Lent is an invigorating time for truth. The Truth Himself spent forty days in the wilderness combatting the Prince of Lies. He did it as our \u201cchampion.\u201d A champion is more than someone who gets his face on a cereal box for having won contests. Go back to the thirteenth century and you will see that the word meant a combatant who fights on behalf of others.<\/p>\n
Since humility is honesty, and the Sacrament of Reconciliation is the declaration and manifestation of humility, sacramental confession, preferably frequently in Lent, is at the heart of Lent. The ashes we wore on Wednesday are signs of that intention; otherwise, they are blemishes advertising a failure to live up to it.<\/p>\n
If everyone told the truth these days, our culture would shatter, because it functions by deceit in countless forms. There are polite \u201cwhite lies,\u201d such as kind things said about the deceased. Dr. Johnson said, \u201cIn lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.\u201d But to lie before the bar of justice in order to deceive a human judge is perjury, and to lie before God is worse, because He \u201cknows what is in the heart of man.\u201d<\/p>\n
One should not be scandalized when church leaders trim the truth. Since the Church is Satan\u2019s chief enemy, he twists the Church\u2019s weakest parts: fallible humans. This is why saints regularly pray to be saved from becoming the worst sinners, since their powerful virtues can be turned into equally powerful vices.<\/p>\n
The deceits and willfulness of prelates and ecclesiastical bureaucrats are more contemptible because of the trust placed in them. But such faults are also easily understood, because these figures are central in Satan\u2019s crosshairs. There is potential for cynicism because of the machinations of those who betray the faithful.\u00a0 It is one thing to become cynical about human institutions, which is why there is sound counsel in words mistakenly attributed to Otto von Bismarck: \u201cLaws, like sausages (Gesetze sind wie W\u00fcrste) cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.\u201d It is more problematic when confronted with the intrigues of synods and prelates. Monsignor Ronald Knox thus explained why he hesitated about visiting Rome: \u201cHe who travels in the barque of St. Peter had better not look too closely into the engine room.\u201d<\/p>\n
David, himself a king, psalmed: \u201cput not your trust in princes . . .\u201d (Psalm 146:3). In our days, there are churchmen who feign surprise and even shock at the discovery of evil that they really had already known for a long time. They are prelatical imitators of the \u201cShock!\u201d of Captain Renault in Casablanca when told of gambling in Rick\u2019s club. Yet they are only mortal functionaries of the immortal Shepherd who prayed in His agony that we might be sanctified by the One whose \u201cword is truth\u201d (John 17:17).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fr. George William Rutler, 3.9.19<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lent is an invigorating time for truth. The Truth Himself spent forty days in the wilderness combatting the Prince of Lies. He did it as our \u201cchampion.\u201d A champion is more than someone who gets his face on a cereal box for having won contests. Go back to the thirteenth century and you will see …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13554"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13556,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13554\/revisions\/13556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}