Dear Friends,
Most informed Catholics, like yourselves, have to keep in view the total picture in the struggle today. My only concern has been the Church, a picture that was just as clear at the very beginning of these changes; it only come into sharper focus with each passing day.
The greatest danger to Catholics living in a country where the predominant atmosphere was a constant threat to their Faith, few could escape its rationalizing, popular opinion and few have done so in one degree or another. Few are looking at things completely with the eyes of Faith; few have been in a position to keep this vision pure.
Convinced converts are better armed, we know these liberal errors because too many years were spent wallowing in them. We paid the price that is demanded in acceptance of Truth, and therein lies the difference. This is the measure of our love for our Holy Faith that makes us so zealous in defending it which many of us have been doing all along in sharing it with others; but for the most part, found it was a case of upholding it to Catholics themselves which today has expanded considerably but with a greater penalty in that we are viewed now as not being “Catholic minded” – we have “lost the Faith”.
For some of us it was the Pearl of Great Price”; it was an insatiable “thirst” for naught else and we eliminated all things that would tarnish or destroy it – secular reading material in any form, all unnecessary social contacts and curiosity that was deemed a waste of time when such an inexhaustible treasure remained to be explored in its every depth. Dependence upon a hearing device was a further heavenly protection which was used more to “tune out” the world, the flesh and the Devil, particularly his most deadly too, the “boob tube” in the living room. And I find now that as things become progressively worse in the Church, so does my hearing. You have no idea of what one is spared with a flick of a switch.
This vigilance is even more important today when the Catholic press in general has become tainted. All have been eliminated when found to contain liberal articles which include many favorites of the past, but it does give ample room and clear vision of the Wanderer at all times. This protection is important for other members of the family, visitors, but paramount is the burning desire to preserve the dignity and reverence for my Holy Faith intact within my own home. This is one liberty that has not been violated – yet. There is a dignity and nobility in suffering “darts and slings” in upholding Truth. The abasement endured today with the spectacle of appeasement that merits nothing but the scorn of others, as all groveling does, cuts deeper in a shame that is unclean, unwholesome, a defilement of the purity and Holiness of God.
This is the deep affliction of those who truly love their Holy Faith, but like all suffering endured in union with our Mother who knows the way so well, it brings enlightenment, the wisdom of the cross, a greater love for the cross, to participate more deeply by immersing our sorrows in Theirs; to feel keenly the indignities again suffered by Them by an ungrateful people, to share that “thirst” for souls that constituted Their greatest agony. It is still a convert’s zeal that compels one to share this knowledge with others, that same yearning that all know, love and appreciate the great treasures of our Holy Catholic Faith. “It behooves watchdogs to bark” – I Howl (my feeble jest)
Sincerely in Christ through Mary,
Helen Howell
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