For What It's Worth by Erin

“Is nothing sacred?”

Is it just me? I feel like I am on a continuous rant about this and that, a never ending lament fueled by the absurdity of politics, “peaceful” riots that are anything but, and a virus that at times seems insidious, and others, mythological. I feel eerily drawn to dystopic fiction. In fact, my day began with a column that alluded to a book written by C.S. Lewis called That Hideous Strength. Dystopic indeed! That’s actually where I got the opening statement in this column.
 

Much as I believe in the prescient nature evident in the writings of some of our greatest Christian thinkers, I paused my writing to attend daily Mass before I continued to expound on the state of things as I currently saw them, already forgetting those promises that I was standing on last weekend.

This could have been a very dismal and depressing reflection, but thanks be to God for Mass, for prayer and the holy Word of God, for Eucharist and for the community gathered in our Church to pray and receive the sustenance of what God was offering there! I came back to the office, amnesia abated and promises remembered, my hope in something bigger, renewed.
 
But I am going to hold on to both of these perspectives precisely because one informs the other. Without them both, I don’t have a clear viewpoint on much of anything. One, without the other, leaves some of the truth out. I am meant to grapple with the world, to fight its injustice, lament its sadness, rail against its atrocities and do whatever good I can do, even if the only good I can offer is to pray. God’s promises, as incredibly life-changing as they can be, must also exist and support us in the landscape that we find ourselves in.


Again, one without the other, are skewed. So I have another quote from C.S. Lewis that better fits the world we are living in as it appropriately pertains to all of us Catholic believers, namely this:
 

“We must show our Christian colors if we are to be true to Jesus Christ.”

 
And if we show those colors, may they imprint our values and beliefs and influence and change a world that sorely needs their help.  While we are at it, something else from Lewis to consider: