On the Eve of Revolution

Revolution: “Love” backwards

SINCE Christianity’s beginnings, whenever revolution has broken out against her, it has most often come like a thief in the night.

THE FIRST REVOLUTION

Even though there were warning signs all around them, the Apostles were shaken and surprised when that diabolical revolution broke out in the Garden of Gethsemane. The Lord had been warning them to “watch and pray,” and yet, they continually fell asleep.

Then he returned to his disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Behold, the hour is at hand when the Son of Man is to be handed over to sinners. Get up, let us go. Look, my betrayer is at hand.” While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived, accompanied by a large crowd, with swords and clubs… (Matt 26:45-47)

Yes, revolution broke out “while he was still speaking.” That is, it often comes when people are in the midst of their projects, in the middle of their plans, their hopes and dreams. It takes many by surprise because they do not think that life will ever change; that the patterns they are used to, the structures they have relied on, and the assistance they’ve always had, will always be there. But suddenly, like a thief in the night, these securities are shaken and the night of revolution falls with a violent thud.

Then all the disciples left him and fled. (Matt 26:56)

That is what happens when revolution takes Christians by surprise, when it rudely awakens those who have fallen into the sleep of sin and the complacency of comfort. Slumber overtakes us when worldliness, pleasure, and the anxieties of life choke out and silence the voice of God.

“It’s our very sleepiness to the presence of God that renders us insensitive to evil: we don’t hear God because we don’t want to be disturbed, and so we remain indifferent to evil.”…such a disposition leads to “a certain callousness of the soul towards the power of evil.” The Pope was keen to stress that Christ’s rebuke to his slumbering apostles – “stay awake and keep vigil” – applies to the entire history of the Church. Jesus’ message, the Pope said, is a “permanent message for all time because the disciples’ sleepiness is not problem of that one moment, rather of the whole of history, ‘the sleepiness’ is ours, of those of us who do not want to see the full force of evil and do not want to enter into his Passion.” —POPE BENEDICT XVI, Catholic News Agency, Vatican City, Apr 20, 2011, General Audience

THE SECOND REVOLUTION

This past week in the Mass readings, we have reflected on the early Church immediately after the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven. It did not take long for revolution to stir once again, but now against the body of Christ, beginning with Stephen.

They stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes, accosted him, seized him, and brought him before the Sanhedrin… (Acts 6:12)

Like Jesus, the truth was put on trial. But rather than stir his listeners to reason and reflection, the truth only angered them. As Jesus said,

…this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come toward the light, so that his works might not be exposed. (John 3:19-20)

Likewise, with Stephen, “they could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he spoke.” ^[1]Acts 6:10 The light of his life and testimony was too bright for their consciences to bear, and so, they stoned him. It was the beginning of yet another revolution.

On that day, there broke out a severe persecution of the church… Saul… was trying to destroy the church; entering house after house and dragging out men and women, he handed them over for imprisonment. (Acts 8:3)

THE FINAL REVOLUTION OF THIS ERA

Now, I call these persecutions against Jesus and the early Church “revolutions” because they were indeed an attempt to overthrow the Christian teaching, which by itself, was establishing a new order (see Acts 2:42-47). It is the overthrow of this order—the order of God—that is always the goal of Satan, and has been ever since the Garden of Eden and that earliest revolution. At the heart of it was this sophistry:

…you will be like gods. (Gen 3:5)

At the heart of every pagan revolution is always the lie that we can do without God’s order, without the restrictions of divine law, truth, and morality—at least, the laws, truths, and morality established by God Himself. So it is today:

Progress and science have given us the power to dominate the forces of nature, to manipulate the elements, to reproduce living things, almost to the point of manufacturing humans themselves. In this situation, praying to God appears outmoded, pointless, because we can build and create whatever we want. We don’t realise we are reliving the same experience as Babel. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, Pentecost Homily, May 27th, 2102

Indeed, as Canada and other nations begin to determine who shall live and who shall die through euthanasia, abortion, and so-called healthcare “laws”, we have clearly reconstructed the abominable New Tower of Babel. ^[2]cf. The New Tower of Babel

This [culture of death] is actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic and political currents which encourage an idea of society excessively concerned with efficiency. Looking at the situation from this point of view, it is possible to speak in a certain sense of a war of the powerful against the weak: a life which would require greater acceptance, love and care is considered useless, or held to be an intolerable burden, and is therefore rejected in one way or another. A person who, because of illness, handicap or, more simply, just by existing, compromises the well-being or life-style of those who are more favoured, tends to be looked upon as an enemy to be resisted or eliminated. In this way a kind of “conspiracy against life” is unleashed. This conspiracy involves not only individuals in their personal, family or group relationships, but goes far beyond, to the point of damaging and distorting, at the international level, relations between peoples and States. —POPE JOHN PAUL II, Evangelium Vitae, “The Gospel of Life”, n. 12

