In recent months I have had the opportunity to be with many people of faith in several different countries: New Zealand, Australia, Asia, United States and Europe. Earlier today in St. Peter’s Square I was with tens of thousands of people from every part of the world. My experience is that something new is happening: there is a rebirth of faith in Jesus Christ, and a lively excitement especially among young people who are coming to faith in Jesus as a life-giving alternative to the limitations and fears of a secular society.
Last week I read an article written by a prophet of doom forecasting nothing but prevarication and ruin for the church and the world! (you might recognize that language from Saint John XXIII address to the opening of the Council). This writer has not had the good fortune to experience the great signs of life and hope that have inspired me in recent months.
I was reminded of an interview I was asked to do a couple of years ago for Radio NZ. The interviewer had read a survey suggesting that religion was about to become extinct. He asked me what I thought…
You can hear the interview at this link: Empty Churches & Extinction of Religion? Radio New Zealand
I see the Christianity growing in all dimensions. We are being by the spirit of Jesus from the negative theology that comes out of human fear, into the larger place of God’s unconditional love.
When people encounter Sacred Truth, all fear and sense of alienation leaves them and they realize
that separation from God is an illusion. We know that God has always held us in love. “Those who live in love live in God and God lives in them” ( 1 John, chapter 4) Religion is not dying. It is renewed.
One great sign of encouragement these days is to read the many testimonies of others who have come from different Christian denominations to find the fullness of faith in Catholic teaching – so many such as Scott Hahn, Mark P Shea and David B Currie – all truly inspirational!
A friend gave me last week a book written by an ex-Presbyterian about the Blessed Mother’s centrality to our faith. It’s called, quite simply, MARY OF NAZARETH by Dr Kenneth Howell, and once I started reading I couldn’t put it down! Wow, what insights!
Oh, that the contents of this book could be heeded by Catholic hierarchy. It has taken an ex-Presbyterian convert to put his finger on the pulse of truth, that Mary Our Mother is meant to be at the heart of the reunification of Christendom. This is why she appeared at Fatima and asked for Russia’s consecration to her Immaculate Heart, that this atheist nation’s conversion be recognised as her work in the establishment of God’s peaceful Kingdom Come. Blessed Jacinta of Fatima told Sr Lucia, “Do not be afraid to tell EVERYONE about devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. God has entrusted the peace of the world to her!”
Instead, what do we have? An ecumenical movement of human origins which, running scared, seeks only to please and not offend other denominations by watering down doctrine and shunting Mary’s significance onto the sideline.
Unfortunately, this follows the same course as Abraham’s wife, Sarah: when she saw that God had not fulfilled His promise of a child, she drove her husband to sire a son by their handmaid Hagar, and the consequences of this mismatched union continue into our own day and age. Ishmael is the father of all the troubles and conflict in the Middle East as his descendants, the Arabian and Moslem people, still bitterly oppose and hate the descendants of Isaac/Jacob, the Jewish race, and this drama is still being played out at this very moment in history. In a similar fashion, the Holy Roman Catholic Church is trying to fulfill God’s promise of a reunified Christianity by making ecumenical overtures to other mainstream churches, robbing itself of all its Catholic richness and tradition, to spawn eventually an offspring, the monster which will be the Beast’s global false church and false christ, of which even the elect will be deceived.
If we heeded and followed the requests of Heaven, given to modernday prophets and seers, we could witness a new Spring, a true re-blossoming of Christian faith throughout the world… because religion will never be extinct as God is not extinct, except to those who wish Him to be.
Conversely, Jesus did say: “When I return will there be faith left on earth?” His words require serious contemplation…!
Why can we never learn? Why can we not follow God’s plan, instead of our own?