A Mercy to be in the Shadow of Pope Benedict

©2010, Randall A. Beeler

9 I, John, your brother and your partner in tribulation and in the kingdom and patience in Christ Jesus, was in the island which is called Patmos, for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus. 10 I was in the spirit on the Lord's day and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, 11 saying: What you see, write in a book … And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks: 13 And in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, one like to the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the feet, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. 14 And his head and his hairs were white as white wool and as snow. And his eyes were as a flame of fire … And his face was as the sun shines in his power. (Rev 1, DRE)

On this Divine Mercy Sunday, we are blessed—indeed, we are a mercy for the world—to walk in the shadow of false media allegations cast upon our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. The spirit of this world is attacking, and we must be attacked, if only to show the vain illusions of anybody putting his hopes in the spirit of the world.

For the world sees the Catholic Church as a monolithic, out-dated enemy of progress to the utopia that the principalities of this world tempt us to fashion.

Do we not wonder that the Obama administration ramrods the government funding of abortion down the throats of the United States—and now, Kenya—despite the will of the people against such an audacious assault on the most vulnerable? Do we not gasp at UN officials who now declare openly the secret hatred they have always had for the Church?

Mislead by the false dream of making us all gods (cf. Gen 3:5), these men implicitly (and now, explicitly) despise the masses, right down to the children to whom those masses give life.

And they despise the Church that defends the dignity of the human person.

Circa 60 AD, Emperor Nero, seeking prized Roman real estate in order to build himself a pleasure palace, orchestrated a fire in a Roman circus, which conflagration raged for three days across the city and killed numerous people. When the smoke had lifted, Nero and his operatives spread word that the fire had been started by the newly spawned cult of Christians. Righteous, though misguided, Romans, at Nero's behest, herded innocent Christians to be covered with pitch and set alight as torches for Nero's night-time outdoor imperial festivals.

Do not blame the media outlets for persisting in lying about Pope Benedict even after the Holy See has clearly shown that such is not the case. They are Nero's operatives, set loose by the princes of this world in the same manner as Obama, the EU leaders, and the UN have been set loose. They self-righteously believe they are making a better world by perpetuating these lies—that, if they drum their message with enough staccato, they will show all of us that, regardless of the Truth of the matter, their vision justifies any means, any murder, any mendacity.

And that is why we the Church and Pope Benedict's shadow pour out God's Divine Mercy to a world withered with its own weariness:

12 And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people. And they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch. 13 But of the rest no man dared join himself unto them: but the people magnified them. 14 And the multitude of men and women who believed in the Lord was more increased: 15 Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that, when Peter came, his shadow at the least might overshadow any of them and they might be delivered from their infirmities. 16 And there came also together to Jerusalem a multitude out of the neighbouring cities, bringing sick persons and such as were troubled with unclean spirits: who were all healed. (Acts 5, DRE)

The conflagration of sexual excess is an arsonry set alight by utopian dreams back in the 1960s. The abuse of children, rampant in families, the euphebophilia, rampant in our schools, the sexual abuse of employees in our workplaces, and the contraceiving and aborting of future generations until the most materially prosperous nations (including the U.S.) can no longer support a replacement population, now come home to roost.

And the media minions attack the Church and its Pope—the one voice of prophetic truth who has always spoken out about the peril of all these initiatives. For the Church is quite aware that humanity's attempts to cast a self-generated light on the world result in showing us that our shadows are taller than our souls.

Pope Benedict XVI, the man who has done more to eradicate the sexual abomination that has infected even the priesthood of the Church, thus, as the Vicar of Christ, the Rock of Saint Peter, freely and openly walks in his own shadow—our own shadow.

As his shadow passes over the media, the utopian-minded world leaders, and us the Church bewildered by this attack, we find true healing. For the momentary darkness reveals that Saint Peter never healed the masses. No, the brief blotting out of the light caused by Saint Peter's wobbly frame shows the true source of light: not us faithful Catholics, not the utopian leaders and their media loudspeakers, not even Pope Benedict and the Saints—but the red and white streams of Divine Mercy flowing out of the heart of Christ to all of us, those unhinged by sexual abuse, the dead unborn, Pope Benedict, world leaders, the media, and a thousand angry or weeping or conflicted voices.

Christ's light strikes our strident frames and our shadows show us the path to death, which if, like the prodigal son, we come to our senses and arise for home, also is our path to His Life.

Christ calls all of us to swim the ocean of Divine Mercy that Saint Faustina envisioned. May you rest in the Divine Mercy today, and every day. This, too, shall pass, and even worse shall come, but "Then, suddenly, I heard these words in my soul: Do not fear anything. I am with you. These matters are in My hands and I will bring them to fruition according to My mercy, for nothing can oppose My will" (Saint Faustina Kowalksa):

And he laid his right hand upon me, saying: Fear not. I am the First and the Last, 18 and alive, and was dead. And behold I am living for ever and ever and have the keys of death and of hell. (Rev 1, DRE)