One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do riot mean the Church as we see her spread but through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes I our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, he sees the local grocer with rather in oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print. When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbours. Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like “the body of Christ” and the actual faces in the next pew. It matters very little, of course, what kind of people that next pew really contains. You may know one of them to be a great warrior on the Enemy’s side. No matter. Your patient, thanks to Our Father below, is a fool. Provided that any of those neighbours sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous. At his present stage, you see, he has an idea of “Christians” in his mind which he supposes to be spiritual but which, in fact, is largely pictorial. His mind is full of togas and sandals and armour and bare legs and the mere fact that the other people in church wear modern clothes is a real-though of course an unconscious-difficulty to him. Never let it come to the surface; never let him ask what he expected them to look like.
CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Almost all the saints who populate Heaven are completely unknown to us, their lives lost to History, but not to God. Evil always wants to strut in the limelight and take center stage. Good quietly is at work, like God. We tend to overestimate the power of Evil while underestimating the power of Good. If Christ had not mentioned the Widow’s Mite, that great sacrificial lady would have been lost to History. Those who ever strive to do good in the name of Jesus are never alone.
Thank you for sharing this. Amazing story about Joe Reali.
This is why I have always loved All Saints Day.
Heroism that has no human witness is as heroic as any other, just as the sin done in secret is still truly wicked.
One of the first attributes of God that I pondered before my conversion was His role as universal observer. As a lover of history, it was interesting to me that He would have the whole story, unabridged.
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I am *highly* encouraged by the Faith of the Newman Center students who call my parish their home. They attend and assist at the Rosary, Angelus, and Memorare before daily Mass, and often serve or are readers at Mass. Some even show up at the very early Mass at a neighboring parish (6:28 AM) my husband attends before work.
As a Third Order Franciscan, I pray the Rosary with my Franciscan brothers and sisters in front of the local abortion clinic. One very cold, rainy, windy day, we were being baited and ridiculed by the clinic employees as we quietly prayed on the sidewalk. Suddenly, a van showed up and parked nearby, and at least 8 or 9 Newman Center students from my parish emerged with a 6′ banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe. They got on their knees on the wet sidewalk and joined us in prayer. The clinic workers – outnumbered – slunk back into the clinic as we continued to pray,
I schedule the servers, readers, and EMHCs at my parish. When word got out that the Bishop was coming to celebrate a Mass for the Eucharistic Revival at the nearby AA League baseball park and that our parish would be acting as hosts for the Mass, public procession, and Adoration at our very hot, non-air conditioned parish church, without me even asking, I was mobbed with requests from the children and university students to serve – even though the weather was 90 degrees+, and very humid. The Diocese requested 5 servers. Over a dozen begged to serve along with the 4 local seminarians, 2 of whom are from our parish. Father didn’t have the heart to tell any of them no, so they all served – proudly and with great dignity and reverence as befits the honor, in starched black cassocks and white surplices – fingers up when they fold their hands, as Father asked.
These children, teens, and young adults routinely impress me with their service to Jesus, our parish, and our priests. With joyful and faithful young people such as these, I am confident the future of our Church is in good and faithful hands, and I am so very grateful,
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