This Word That has Come to Pass

Someone asked me recently, “What was the most surprising thing you learned during your conversion?” I said there were many surprises, of every kind you can imagine, and they were all “good” surprises, meaning that they took something that only kind of made sense and fit it into a picture that makes perfect sense. All the pieces fit now. As a new acquaintance, also a convert (and a reader), described it to me: before, all the science and history and spirituality I was taught would make me go, hm, I don’t really get that, and I would try to understand it and couldn’t, and I would settle for an explanation that didn’t satisfy me; but that’s what I was used to doing so I’d just shrug my shoulders and move on.

For us on the other side, the days of shrugging and moving on are over. Now, we’ll sit and hammer it out, and the aha’s keep rolling in, and there is a pleasant quiet that settles on our souls now, an ability to pray and meditate with focus and love. To give ourselves to God without reservation. Because we have become His people and we have Someone to trust.

But how can we know? Are we perhaps deluded by our emotions? As Catholics we make it a priority to battle our emotions, our passions, our fallen human nature. It was reason that brought many of us here, and it is reason that keeps us here. How can we know? Because God has revealed Himself.

I meet a lot of readers. Some are cradle Catholics, others are people who read their way into the Traditional Catholic church, like myself. Some started as Protestants, some as atheists, Mormons, New Age, agnostic, Vatican II ‘Catholic,’ everything. It’s always the same story, and it’s always a completely different story. “I had no idea.” We all came from a life where we felt isolated in our thinking; we felt like we were the crazy ones, and maybe the only person in the world who thought how we thought. I remember seeing all the propaganda in the media, the endless denigration of family and God and tradition, to where I couldn’t stand movies or TV shows, or social media, or the news. So I stopped watching it. I’d look around and say, “Are you seeing this? Am I the only one?” Now, I can just name a certain show and I get looks of understanding. “I know. We’ve had to be more careful with Disney too.”

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“Having eyes, see you not? and having ears, hear you not? Neither do you remember.” (Mark 8:18)

There is so much to say, I don’t know where to start. I will do my best to use a broad brush here, to give you an idea of the lay of the land. There is no need to bring up anything you can’t already infer from what you know. You can read your way into Catholicism, but you can also just see your way in. Pray for grace. When I prayed for grace, it rolled in, in waves. God’s grace is unlimited, and it multiplies itself like the fishes and the loaves. Just ask, and receive.

Think back on your life, how God has led you by degrees closer to the truth. The first step in this journey is simply this: to desire the truth. To want the truth above all else. To be willing to suffer for it, to sacrifice everything for it. (Start like this: instead of “entertainment” tonight, read an informative book.) This desire for truth—just by itself—is very pleasing to God, and He will satisfy it quickly. Everyone I know who made it, started with this desire. God’s grace begins to work on you beforeyou even realize it. I’ll pray for something, some insight or some grace, and then I’ll look back on my life and realize that he had been preparing me to receive this grace all along. Prayers work retroactively, because God is eternal and all-powerful.

“See you not?”

This is the view from the mountaintop. Let’s not be discouraged—let’s not heckle or argue or, as they say, “get lost in the weeds.” See that silver S, winding its way far off? It’s the river of God’s graces, collecting tributaries, growing, magnifying itself through history, through your life. And that brown muck over there, that flood that we have climbed this mountain to escape, to gain a perspective on, see how vast it is, but also how shallow? It’s extent and power are not what you think. It seems that the devil is everywhere and controls everything, but he is weak, even laughably weak.

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Basically everything you were taught about the history of world, of the universe, of Western civilization, of the modern world—it is all upside-down. Turn it over and you will see not the jumble you were taught in high school or college, but the real portrait of humanity and its struggle against God.

Here’s some books you might try, from easiest to hardest. Seven Lies about Catholic History, by Diane Moczar; How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, by Thomas Woods; Defenders of Christendom, by James Fitzhenry; The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, by Father Denis Fahey; The Occult War, by Leon de Poncins; The War of Antichrist with the Church and Christian Civilization, by Msgr. George Dillon. And this would be dipping your toe in. These focus on concrete facts and primary sources, and are extremely well-referenced. Any one of these books alone overturns half of what I learned in AP European History as a high school student.

What do I mean when I say turned upside down? For one thing, what we call the Dark Ages in modern times, were really the Ages of Light or Illumination. What we call the Ages of Enlightenment or Reason or Rebirth in modern times, were really Dark Ages.

In most ways the Medieval Ages were the high point in Western history. You had the Cathedrals, yes, and you had widespread hospitals and schools and monasteries. You had very little crime, though there were occasional wars. Families were not broken up as they are today—you had a society solidly built, in which authority was respected and—generally speaking—people worked together and valued honesty and integrity over material gain. It was the age of chivalry and heroism and saints—of high ideals. All agriculture was organic. It was what we call today “permaculture” or “sustainable.” There was no widespread media addiction or porn addiction, no mass propaganda, and drug addiction was virtually unknown (though of course you had your occasional sinners and drunkards in the city). Children were actually disciplined, and disciplined well. Most of them learned a trade by the age of 10 or so.

There was—and here we get to the real upshot—very little of what 19^th century philosophers called “decadence.” Art was not about exciting our passions (which were regarded as sinful) but it was primarily religious. Music was 99% Christian, paintings were mostly Christian themed, and most books were about the Church or spirituality. Ninety-nine out of a hundred people, in fact, belonged to the same Christian denomination! Just imagine. To always have an authority on every question pertaining to the Meaning of Life. How could it have been such a utopia? This is how: everyone knew why the existed and what God expected of them.

But no, today’s utter confusion is better, they say. It’s “progress.” What does it mean that we live longer today? What does it mean that we spend our lives chasing money to pay for treatments to prolong our travails in this life, and to make our passing as painless as possible? In the Middles Ages, you were taught to be a spiritual warrior. You were taught that all our suffering, offered up to God, exalts us. Today, you are taught the opposite of this sublime truth, and so we are weaklings who believe that our greatest achievement is to overcome death by artificial means for another decade or two. In the Middle Ages, if there was a plague, they turned to God, threw themselves at his feet, and asked Him to reveal to them their sins so they could make their lives better. In this way every misfortune actually brought more souls into more glory in Heaven. They considered war and disease as punishments and deserved humiliations from God. Today, when people suffer, the blaspheme God, say “I hate my life,” and put their trust in human ingenuity, digging themselves deeper. Pride, do you forget? is the deadliest sin—and we live in the proudest age of all. Physically, perhaps we cheat death more often. But spiritually, we are headed off a cliff. No, I should rather say that, on the whole, we have already tumbled off that cliff and into the abyss.

We live not in an age of progress or peace, but rather in the age of war in the spiritual abyss.

And why is that? Because people are not remembering, nor are they really seeing. Turn off your screen, and look around. Pick up a book, and remember.

“Behold thy mother and thy brethren, without, seek for thee. And answering them, he said: Who is my mother and my brethren? … For whosoever shall do the will of God, he is my brother, and my sister, and my mother.” (Mark 3:32-35)

1

What is the meaning of life? I mean what is the meaning of life?

We’ve spoken of what it means to have a life. It means listening to God, by whatever messenger he sends to us. It means seeking God, and seeking him in all honesty, not compromising the truth. It means knowing that the truth is absolute, and you can’t just make it up for your yourself. This is having a life–it is that search we wanderers are making.

To have a life is to seek out the meaning of life. And what will we find? In any search there are two possible outcomes:

1. You find what you’re looking for.
2. You fail to find what you’re looking for.

St. Teresa once had a vision of outcome #2:

I was one day in prayer when I found myself in a moment, without knowing how, plunged apparently into hell. … [I]t was our Lord’s will I should see the place which the devils kept in readiness for me, and which I had deserved by my sins. … I felt a fire in my soul. I cannot see how it is possible to describe it. … I have undergone most painful sufferings … yet all these were nothing in comparison with what I felt then, especially when I saw that there would be no intermission, nor any end to them. [And in turn these] sufferings were nothing in comparison with the anguish of my soul …this inward fire and despair … utterly without the power to hope for comfort.

The Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila, Ch. XXXII

The Saints are unanimous in their descriptions of Hell. It is physical suffering of which one moment is greater than all the sufferings on earth combined. And it is spiritual suffering whose pain is still infinitely worse: the torment of eternal separation from God.

St. Teresa explains that her vision of Hell “was one of the grandest mercies of our Lord.” She says it was “of the greatest service” having “destroyed my fear of trouble and of contradiction in the world.”

Not only did this vision give her strength in adversity, but it gave her strength to overcome vice. She says, “How could I possibly take any pleasure in those things which led me directly to so dreadful a place?” She describes herself as a horrible sinner, whom God saved in his mercy, whom he brought by degrees to the path of perfection. She had been on the path to outcome #2. She had almost missed the whole point of life. Seeing the end of this path, she was brought back to the true path, the path to outcome #1, which is the Truth itself.

2

This Truth, the meaning of all life, is Heaven and the eternal vision of God. Let’s be “narrow minded”: there is no other possibility. You don’t make you’re own meaning. You don’t make your own truth. That’s ridiculous, when you can barely make your own sandwich. That’s the path to chaos and total alienation from God.

Do you think that the one that created us doesn’t care what we do? Do you think He made us for no reason at all?

Only in absolute humility can the truth be seen. We are surrounded by distractions from the truth path. The greatest distraction of all is you, your own individual self, and all your “needs.” Until you give up on everything, you have nothing.

“If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For he that will save his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for my sake, shall find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25)

What does it mean to be truly selfless? It is precisely this. To put yourself and your desires last in all things. This is not as easy at it sounds. It is not easy to simply be “a good person.”

When you read the lives of the Saints, St. Teresa, St. Francis of Assisi, Mary and Joseph, St. John the Baptist, St. Therese, you find always this in common. They strove with all their might to kill their own desires.

They denied everything to take up their cross. But what does this mean, to take up your cross?

The world hates the heavenly. It feels judged by God, and so it turns away. Who, at a bar, wants to hear a sermon? Who, watching their favorite TV show, wants it to preach them a moral? Who, engaged in any guilty pleasure, wants to ponder what God thinks of it? The world will go to any length to get rid of the memory of God.

It has, indeed, gone to very great lengths. How many nuns in their habits do you see these days? How many monks in their coarse clothing? How often have you seen monks or nuns or priests portrayed in movies with reverence, and not in mockery? Not often. “But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8)

Those who follow Christ, who proclaim their faith in things miraculous and divine, they have marked themselves out especially for persecution. For contradiction, for fear, contempt, and disdain. You are a “fundamentalist.” You don’t believe in modern science. You are a bigot and a racist and you are part of an oppressive patriarchy.

The bear all this is what it means, in modern times, to bear your cross.

And this is why you must give up everything if you want to truly follow Christ. You must give up tolerance, liberty, and diversity of opinion. You must embrace the label “fundamentalist.” You must come back to tradition, to respect of authority, to feeling guilt for your sins. You must submit to the authority of the Church. And now, when the persecution of the Church is so hot, that Rome itself, infiltrated by Freemasons, has apostatized and we are popeless, you must embrace the labels of “sedevacantist,” “conspiracy theorist,” and “radical” as well. So be it. As St. Athanasius put it when the Arian heretics had taken over most of the church hierarchy in the 300s:

“They have the buildings, we have the faith.”

They indeed have the buildings, and more than that. They have the movie studios, the banks, the newspapers, the universities, and the internet. Their propaganda fills the airwaves and commands the attention of almost every man, woman, and child throughout the world. To make friends, you quote TV shows. To get annoyed looks, you quote the Bible.

When God came to earth, he came as a man, Jesus. And he founded a Church. There is only one such Church that has lasted through all the ages. The Traditional Catholic Church.

This whole modernism kick is leading us off the precipice. Have I not convinced you? Indeed I don’t expect to. Only by God’s grace do any of us see the light. But let us do everything for Him Who gave us everything, and Who has the ability to give us infinite joy … or infinite pain.

