Did they think no one would see them?

First reading
Ecclesiasticus 17:1-13 ©

Their ways cannot be hidden from his sight

The Lord fashioned man from the earth,

  to consign him back to it.

He gave them so many days’ determined time,

  he gave them authority over everything on earth.

He clothed them with strength like his own,

  and made them in his own image.

He filled all living things with dread of man,

  making him master over beasts and birds.

He shaped for them a mouth and tongue, eyes and ears,

  and gave them a heart to think with.

He filled them with knowledge and understanding,

  and revealed to them good and evil.

He put his own light in their hearts

  to show them the magnificence of his works.

They will praise his holy name,

  as they tell of his magnificent works.

He set knowledge before them,

  he endowed them with the law of life.

Their eyes saw his glorious majesty,

  and their ears heard the glory of his voice.

He said to them, ‘Beware of all wrong-doing’;

  he gave each a commandment concerning his neighbor.

Their ways are always under his eye,

  they cannot be hidden from his sight.

The illustration above is of the Helix Nebula which has been known by other names including "The Eye of God."  The astronomers tell us that it is about 695 light years away from us, so it is what they consider kind of close.  I find it fascinating that if I were to look at this in the sky what I would be seeing is what it looked like about six hundred and ninety-five years ago.  For the fun of it, I looked up historical events that happened in 1324 A.D and came to the conclusion that nothing much was happening that year. So much for a segway into God Sees All which is what I want to comment on today. 

When McCarrick or any one of the dozens of renegade Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, Deacons, or Religious, in any one of a hundred different countries practiced their perversion on minors, teens, young adults, and seminarians, and other adults did they really think that their secrets were safe?  Did they think that what they had done would be covered up by the years and no one would ever find out? 

The old saying is that two people can keep a secret as long as one of them is dead.  Besides, the devil himself uses the circumstances of ordinary life to achieve his own goals and I see his hand in all of this. He used his powers to keep everything hidden until he decided that we had arrived at the tipping point and then he withdrew his protection and suddenly the newspapers were filled with sordid stories of supposedly religious men violating their vows in the ugliest manners possible.  People then began to look at their clerics differently and scandal hurt the church and affected some of the parishioners so deeply that they packed up and left for a "Church of What's Happening Now"  and turned their back on the Faith of Their Fathers and began to walk with the Protestants.  They gave up so much but can you blame them?  

The devil has no real power of his own.  He is able to use our human frailties against us. He used this method in the garden of Eden, he tried and failed to use it against Jesus in the desert, and he uses it today not only against the renegade clerics but he uses it against all of us when he can. 

He loses all control when the things we want to keep secret become known.  Secrets lose their power over us once we acknowledge our sinfulness, confess, repent, and try to undo the harm we have done.  That is why the current scandal covers so much time.  He was biding his time and waiting for it to get to a point where we would be overcome and hurting.  Then he released his hold on the secrets and all became known. 

Funny thing is, that all of these things were already known by God.  He sees all and remembers all and all of the time that these things were going on, He was pouring out grace to help us poor humans overcome the challenges of the times we found ourselves in.  But, like in the garden, we thought we knew best.  After all, one little sin won't matter a whole lot in the scheme of thing, will it?   I guess we have found out now that it does make a difference.  Like when we were tossed out of the Garden of Eden because of our sin, we now are reaping the consequences of years of "secret sinning" and cover-up.  What did the bishops think that they were doing?  Did they get so full of themselves and did they begin thinking that they had powers that they did not really have?  You can transfer a man to another place where he is not known.  You pay a victim money for silence. But, the harm that was done to the victims will eventually come out no matter how deep you bury the instigator and no matter how much you pay the victim.  The eyes of God can neither deceive nor be deceived. 

We must remember that God sees all that we do.  We must tailor our actions and our life so that what He sees pleases Him.  We don't always have to succeed to please God, all we have to do is to try.  The perpetrators of the sexual misdeeds forgot one simple truth, the God sees all.  There is no secret you can keep from Him.  As far as the bishops that did all of the transferring of the perverted priests, well they lost sight of the fact that God is all-powerful and He would see to it that His Church would survive in spite of any local scandal or even the world-wide scandal we see coming to light today. 

Please pray for our Holy Father because he does not seem to understand what is going on. The meeting held in Rome this past week shows that he is glossing over the things in his own mind at least in the vain hope that all of this will blow over.  It will blow over when the last offender removes his cassock or Roman collar for the last time, changes into civilian clothes and is shown the way out where he can practice a life of prayer and penance.  There is forgiveness for all but only after we reap the consequences of our actions or the hand of God intervenes.   Pray, pray, and pray some more for our Church and her leaders that they may become worthy servants of the Bride of Christ.  And do not lose hope.  Be steadfast and remember that Jesus promised us that the Church would stand the test of time.  Do not give up the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ  in the Eucharist.  There is no reason to punish yourself due to the sins of others.