By ERIC GIRTEN
THE CATHOLIC KITCHEN
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Jesus Christ,
I was almost finished with my article for this month when, like many of the old conversations in our family kitchen, the focus of topic quickly turned; and so here I sit at the 11th hour writing this letter to you.
The old topic, one that I may circle back to later, was the difference between transient happiness and lasting joy. However, the topic I find knocking at my office door daily is the current full-court press on our Catholic beliefs, practices and rights. There is no other way that I can put it.
Of course, the people on the ‘left’ want to blame the ‘right’ and vice versa (seems like there is enough blame to go around); but to focus only on politics would leave us far short of the goal line (I realize I just mixed sports metaphors).
Now is not the time to sit idle. Now is the time for parish groups, knitting clubs, bible studies, youth groups, coffee clubs, poker night, and fish fryers to figure out what it is that you can do to stand on the line and say enough. There are roughly 90,000 Catholics in the Diocese of Evansville; 776,441 Catholics in Indiana; and roughly 51 million Catholics in the USA, which equates to about 20% of the U.S. population; so no one out there can tell me that Catholics are victims; we are only victims if we allow ourselves to be victims.
What is the takeaway? It is two sides of the Catholic coin…prayer (always first) and action. Prayer unites, focuses and gathers us in the name of Jesus Christ; and we are always called to fruitful action and evangelization in our world.
This Catholic journey of ours is not about doing the Catholic minimum, attending the Catholic minimum, or checking off the Catholic boxes with a roll of the eyes. If this is what your Catholic faith currently is to you, then something has happened on the journey that is hindering; blocking; cloaking.
No, this Catholic journey of ours is about exhausting ourselves for love; understanding that the search for ‘happiness’ is folly; that real joy and consolation can only come from the warm embrace of our Father; and that when we stand before Him on Judgement Day, we will want to say that when the hour was critical, we stood in the breach.