Climate Change
Rev. Raymond K. Petrucci
Within us comes an odd feeling; a strange, primal awareness heightens our senses; the feel of life is wrong. I am not referring to warming oceans or melting ice sheets, but to the spiritual and moral atmosphere of our society. As we know, the story of the decay of moral values and the assault on religious institutions is an old one. What is new, fresh, and invigorating is the emerging fervor to reclaim society through a concerted effort that we identify as the New Evangelization. Church leaders are urged to move from a passive, maintenance mode to an aggressive outreach. The laity must to adhere to a lived Christian life that is authentic and visible. The invitation to enter the living Body of Christ must be given to the "fallen away" and the "never were" is the immediate objective and primary mission of the Church.
What went wrong? How did the 1950s become the 1960s? Is it possible that the halcyon days of the long past bore explosive issues that finally… exploded? Whether it is the past, the present, or the future, humanity engages in a struggle with grace and sin. When this fact is ignored or society becomes indifferent to it, the result is moral confusion. The misinterpretation of what is right and what is wrong inevitably leads to a radical – and not very critical – understanding of independence of thought. Thus, we enter an historical period marked by erroneous conclusions masquerading as truth. How this condition has come to be prevalent and so well entrenched in the body of social custom is debatable. The question presented is how we address the pernicious effects of this state of being?
False opinions are like false money, struck first of all by guilty men and thereafter circulated by honest people who perpetuate the crime without knowing what they are doing.
Joseph de Maistre
Perhaps, it is necessary to start at the point where the Apostles had to begin: a pagan world ignorant of the teaching of Christ and the gifts borne therein. It is possible that the Church needs to go back to the basics of heaven and hell, grace and sin, moral and immoral, and the responsibilities incurred in accepting Jesus Christ into one's life. As the evangelist, Saint John makes the unequivocal point that the stakes are eternal life or eternal oblivion. The Eternal Love awaits our response. Evangelization must invite everyone to choose a reply to the beckoning love of God that witnesses to what a person becomes when Christ lives in them.
Sowing the Word of God
We are to sow
The Word of God.
We are not to stop sowing
If the soil looks unpromising.
Some of the seed
We find good soil
And spring up
And bear fruit.
But whether it's reaped
And obeyed or not,
The lord wants us
To care a lot,
To sow the Word
Wherever we can
And leave the harvest
To the Son of God.
Anonymous
There is a climate change we want to effect; human activity has to be the cause. Evangelization is our current work – a task for all of us. This is our mandate: Make visible the Divine Truth and the salvation of the Lord. Let us hope that with each contribution our "spiritual footprint" will cause the climate of this age to warm up to what is holy and to what is worthy of being a child of God.