Dearest Family,
Close to 14 years ago, I sent out the email below in response to Bishop Paprocki’s most excellent letter to the sheep of his diocese of Springfield, Illinois. Through a recent podcast referring to a book I read in my twenties, titled, “Limits to Growth,” I was reminded again of my uncanny response to that book at that time, and thought that email even more apt for today than when it was first written.
I do not know, nor can I imagine, what will help, let alone reverse, the evil of our day and the 24/7 attacks against the family, which Our Blessed Lady said would be the case in the end times.
I am sending that email out to you again, realizing not only that the situation has not changed, but that it has worsened exponentially like the lily in the parable below.
What is there for us to do? My answer is the same: “Live as if our faith is true,” because, of course, it is.
I truly believe that, if Catholics truly lived their faith (i.e., the full and glorious faith of the Church apart from the zillion compromises of our day), we could change the world. There are enough of us to do so.
“C’mon, Mother Miriam, do you truly believe that?” I do. But it will not be possible as long as we simply attend Mass on Sundays, go to Confession when we feel like it, dress, speak, and behave in every way like the world. Our Lord said, as probably every Catholic knows, that we are to be “in the world and not of it.”
Yet our rates of intimacy before marriage, divorce, abortion, and every other evil matches, if not exceeds, the world’s figures. How can we call ourselves Catholic and not be ashamed to be seen in the ways in which we live? How can mothers allow their daughters to walk through the world in such immodest fashion, much of which the mothers themselves copy? How is the world to believe that Sunday is the Lord’s Day of rest and worship when we spend it shopping and eating in restaurants, thereby demanding that others (store clerks and wait staff) work to serve us rather than our bearing witness to God’s commandments, all of which are for our well-being, and for our salvation.
I live in anguish to know how to help, not merely society in general, but Catholics so-called. We are the people God Himself has chosen to bring His message of salvation to the world. God has not died for us in order that a few fanatic individuals and/or groups would “preach the Gospel,” but for all of us – the People of God – to give witness to the world – a stark counter-witness to the society in which we live – that will cause people to wake up and consider their end.
May the Lord of Heaven and earth infuse every heart with the reality of this present evil in which we live – both within and without the Church – and cause us, the People He has formed for Himself – to live our high calling, to turn from evil – and, if needed, our comfortable and self-serving ways – and live for Him Who has given – and continues to give – His all for us.
The 2013 email with a link to Bishop Paprocki’s letter follows. May Our Lord be pleased to continue to live through such Shepherds for the salvation of souls, the preservation of marriage and the family as He has created it, and for the glory of His most holy Name.
Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God, O.S.B.
Email from January 24, 2013
Beloved Family,
I believe that we are living in a day of approaching evil unlike any we have experienced before. I recall a book I read over 40 years ago, as a single Jewish woman in New York, with no knowledge of Christ, no knowledge of His Church, and no knowledge of the life to come. Yet this (non-religious) book, titled, “Limits to Growth”, had a profound effect on me which began to change the course of my life.
“Limits to Growth”, published in the early 1970’s, was the report of a group of scientists who met in Rome to chart the (exponential) growth and use of the world’s resources, and which predicted, upon its conclusion, the end of the world as we know it, and within our lifetime. Its figures have been analyzed, revised, and re-revised, but the illustration they gave of the power and alarming suddenness of exponential growth to reach a fixed and irreversible limit has never left me. It is the French Riddle of the Lily Pond.
Perhaps some of you know it? The riddle concerns one lily in a pond that is unlike the others and which has the (malignant) power to double in size each day. As it grows, it chokes off all other forms of life in its way.
Now the question that was posed by the book: If it takes the lily 29 days to cover half the pond, in how many more days will it cover the entire pond?
If you are not sure, here is another way to put it:
- Day one – 1 lily in a pond (which doubles in size)
- Day two – 2 lilies
- Day three – 4 lilies
- Day four – 8 lilies (which continue to double until . . .
- Day 29 – the pond is half filled
- Day 30 – the pond is _______ (Yes, full)
One day more, that’s all.
Returning to my beginning thought of the approaching evil of our day, we sometimes tend to think that because it took 29 days (so to speak) for our society to get this bad, we have yet another 29 to fix it. But no.
