading figure of the Enlightenment, said about the Church, Ecrasez l’infame!, probably comes close to reflecting the sentiments of Satan on the subject: “Crush the accursed thing!”  

It’s clear that we are living in a time of confusion and division, both in the Church and in the world. I am not qualified to evaluate whether this is the worst confusion the Church has seen or not—we have been through some pretty bad times over the centuries—but it is serious. And it is our time and our confusion, so it is something we must deal with.  

The first two verses of Genesis tell us that God brought the entire world into existence at the dawn of history. But he not only creates the world, he forges a covenant with the world. We hear of this in later passages such as Jeremiah 33:25, where the prophet speaks of the Lord’s “covenant with day and night.”