Warned

Jesus said to his disciples: 
"When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father,
he will testify to me.
And you also testify,
because you have been with me from the beginning.

"I have told you this so that you may not fall away.
They will expel you from the synagogues;
in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you
will think he is offering worship to God.
They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me.
I have told you this so that when their hour comes
you may remember that I told you."

Let anyone who thinks that it is easy to be a Christian read the words of Jesus and be warned that it most assuredly is not. Today, anyone calling themselves a Christian is a fair game for attack, ridicule, and even martyrdom.  The Church is in danger of being expunged in the middle east due to the actions of radical Muslim extremists. Even in places in which the mauraders have been beaten back from former Christian areas, the refugees are not returning to their homes either because there is nothing to return to or because they fear that they might be the victims of persecution once again. 

In lands that have traditionally been places where people have been free to practice their religion, we see a great migration away from traditional Christian values in favor of the New Age and culture of death movements.  The vacuum created in the souls of the inhabitants of Europe are being filled with the deadly poison spewed by these same anti-Christian forces. 

Those that remain firm in the faith and try to raise a voice of reason are called bigots and hate mongers. In this country, resistance to the radical LGBT community brings nothing but trouble for those that are pointing the way towards God.  In Canada, a priest is being investigated for commision of a hate crime for defending the Catholic view of marriage, which means he was coming out against same-sex "marriage" using radical sources for his sedition such as the Bible, the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the works of St. John Paul II.  

In the United States, we do currently have a temporary reprieve from some of this anti-Christian bias because of President Trump signing various executive order restoring religious rights that were eroded under the eight-year reign of Presiden Obama.  But what one president signs into law another can sign out of law so we have only a temporary reprieve and nothing more than that.  For I do not see a second term for Mr. Trump who is a champion for the right to life and religious freedom and even may have been a catalyst for getting some sort of talks going between North and South Korea but still lacks that certain something that makes an ordinary person presidential.

So the times predicted by Christ are upon us. The morals of our forefathers have been trampled in the dust as the herd thunders away from a place of safety and succor to a desert dry and arid with the bones of failed dreams littering the landscape. For the Christian, we can only separate ourselves from the herd but in doing so, we have to remember we become targets for the wolves that are spreading the lies that power the migration of our contemporaries.  They fear us because they know that our pleating voices will not be silenced and that one day the Good News  be heard again by a tired and dying race of people and that they will return to the God that loves them so much that He sent His only Son to teach them, to be an example for them and yes, to die and rise for them.  Be of good cheer, the ultimate victory has already been won and we simply have to wait until the time the Father has set for it to become manifest. 

Please remember the poor souls in purgatory.