The members of this blog have been brought together to illuminate the true, the good, the mystery and the beauty of the Catholic Church.  We firmly believe that all of those adjectives are true!  So why then, the recent posts addressing flaws and negative experiences in the Church?  My reasons are two-fold.

First, it is my human response to a painful experience of being witness to the very real attacks of the enemy within our own ranks.  Attacks that have resulted in more division, as other brothers and sisters in the faith leave the one and only Catholic Church in our city for a different Christian experience elsewhere.  Attacks which have caused me to want to go to Mass with my hands over my ears, but instead trained myself to ignore the homily in self-defense.  My heart is broken more than I realized, and some of that oozes out into my blogging, while interiorly the Grace of God heals me from the inside out.

Second, being Catholic is JOY!  Pure joy, and we are called to radiate, be salt, enliven the faith of the community, and draw souls to the Gospel by the witness of our lives!   All this mess obscures the light shining from the beacon on the hill.  But until we strip all this away and expose it to the light, it will continue to fester!  If we are given leadership which have swallowed the lies, we are the Body, we don’t need to pretend that correcting error, even from our priests, revokes our “good Catholic” membership.  If we believe the Church to be truth, than it is worthy of defense.  It is my goal to bring as many souls to the gates of heaven as I can, through the gifts that God has given me.  But we also have to be honest about the present state of the Church.  Woe, to the unprepared convert!  He may beat a path out the back door faster than he came in.  Called to be Catholic is also called to the front lines.  The enemy loves nothing greater than to despoil the holy, the anointed, and the set apart.  And there is no other church that is more holy, more set apart.  Rather than bemoaning and complaining about the disease we have witnessed, I hope we can examine the problem and together become the solution to the problem!

Mary pray with us!  Bring us to your Son, and enflame us with the love you hold in your heart for Him.  May your glorious ‘yes’ unite us all under His banner of love, and allow no enemy to stand in His presence.