I think we’ll make this a regular event, listing the various signs of hope – locally and globally – in our fragmenting and fractious world. After all, Saint Paul’s words that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more, and Saint John’s, that the true light has come into the world, and the darkness has not been able to overcome it should offer some spiritual buoyancy and resilience in this new saeculum obscurum. Feel free to send stories along, and we’ll post them.
So we begin, locally: The college at which I teach, Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, has thirteen weddings of young alumni this year alone, all of them spiritually and morally prepared to begin the adventurous pilgrimage that is marriage. They are truly the good soil for future generations in the Church.
And, added to that, we have three alumni ordinations to the priesthood- Deo gratias!
And on the international scene, the young Dutch philosopher and political commentator Eva Vlaadignerbroek has entered the Catholic Church, along with her Protestant father. At 26 years old, we may hope she has many years to do much to bring many others of her lost generation into the one, true Church, and I’m heartened she was able to see past all the scandals and miseries foisted upon us, even our current hierarchy and Magisterium. The Church – in her 2000 years of worship and teaching – truly is the ‘pillar and bulwark’ of the truth, if one can just see past the present tense. I was intrigued to read that her parents – her mother a Catholic – were classical musicians, and Eva grew up listening to the most glorious of Catholic music. Beauty may yet save us. The Dutch – once the staunchest of Catholics, along with the Quebecois – were amongst the first to fall off the proverbial cliff after Vatican II – witness the abominable ‘Dutch Catechism’, an affront to Saint Peter Canisius – and may this young woman’s bold example prove an inspiration to her country, and the world.
Last night, a local restaurant in my town hosted a drag queen event, which sold out, and so a second was put on, for this evening. Wait, wait, there is a good side to this, and one silver lining, it’s that this was limited to those 19 and over. It’s one for adults to choose to indulge in such ‘entertainment’, but I do wonder whether these ‘performers’ also ‘perform’ for children. Another golden lining was that our parish priest organized a holy hour of reparation, which was packed, full of families with young children, a lot more than were present at said show. The immanentization of the eschaton, as Voeglin put it. We choose our path, to heaven or to hell, and it’s up to us, with the help of God’s grace, of course, given to all, without measure.