Soon and Very Soon?

It has to be very tempting to dismiss this as strident nutterism, but it's something many of the faithful in the West have been expecting for a while now, including the Holy Father, who has been talking about it for more than 40 years:

The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning.

She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes . . . she will lose many of her social privileges. . . As a small society, [the Church] will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members….

It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek . . . The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain . . . But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.

And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.

3 ½ Time-outs

Some Catholic Stuff Edition

Hosted by Acts of the Apostasy.

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With it being the first day of the month, here are Pope Benedict's prayer intentions for May. Feel free to join me in a daily "Hail Mary" for the pope's intentions.

General Intention - The Family. That initiatives which defend and uphold the role of the family may be promoted within society.

Mission Intention - Mary, Guide of Missionaries. That Mary, Queen of the World and Star of Evangelization, may accompany all missionaries in proclaiming her Son Jesus.

You can also check out reflections from the Apostleship of Prayer (website or pdf.)

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"Workmen and all those laboring in conditions of poverty will have reasons to rejoice rather than grieve, since they have in common with the Holy Family daily preoccupations and cares." - Pope Leo XIII

Today is the Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker, which was established in 1955 by Pope Pius XII as a counter to the celebrations in Communist countries as the Day of the International Solidarity of Workers. St. Joseph gives all workmen a model and a protector and helps inform the Christian understanding of the dignity of work and providing for one's own family, as he provided for the Holy Family.

CatholicCulture.org suggests that today also would be a good day to pray for atheistic Communism's influence to cease and a proper application of the principles explained by Leo XIII in Rerum novarum and John Paul II in Centesimus annus to be the guide used by nations.

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For Greater Glory, tells the largely untold story of the Cristero War and Mexico’s struggle with religious liberty.

The Cristero War (also known as the Cristiada) of 1926 to 1929 was an uprising and counter-revolution against the Mexican government. The rebellion was rooted in the persecution of Roman Catholics, namely the strict enforcement of the anti-clerical provisions of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 and the further expansion of anti-clerical laws. After a period of peaceful resistance, a number of skirmishes took place in late 1926 with the formal rebellions beginning in January 1927. The rebels were called Cristeros because their fighting cry was for "Cristo Rey" ("Christ the King").

The movie stars Andy Garcia, Peter O'Toole, and Eva Longoria. It is scheduled to release in the US in June.

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Keeping with both the religious liberty theme and in honor of the many May crownings with flowers happening today... We will know the end of our great republic is near when this joke ceases to be funny to 2nd and 3rd graders:

Q: If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?
A: Pilgrims!

Thankfully, giggles aplenty were heard from Troglotykes #5 and #6.

Visiting St. Augustine's Chair

Fr. Dwight Longenecker has this on Pope Benedict's upcoming visit to Britain:

I think the present Pope's visit to England will be very different [from the 1982 visit that included a public service with the then-Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie]. Pope John Paul's was an [sic] pastoral visit. It was loaded with ecumenical assumptions which no longer apply. I doubt very much if Benedict XVI will do much more than pay a private courtesy call to the Archbishop of Canterbury--drink tea, discuss the Muppets, exchange gifts and then pose for the cameras. Pope Benedict's visit will probably be billed as an Apostolic Journey--the implication being that he is following in the footsteps of SS Peter and Paul, and that he comes as an apostle and a missionary. In other words, he's walking where St Augustine walked, and Benedict the Pope will do so in the tradition of Augustine the Benedictine monk.