Here, St. John Paul II has re
vealed that this present Revolution is now global in nature, seeking to shake the entire order of nations. This is precisely what Pope Pius IX foresaw:

You are aware indeed, that the goal of this most iniquitous plot is to drive people to overthrow the entire order of human affairs and to draw them over to the wicked theories of this Socialism and Communism… —POPE PIUS IX, Nostis et Nobiscum, Encyclical, n. 18, DECEMBER 8, 1849

It is no surprise, then, to see openly socialist and communist political candidates gaining momentum, such as the Democratic nominees in America, or the new Prime Minister of Canada. Far from being a “conspiracy theory”, these men and women are merely co-operating with secretive powers that have long been fomenting a Global Revolution.

We think of the great powers of the present day, of the anonymous financial interests which turn men into slaves, which are no longer human things, but are an anonymous power which men serve, by which men are tormented and even slaughtered. They are a destructive power, a power that menaces the world. —POPE BENEDICT XVI, Reflection after the reading of the office for the Third Hour this morning in the Synod Aula, Vatican City, October 11, 2010

…that which is their ultimate purpose forces itself into view—namely, the utter overthrow of that whole religious and political order of the world which the Christian teaching has produced, and the substitution of a new state of things in accordance with their ideas, of which the foundations and laws shall be drawn from mere naturalism. —POPE LEO XIII, Humanum Genus, Encyclical on Freemasonry, n.10, Apri 20thl, 1884

How will they achieve their goals? Well, they already are as the “culture of death” tightens its grip through the lawlessness of ideologically driven Supreme Courts. ^[3]cf. The Hour of Lawlessness Furthermore, the collapse of the economy as we know it through a controlled demolition of the “petro-dollar” is well underway. Ordo ab chaos—“order out of chaos”—such is the motto of 33rd degree Freemasons whom the popes have long associated with helping to engineer a “new world order.”

THE EVE OF REVOLUTION

As I was preparing to write this reflection, as so often happens, an email suddenly arrived with a divine confirmation of sorts. This time, it came from a theologian in France, who said:

I don’t know how things are in Canada right now, but here this is something of a surreal time. Yes, France is still technically in a state of emergency, but the vast majority of people are still in a ‘business as usual’ mode that even the horror of the November attacks didn’t dispel. A very holy Anglican priest friend of mine recently compared the present situation to the ‘Phoney War’ in Western Europe in 1939-40 during the months in which hostilities had officially been declared (and Poland martyred, not unlike Syria today) but nothing appeared to be happening. Then when the Blitzkrieg arrived in 1940 it caught France completely unprepared… —letter, April 15th, 2016

Yes, well a “Blitzkrieg” of sorts is forming against the Church as we speak. It is being fomented by liberal pagan governments, rogue Supreme Court justices, militant atheists, sex “educators”, and now, even bishops and cardinals within the Church who are seizing upon the Pope’s ambiguities to unhinge doctrine from pastoral practice, placing supremacy upon individual “conscience” rather than objective truth.

…you will be like gods. (Gen 3:5)

I don’t like to say, ‘this is revolutionary’, because revolutionary sounds like giving up or destroying something by violence, whereas the [Pope’s exhortation, Amoris Laetitia] is a renewal and an updating of the original holistic Catholic vision. —Cardinal Walter Kasper, Vatican Insider, April 14th, 2016; lastampa.it

And here is the warning that I feel compelled to give: like the first and second revolution, and most all the others in between, this Global Revolution will also take many by surprise, like a thief in the night. In April, 2008, the French Saint, Thérèse de Lisieux, appeared in a dream to an American priest I know who sees the souls in purgatory nearly every night. Wearing a dress for her first Communion, she led him toward the church. However, upon reaching the door, he was barred from entering. She turned to him and said:

Just as my country [France], which was the eldest daughter of the Church, killed her priests and faithful, so will the persecution of the Church take place in your own country. In a short time, the clergy will go into exile and will be unable to enter the churches openly. They will minister to the faithful in clandestine places. The faithful will be deprived of the “kiss of Jesus” [Holy Communion]. The laity will bring Jesus to them in the absence of the priests.

This warning was audibly repeated to him recently while he was saying Mass.

Yes, the swords have been brandished, the torches have been lit, and the mobs are forming. Anyone with eyes can clearly see this. It may not come today, and tomorrow may seem “business as usual.” But the Revolution is coming. Therefore,

Watch and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. (Matt 26:41)

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1	Acts 6:10
↑2	cf. The New Tower of Babel
↑3	cf. The Hour of Lawlessness