What did you go out to the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind?
What a great question by Christ. After all, John the Baptist was hardly one to have weak, wobbly knees, for he was the bridge that connected the Old and the New Covenants. What a fitting place then for John to be—out in the river.
But in Gaudete Sunday’s Gospel, John was no longer in the river. He was in Herod’s dungeon. His crime? He called out the Pharisees for their hypocrisy and called out Herod Antipas for stealing his brother’s wife.
Isn’t it interesting that the Jewish religious leaders did not admonish Herod and Herodias for making a mockery of marriage and causing grave scandal to the Jewish faithful? That was their job. But in doing their job, they may have ended up with the Baptist in Herod’s dungeon. So, they chose to live with lies, instead of dying to defend the truth.
To Defend or Not to Defend
Would you die to defend the truth? Do you think you have the strength? The prophet Isaiah wrote that God was coming to “strengthen the hands that are feeble, and make firm the knees that are weak.”
In 2018, a 15-year-old boy in Poland made the decision to confront the Catholic country’s first Gay Pride Parade. Someone took an epic photo of the confrontation which showed the boy standing in the middle of the street, holding a crucifix, as a host of Gay Pride marchers and Polish Police bear down on him.
The boy said he was afraid at first to do anything. But he changed his mind when he saw a blasphemous image at the parade of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The boy ended up being arrested for standing in the street with the crucifix. Some Orwellian-sounding group in Warsaw, called the Monitoring Center on Racist and Xenophobic Behavior, declared that “Irresponsible parents jeopardized the life and health of their 15-year-old child by sending him to a riot to intentionally hinder the police.”
There was an investigation and inspections and interrogations at the family’s home. Thankfully, the judge threw the case out. The boy is now studying for the priesthood with one of the traditional orders. That would be the kind of order the FBI felt the need to penetrate due to “domestic terrorism” and “white supremacy.” It is the kind of order that defends marriage and the traditional moral order, making it a dangerous thing.
Last month in New York, some celebrity, an anchor on a TV news show, received Confirmation. His sponsor, the one who puts a hand on the confirmand’s shoulder during the sacrament, was identified as the man’s “husband.” Smiling priests, under the guise of what’s now called “accompaniment,” were there administering the sacrament of Confirmation in this mockery of marriage and our Catholic Faith. To my knowledge, the bishop of New York, nor any sitting bishop, have called these men and priests out on the big lie in which they all participated.
J.B. Pritzker, the billionaire governor of Illinois, met with our pope on November 19th. Governor Pritzker promotes most everything that is antithetical to the natural law and the Catholic Church. Yet, he had a forty-five-minute visit with the pope, and then the two smiled for the cameras. On December 12th, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, three weeks after his visit with the pope, Governor Pritzker signed into Illinois law assisted suicide—which turns doctors into killers. It makes one wonder what kind of “accompanying” took place with the Holy Father, if any at all.
What To Do
So, there are a couple of discouraging items to share today. And things like this have us ask: What is a Catholic, a member of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, to do?
Christ, shortly before He was crucified, warned us to “Do what they say, not what they do.” Well, today, it is becoming “Do not do what they say, nor what they do.”
So, what are we to do? St. Paul tells us to rejoice: “Rejoice in the Lord. Again I say rejoice.” That is the Entrance Chant for the Third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete in Latin is “rejoice.” Isaiah tells us to “fear not…the land will break out in joyful song.”
Starting around 1200 years ago, all the way up until 1970, when it was suppressed, a Catholic priest would prepare for Mass by reciting part of Psalm 42. Initially, he said this preparatory prayer in the sacristy, where he vested, but over time he came to say it at the foot of the altar. It became known as the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar. Solemnly, the priest recited: “And I will go to the altar of God; to God who gives joy to my youth.”
Then the priest, still at the foot of the elevated altar, confessed that he was a sinner. He beat his breast and said he was not worthy to do what he was about to do, but he was going to do it anyway, because Christ commanded that it be done.
And just what was to be done? Calvary. Calvary was to be made present as the priest, standing in for Christ, would offer the Divine Victim, the perfect and only sacrifice that atones for sin.
This is what still happens, but most Catholics today don’t know it, for their elevated high altars were jackhammered and replaced with tables. But let’s understand: Christ would have prayed Psalm 42, which was written several centuries before His birth. Being God, He would have known it was about Him. And “going up to the altar of God” meant climbing Calvary to die—for an altar denotes sacrificial destruction.
True Accompaniment and True Joy
Yet here is the joyful thing: Christ commands us to accompany Him up Calvary. He commands us to take the narrow, uphill path to offer ourselves with Him. Now, what does that mean, “to offer” ourselves? It means to tell Christ, “I am ready to die for you.”
Are you ready to say that? If you are, then unlike all the people who live with lies, you are joyful. They, though comfortable in their cushy positions, are miserable. They are slaves, and you are free. Are you then, free as you are, ready to swim against the raging tide of heresy, blasphemy, and sacrilege drowning our present world? Are you ready to do that?
My friends, Christ is coming back. With divine recompense, He is coming to save those who fear Him. Some then will break out in joyful song. Others not so much. What about you? What kind of song will you be singing when Christ comes for you?
Go sing a joyful song with John the Baptist down at the river, the bridge between this life and the next one. That is a fitting place for you to be. Out in the water, look up and see the raging current of sin and death bearing down on you. That is the spirit of this passing away world. Thousands and thousands are cruising along that current. As they approach, ask yourself: “What floats downstream?” Twigs, driftwood…dead things—dead souls. As Chesterton wrote, it takes a live body to go against the current. Standing in the river, ask yourself: “What did God put me on earth to be? A reed swayed by the wind?”
Strengthened with Christ’s Body and Blood, you head upstream, against the raging current of this present darkness. You’ve made your decision. You’re going up to the altar of God, the God that gives joy to your youth. You’re going up to the altar of God—on weak knees made firm by faith.
Photo by Felicia Varzari on Unsplash
