Consecrated to the Heart of the Redeemer under the patronage of the Theotokos and Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.

21 December 2012

Now What?



Suffer me, patient reader, to add my own post-apocalyptic post to the playlist.

Having been spared the consummation of all things (as faithful believer and steadfast skeptic alike suspected), it'll be time for work soon; there's school today.  The community of Sandy Hook Elementary School does not yet have school, I reckon; and lest its tragedy become just another for the archives, we want to preserve the best part of the apocalyptic conversation: viz., the thread of personal repentance and reconciliation "before time runs out."

Going forward, I would fain declare the death of the cliche "going forward," even while contemplating a strategy for...going forward--for continuing to live, not only suspire.  That sort of living is as evangelical as it is contemplative, centrifugal and centripetal.  "Deep calls to deep in the roar of your torrents" (Ps 42:8).  There is no end to the profound Love that continually draws man into Himself, where we discover the true self and its appropriate action plan.  Being creatures of time and space--creatures that need reminding and reorientation--we have to resist the impulse to swim to safety (contrary to Ms. McGovern's dated ditty).  We must stay in the ocean to keep getting caught in Love's riptide.

"Heavens, Father, you sound waterlogged!  What are you trying to say?"

The passing of the Alleged Last Day is no free pass.  We haven't gotten away with anything.  Divine Mercy will bide His time, but we must perceive our need for Him and respond promptly.

"God is like a mother who carries her child in her arms by the edge of a precipice. While she is seeking all the time to keep him from danger, he is doing his best to get into it." (St. Jean-Marie Vianney)

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