What is the meaning of life? There are answers out there for those who seek. So please do seek. Be diligent. You only have one life, and next to eternity, it is short.

“Thomas saith to him: Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?” (St. John 14:5)

1

For years I felt the horror of the belief that my mind and soul was merely a bunch of firing neurons. I tried to believe this, at times, with all my might, desiring to believe what was most true. Why did I think atheism was most true? There was no logic behind this, but merely the belief that scientists in general, being weaned from childish things, were manly enough to believe in the cold nothingness of pure matter.

Many rebel now against this cold nothingness, and reject logic altogether, thinking it cold and mechanical and unspiritual. That to be truly spiritual, they think, is to be emotional. And so they look for emotional experiences to ground their faith. But is the human heart anything like a sure guide?

Yet if we reject the passions of our hearts, what are we left with but cold, dead reason? Is that any way to live? So they ask. As Catholics, we do believe that God will send us consolations and comfort. Our part here below is not to pursue such things, however, but to suffer for the truth and trust. “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth: he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me, shall be loved by my Father” (John 14:21). Our part is to face these dark nights of the soul with courage. Consolations will come not when we will it but when God wills it.

2
They say now that God is an unscientific idea, a holdover from superstitious times when humans saw consciousness in everything, in the stars and the moon. No, they say, it is brutal evolution by natural selection that takes these atoms and forms them into slimes and bugs, crawling things and swimming things, mighty beasts and even … minds like ours. It’s a cold calculation, natural selection. But to disbelieve it, they say, is emotionalism. Sentimentality. Can’t you see we are animals? they say.

The belief in evolution is not based on sound logic, however. It’s based on a false anti-emotionalism, a desire to appear logical. But in seeking to demolish everything comforting about reality, it turns the world on its head. It teaches that perfect comes from imperfect, that cars design engineers, that students teach teachers. It teaches that life and light come from murk and slime.

Science was original with Christianity’s faith in God’s rational order. The laws of physics and chemistry, of biology and psychology, are all exquisitely crafted by our Designer. Imperfection is the merciful work of Perfection, who condescends to create us. It is only lately, when science has lost its theological and philosophical roots, and fragmented into isolated disciplines, that people have forgotten that all this order is connected, meaningful, and rational, having its source in the most rational and meaningful Being of all, and that is God.

The Apostles converted people to Christ by showing them the scientific evidence. Many, many ancient prophecies in Scripture were all fulfilled by his coming. This was confirmed again by Fathers of the Church, and again by modern archaeology with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, dated back to centuries before His birth.

“I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and magnify thy name, and thou shalt be blessed. I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee, and IN THEE shall all the kindred of the earth be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3, written at least 1500 years before Christ, when the Hebrew nation was tiny and seemed insignificant.)

Is atheism scientifically plausible? But science is the pursuit of truth. And if the truth is not perfect, what is it? Is it worth seeking? Where shall we seek it?

Let’s ask with St. Thomas: “How can we know the way?”

And let’s listen for the response.

“Jesus saith to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.” (St. John 14:6)

Luke 2:15

Say you were going for a walk, and someone ran up to you and said, “Your house is on fire!” How would you react? The rational thing to do would be to treat this as a real emergency, right? You would call 911, run back to see, and so on.

Of course, it always possible that the person could be lying. Maybe it is a practical joke, or maybe the person is mistaken, or maybe they are really malicious and are trying to distract you so they can pick your wallet. Nevertheless, taking reasonable precautions to protect yourself, you would still do best to treat this as an emergency, running to prove to yourself that there really is a fire and taking all possible precautions.

But what if the scene happened something like this:

NEIGHBOR: Your house is on fire!

YOU: I choose not to believe it. I still have an hour of my break left and I’m going to use it to finish my walk. Have a good day!

Clearly, in this case you are being irrational. A good neighbor would keep pressing, I think:

NEIGHBOR: I’m not kidding! The fire department is on its way but in the meantime come help me with this hose!

YOU: That’s your truth, not mine. I don’t appreciate you trying to force your beliefs on me.

