This is the Trial

By your perseverance, you will secure your lives.
(Luke 21:19)

A letter from a reader…

Just watched your video with Daniel O’Connor. Why is God delaying His mercy and justice?! We live in times more evil than before the great flood and in Sodom and Gomorrah. The great Warning would seem to “shake” the world and result in major conversions. Why do we continue to live in so much evil and darkness in this world, where believers can barely stand any more?! God is AWOL [“away without leave”] and satan is slaughtering believers every day, and the assault does not end… I have lost hope in His plan.

A Call to Perseverance

Our times would indeed seem worse than perhaps any other generation before us. At least, that’s what Heaven appears to think:

Turn away from the world and serve the Lord with faithfulness. You are living in a time worse than the time of the Flood, and the moment has come for your return. Do not fold your arms. Turn to the One who is your Way, Truth and Life. —Our Lady to Pedro Regis, October 2, 2021

There you also have what our response ought to be: don’t fold your arms… don’t throw in the towel… don’t give up… but turn to Jesus, whom St. Paul says is “the leader and perfecter of faith.” In fact, that whole scriptural passage is relevant to this discussion:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the sake of the joy that lay before Him, He endured the cross, despising its shame, and has taken His seat at the right of the throne of God. (Heb 12:1-2)

The Church’s history is paved with the blood of martyrs and many a soul who courageously suffered for the sake of Christ. More important than the sacrifice they offered is the witness of how they offered it: willingly, without counting the cost, without looking back over the plough. As such, there was an exchange of their human will, their comfort and security, for supernatural joy and peace. It’s precisely because they kept their eyes on Jesus through a life of intense prayer and faithfulness that they found the strength to persevere through the impossible.

Prayer attends to the grace we need… —CCC, n.2010

If we are starting to lose hope, could it be that we stopped praying first?

Consider how He endured such opposition from sinners, in order that you may not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood. (v. 3)

Before our webcast, Daniel and I were discussing how many are pleading for “The Warning” to come and for God to intervene. But consider what Christians endured throughout the centuries and even recently, such as in Communist Russia, China, and North Korea; what Christians are presently suffering in Nigeria and other places where Christianity is practically outlawed. Simply put, many of us have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood — not even close.

Yes, we want the evil we see exploding around the globe to end, and there is something beautiful and noble in that:

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. (Matthew 5:6)

At the same time, Scripture tells us that the priority of Our Heavenly Father is saving souls, not our comfort:

The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard “delay,” but He is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

As Christians, we have to make this our mission — not our retirement plans, as necessary as they may be.

Christ did not promise an easy life. Those who desire comforts have dialed the wrong number. Rather, he shows us the way to great things, the good, toward an authentic life. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, Address to German Pilgrims, April 25th, 2005

We live at an hour where vast portions of the Church are preoccupied with anything but the salvation of souls, especially here in North America. We are living amidst the Great Reaping of what we have collectively sown. Are we surprised then that a trial by fire has entered our communities, families, marriages, and souls?

You have also forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons: “My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every son he acknowledges.” (Heb 12:5-7)

The Great Storm

My family is going through some intense trials presently. It seems that things are getting worse the more I beg God’s help! The temptation is to blame Him or indeed accuse Him of going AWOL. Rather, I see that these trials, if we let them, are a cause for self-reflection and deeper humility and trust. After all, Jesus modeled this on the Cross when He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” …but then followed by, “Father, into your hands I commend My spirit.”

I want to leave you with Jesus’ exhortation through the approved revelations to Elizabeth Kindelmann. He makes no bones about it: the “Great Storm” will not be endured by the idle who bury their talent in the ground, or by the unwise virgin without oil in her lamp, or by the lazy soul more concerned with prepping than praying.

The Great Storm is coming and it will carry away indifferent souls who are consumed by laziness. The great danger will erupt when I take away My hand of protection. Warn everyone, especially the priests, so they are shaken out of their indifference… Do not love comfort. Do not be cowards. Do not wait. Confront the Storm to save souls. Give yourselves to the work. If you do nothing, you abandon the earth to Satan and to sin. Open your eyes and see all the dangers that claim victims and threaten your own souls. —Jesus to Elizabeth, The Flame of Love, p. 62, 77, 34; Kindle Edition; Imprimatur by Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, PA

This is the trial that Our Lady has been preparing us for; this is the long foretold Storm that is now making landfall. Yes, maybe we are collectively to blame for the moral collapse around us, having abandoned the earth to Satan and sin whilst we buried ourselves in indifference and comfort. The status quo has been the death of our parishes and now many of them are empty or closing.

…there’s no easy way to say it. The Church in the United States has done a poor job of forming the faith and conscience of Catholics for more than 40 years. And now we’re harvesting the results—in the public square, in our families and in the confusion of our personal lives. —Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., Rendering Unto Caesar: The Catholic Political Vocation, February 23rd, 2009, Toronto, Canada

I can’t speak for you, but I know that I am easily distracted, easily pulled in other directions where time and energy can be wasted. There isn’t really much time left to get our houses in order, and yet — and yet! — there is still today. There are still people whom we can love and influence by our presence and conversation, by our witness and fidelity. My brothers and sisters, the chaos, destruction and evil are only going to get worse; “evil will exhaust itself”, Jesus told Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta. While it is healthy to be aware of the “signs of the times,” why fixate on them? The devil is doing his final dance, but we are not obligated to watch it. Rather, “fix your eyes on Jesus the leader and perfecter of faith”… on His presence in the other, in His love continually expressed in creation, and in the simplicity and yet profound gift of the Eucharist. After all, is the Host not visible proof that Jesus is not AWOL?

Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age… [therefore] Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing… (Matt 28:20, James 1:2-4)

I am coming quickly. Hold fast to what you have, so that no one may take your crown. (Revelation 3:11)

I wish to invite young people to open their hearts to the Gospel and become Christ’s witnesses; if necessary, His martyr-witnesses, at the threshold of the Third Millennium. —ST. JOHN PAUL II to the youth, Spain, 1989

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