Are We Being Punished ?

The world we live in today is positively crazy. Around the world, things could not be crazier.  In North Korea, we have a fat little man wanting to play with nuclear toys.  In the Philippines, there is a psychotic serial murderer as president.  In Mexico, there is no real government except what the drug cartels allow.  In the United States I will leave it up to you to judge our president, but we as a people have a lot to answer for as the corpses of innocent murdered babies pile up.  Forgive me for being so graphic with that last sentence. 

It is said that Our Lady, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the bride of the Holy Spirit, has appeared in history and has warned us that if things don't change there will be a chastisement.  In the twentieth century, there were two such chastisements that we can easily point to. We called them World Wars One and Two and millions upon millions of people died.  Mary warned us when she appeared at Fatima. 

Today, we have the scourge of radical Islam murdering Christians in the places where it has existed for two thousand years.  ISIS has used the very symbol of our religion to martyr our brothers and sisters in the middle east.  But, force of arms, God willing, may end this reign of terror.  But the punishment from this direction will continue because, in America, we have embraced birth control and abortion.  The birth rate of children being born to households where Christianity is at least marginally practiced is falling while Islamic families are experiencing a baby boom. Will there be sharia law in America? Not in my lifetime but it is very possible that it will happen in the lifetimes of our children.  We baby boomers have not been the best at passing the torch to our children.  A common attitude has been to let the children decide for themselves about God and which religion to follow. We see how well this has worked out.  Today, for example, in the Catholic Church we have a lack of men offering themselves to the priesthood.  In families where it was once thought of as an honor to have a son or daughter opt for the religious life or priesthood, now that is not even given a remote thought.  

My original question in this post was, "Are we being punished?" I think that God does not have to send a chastisement down upon us because we, ourselves, are doing very well at reaping the rewards for our sloth in spiritual things. So, right now I do not believe we are undergoing a chastisement from God.  This scares me a bit because I believe that one is coming that will make all of the terrible things that are happening in our world today seem like child's play. 

Okay, I can almost see you rolling your eyes, shaking your head, and thinking the Michael the Lesser has finally slipped his moorings and is now a candidate for a rubber room in a fool farm somewhere.  The bad things that we are paying for today are the simple result of what we have done, no more, no less.  I believe that God has given us what we have earned in the hope that we would recognize what we are doing and turn back to the right way of living.  It is evident that we have no desire to change things and turn ourselves around.  God is a loving Father and wants us to be with Him forever in heaven.  He will do what is necessary to get our attention, and it will not be pleasant.   

There are a lot of good people in this world. It is time for them to put on the armor of prayer, draw the sword of righteousness, and start using their talents to point out to family, neighbors, friends, and fellow citizens that God loves us and that He wants us to change, to repent, to come back home.  We are all prodigal sons and daughters.  We are all born to live in the light of God. We just need to make the slightest effort, cooperate just a little, and God will welcome us back. 

Begin today to rebuild the Kingdom. Start small and carry one brick at a time. Use prayer to soften the hearts of your neighbors. I suggest the Rosary as the prayer to use.  This prayer is one of the best in our arsenal.  If you don't like the Rosary, pray whatever prayer you want to, just get started. 

Am I going to turn myself into a street preacher, yelling about fire and brimstone descending upon the land?  No, I am not going to do that.  I have confidence that if each of us does just a little bit to change the world, to slightly correct the course we are on, our combined actions will bring us back to where we belong. God loves us very much, that is the ultimate truth that we can hang on to no matter what comes.