NEIGHBOR: Are you okay? Maybe you’re in shock … Here, why don’t you sit down and put your head between your legs.

YOU: Don’t tell me what to do! It’s my free choice if I want to continue my walk!

I suppose by now the neighbor would do best to assume you’ve temporarily lost your mind and get more help. Someone to help with the fire and someone to help with the homeowner who appears to be losing it.

The point of these examples are not to show how people behave when in shock. On the contrary, they are meant to show how Relativists behave about certain kinds of news. Anyone who says, “This is my truth, and that is your truth,” or “We all have the freedom of conscience to choose our own religion,” or “You shouldn’t force your beliefs on others” is expressing forms of Relativism. The doctrine of Relativism is a modern belief which holds that no beliefs are absolutely true, but that we all have the right or privilege to choose what is true to us.

But the correct attitude about the question of whether your house is burning down is to treat it as a matter fact that is independent of your perspective. You can doubt if a person is lying or not, but you should look at the evidence before deciding for yourself.

The same goes about this question:

What is the meaning of life?

It is wrong to say, “Well, you choose your own meaning.” That is relativistic. It’s an insane answer, just the like the homeowner who “chooses” not to believe in the fire. Life does, in fact, have a meaning independent of what you want to believe.

To make this clear, let’s look at some more examples.

Say you get hired on as a junior software developer at some large corporation. There was an agent who helped you put together a stellar resume, and it all went so fast that you’re hired on the next day with only a minimal interview. You sit down at your desk, log on to your computer, and stare at your screen for a minute before realizing that you had applied to a job whose title you didn’t understand. “What is a junior software developer?” you ask yourself.

Now, there is a rational and an irrational approach to this sort of question. The irrational approach would be to tell yourself, “Since meaning is a subjective notion, ‘software developer’ means whatever I want it to mean. Great! I get to choose my own job duties!” and proceed to surf the web and play computer games all day. This sort of behavior will get you quickly fired.

The more rational approach would be to use a dictionary. Look at the job posting again and read all the fine print. Go and talk to your new boss and ask him what his expectations are.

The same thing goes for whatever situation you are placed in. Many kindergartners have no idea why they are sitting in a classroom on the first day, and I’m sure many never really figure it out. And that’s to be expected. Kindergarten is about learning what it means to be a student. A good kindergartner quickly realizes that his teacher is the authority and needs to be listened to. He realizes that he himself doesn’t get to decide what to do with his time, nor does he get to invent his own way of doing math problems. He must rely on his teacher for all of this. He must rely on his teacher to teach him what is means to be a student.

So what does it mean to have a life? Why are we here in this world, and what are we supposed to do? Aren’t these questions still more important than the question of what a student is or an employee? Doesn’t the question of the meaning of life encompass these and everything else: being a husband, being a wife, being a son or daughter, being a leader, being a follower, being successful and happy, and so on?

If you were to be hired on as a software developer and your boss did absolutely nothing to tell you your duties, and simply left you at your desk with a computer, without any manuals or instructions or these least idea what to do with your time, would he be a good boss?

So where is the instruction manual for life! How much more do we need one, than for anything else!

And if your boss came over to your desk and said, “Hey there Jim, welcome to the company! I know if you’ve been wondering what exactly you’re supposed to be doing here. Sorry I’ve been stuck in meetings so long. Well, here’s the employee handbook. Read it. And every day at 9 am there will be a training session for new hires. Be there. There will be donuts.”

What should you say? “Nah! That’s a bunch of superstition. I don’t think this company was created by some magical ‘CEO’ who has appointed ‘bosses’ over us to tell us what to do all day. That sounds too hard to me. I’ve heard it’s possible to be fired, but how do I know that’s real? Would a merciful boss really fire people? Anyway, donuts are the opiate of the masses. I think I’ll just stay here and play computer games all day. That’s worked out for me so far.”

* * *

One day angels came and told some shepherds, “For, this day, is born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger.” And how did they respond?

“Let us go over to Bethlehem, and let us see this word that is come to pass, which the Lord hast shewed to us.”