The Survival of Our Faith

With thanks to Biltrix.com

Mr James Larson has provided us with a penetrating study on, to put it simply, where we are right now and how we are to cope with it.  It can be found at his blog, The War Against Being.

It is easy in our too-hurried lives to be put off by long, meticulously argued tomes.  But Mr Larson's piece contains so much that is essential to one's understanding of where things sit at the moment (and the remedies for extricating ourselves from it) that it reads quickly even in the midst of such fascinating detail.

Please grab your favorite coffee or tea or other favored libation, and/or your favorite tobacco and allow yourself to be edified and filled with hope by the following piece by Mr Larson, The Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Rosary and the Survival of Our Faith, which begins as follows:

"Let us be honest.

We now experience a situation in the Church (and obviously also the world) in which fear and trembling almost inevitably penetrate to the very marrow of our faith and charity. Virtually no one living only half a century ago could have conceived of a Catholic Church so weakened, stained with moral filth, outwardly compromised in the teaching of Christ’s Truth, and prostituted to the world as we now see before us. And, possibly most debilitating, no one could have imagined that this charge into a seeming hell of philosophical, theological, and pastoral disorientation would be led by a Pope (or Popes).

Christ promised a Church built upon a rock against which the gates of hell would not prevail. Much of what we now receive through our mind and senses testifies against such perpetuity – just as a scourged, spat upon, bloody, and crucified Christ appeared to testify against His Divinity, and His promises, on that day almost 2,000 years ago when He was put to death. It therefore creates a deep uneasiness within our souls which challenges us to the depths of our faith.

In this time of severe crisis, it behooves us therefore to passionately seek the answers to two questions: What is faith – what is the deepest nature of the act by which man possesses that theological virtue absolutely necessary for salvation? And secondly, what is the surest means by which that faith is protected and retained?

The definitive teaching on the nature of the act of faith is to be found in Vatican Council I’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith:

“Man being wholly dependent upon God, as upon his Creator and Lord, and created reason being absolutely subject to uncreated truth, we are bound to yield to God, by faith in His revelation, the full obedience of our intelligence and will. And the Catholic Church teaches that this faith, which is the beginning of man’s salvation, is a supernatural virtue, whereby, inspired and assisted by the grace of God, we believe that the things which He has revealed are true; not because the intrinsic truth of the things is plainly perceived by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself, Who reveals them, and Who can neither be deceived nor deceive. For faith, as the Apostle testifies, is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not. (Heb 11: 1).”

It is quite easy to quickly read over this passage, to render assent to what it says, and yet never penetrate to the depths of the words contained herein, or to their implications.

However, this dogma was given to us by the Holy Spirit at the beginning of this Modern Age which has seen virtually every conceivable deception being thrown at the intellect of man in order to make the Christian faith appear impossible, irrelevant, and simply false. If we are not to be drawn into the vortex of this almost universal deception, it therefore behooves us to look very closely at this definition of our own act of faith."

Read the whole piece here: http://www.waragainstbeing.com/