I am referring presently to the attempts of the evil one to destroy marriage and the family and with it, in the words of our Holy Father, the very “essence of the human creature.” Marriage is the exclusive union of a man and a woman, or better, “a faithful, exclusive, lifelong union of a man and a woman joined in an intimate community of life and love.” (https://www.usccb.org/topics/promotion-defense-marriage/between-man-and-woman-questions-and-answers-about-marriage-and) Marriage is instituted by God, not man, and no attempt to redefine that holy institution can alter that reality. In the words of Peter Kreeft:
“The single, most essential foundation and building block of all human civilization is the family. It is the institution, founded by God, to be the most fundamental institution on earth. The family is more fundamental than the state or the church, for there can be no state or church without families.
“Which is why pro-lifers are so concerned with issues like homosexual marriage–not out of fear of homosexuals or out of loathing for homosexuality, but to preserve the family against the destruction of its very nature by redefining it to include two or more cohabitating individuals of any sex.”
In the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, a bill has been proposed and titled, “The Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act.” In an outstanding letter to his flock, the Most Reverend Thomas John Paprocki, Bishop of Springfield, explained the grave danger of such a deceitful proposal and title and the need for those under his care to contact their elected representatives with the truths about religious freedom and marriage as well as the accountability of their office and, I would add, their souls.
Possibly by now, many of you have read Bishop Paprocki’s letter. If not, I would urge you to read it here: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=10138.
I am reminded often of a well-known quote attributed to Edmund Burke, an Irish political philosopher of the 18th century: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Some think the quote was more a summary of Mr. Burke’s teachings, adapted perhaps from his work, “Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents” in which he wrote: “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fail one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke)
How very fitting are those words for us today in our “present discontents.” It is, and always will be, the enemy’s ploy to have us think that one voice, one single action, one sacrifice, can make little difference against the powers of evil. I don’t believe it. I prefer to embrace Mother Teresa’s words who, at the end of her life (with over 4,000 sisters in over 30 countries) said, “All we have done is a drop in the ocean. But if we didn’t do it, the drop wouldn’t be there.”
May the Lord of Heaven and Earth strengthen us for the days and times ahead and allow us to make such “drops” as did Mother Teresa, whose focus on the Kingdom and on the work to which God called her never waned.
Peter Kreeft, that delightful Catholic convert, apologist, philosopher, and Professor of Philosophy at Boston College, whom I quoted above, once asked, “Why did twelve fishermen convert the world, and why are half a billion Christians unable to repeat the feat?”
How do we do it? How do we convert the world – our neighbor, those of our own household, our enemies? I’ve pondered that question many times and have come up with the only answer I’ve ever known: That is: Live as if it’s true. Live as if what we claim to believe as Catholics is really true – in every thing we do and in everything we say, in everything we don’t do, and in everything we don’t say. It is difficult at times to fight against our culture, to stand out as being “odd”. But it is the very opportunity our Lord is giving us – to shine as lights in dark world – for Him, and for the salvation of souls. To live as loving, committed, uncompromising, steadfast, courageous souls, set-apart for God in the midst of a world that so desperately needs our Savior and His Church, though few know it. But we know it. And if we keep “it” – the message of salvation in Christ through the Church He established on earth – if we keep that to ourselves, we (in the words of Father Stan Fortuna) “are thieves.”
Oh dear family, all I intended by this email was to send you the link to Bishop Paprocki’s letter, which I pray you will not miss reading. It is the clearest defense of marriage against the same-sex (so-called) “marriage” agenda I have read. But I have given you with it some of my heart. I have said before, and probably will many times again, that it is not the unbelief of others that is a mystery to me. It is my belief that will forever be the mystery.
Why has God loved us so? Why has He poured His love out upon us? Why do we believe (and not them)? Why do we live, and long to live, our faith (and not them)? Why are we willing to suffer for the One who gave His all for us?
The answer is grace – God’s free and boundless gift to us in Christ. Like Queen Esther of old, and by the mercy of God, we are here “for such a time as this.” I, for one, am grateful – beyond measure. And I pray you will join with me — frail, stumbling creatures though we are — in striving to live pure and holy lives, to flee sin, to frequent the sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Communion, to visit our Lord often in the Blessed Sacrament, to not worry about tomorrow when He who feeds the birds of the air takes care of you each day, to love your spouse, your children, your enemies.
How else will the world be changed? How else will we become the saints God has intended for us to become? And how else will Love be loved — He who waits for our love and who waits, who longs, to give us life – all of life – beyond all we have known.
My love to you all, and my thanks for your lives which give strength to mine.
In our Blessed Lord, our dearest Mother, and the entire Heavenly court,
Mother Miriam