By Judie Brown
The onslaught of diabolical mayhem continues to overwhelm us with its wildly popular public image. It is as though people can no longer understand truth but prefer to, either consciously or subconsciously, accept whatever the media is spoon-feeding them on a given day.
One example of this flourishing evil business was battled against just this week in San Francisco. The hero of this report is Argentine priest Father Javier Olivera Ravasi, who made the decision to celebrate Mass outside an abortion facility.
He said, “Part of why I had the Mass at the abortuary is to encourage priests. We have to live without fear. Too many priests practice a kind of self-censorship out of fear of reaction.” Regarding abortion, he stated: “If there is freedom of speech in the U.S., and freedom to make human sacrifices to Baal, why shouldn’t priests proclaim the true God?”
Father Ravasi speaks words of truth in an age when the personal right to kill supersedes morality far too frequently. During this age of silent consent to all manner of evil, there comes an amazing priest who is quite literally doing what we believe the Lord expects from each of His people. And yet his zeal garnered too few headlines.
But where were all the rest of the so-called truth-telling media?
Into that vacuum we recognize the actions of that old bugaboo, the noonday devil, also known as acedia. According to Thomas Mirus, “One aspect of acedia is spiritual instability, a restlessness of a sort recognizable not just in the monastic life, but in the modern secular concept of the ‘mid-life crisis.’ The soul suffering from acedia is overcome by a horror of his commitments, a disgust with the spiritual life; he is confronted with a spiritual malaise which prevents him from advancing.”
This condition of the soul might be the single most overriding reason why there are not hundreds of priests as valiant as Father Ravasi. We know from those with whom we work that there is a decline in advocates for the babies among those who occupy the pulpit every Sunday. We recognize this malaise as a symptom of a growing tendency to remain personally pro-life but publicly neutral or worse.
We see it among those who suggest that the public is not ready to outlaw the slaughter of little babies but rather defer to public opinion. Alexandra DeSanctis opines, “Rather than pushing for maximally restrictive laws no matter the circumstance, pro-life policymakers ought to advance laws protecting as many unborn children as possible in each particular political context.”
Therein lies the rub.
As a debate or political topic, abortion is considered a flexible subject. But for those of us who recognize the reality of what occurs during a single abortion, such suggestions leave us sickened but not defeated. We know that 50-plus years into this struggle, many are seeking any sort of victory, hoping for a bit of relief for at least some babies.
But at what cost?
In the same way that we are encouraged to just show up, begging God to strengthen us in our faith, so too we are invited by that same Lord of Life to stand up and demand honesty, truth, and zeal among our fellow warriors. The defense of the innocent is not a game, it is not a political question, and it is not a debatable issue. It is quite literally a matter of life and death for every individual created in the image and likeness of God.
Saint Catherine of Siena once said, “Everything comes from love, all is ordained for the salvation of man, God does nothing without this goal in mind.”
God creates each person out of love! We in turn are called to not only acknowledge this truth but live it, speak it, and fight for it regardless of the politics, the media, or the world.
The noonday devil wants us to relax, let go, and give in here and there. But that is not what we do!
This is a time to be bold!