Blind White Martyrdom

Wilhelm von Kaulbach

If we could see what was going on in the spiritual realm that surrounds us I guarantee our attention would quickly shift away from our present troubles to the real culprits wreaking havoc on our society these days. There's a far more serious battle going on behind the scenes than the day-to-day problems the world is facing.

It's THE war for souls.

It's the battle for the souls of our families, friends and countrymen.

And it is raging like never before in the history of man.

It is the battle for the souls of our children.

The all out, no holds barred, battle for the immortal souls of our loved ones

And WE are the soldiers in the front line.

Yes, we are it.

Little Davids fighting Goliaths the likes of which we have never seen before and never will again.

What is the cost of being part of this front line defense?

Everything you know or think you know.

Or as Dr. Peter Kreeft so succinctly puts it in his article, The Winning Strategy:
T.S. Eliot defines the Christian life as: “A condition of complete simplicity/Costing not less than/Everything.” The price is everything: 100%. A worse martyrdom than the quick noose or stake: the martyrdom of dying daily, dying to all your desires and plans, including your plans about how to become a saint. A blank check to God. 

A blank check to God.

The hardest thing we will ever be called to do because white martyrdom can be more difficult than red. Living can, at times, be more difficult than dying.

I am not downplaying the seriousness of the various crises that the world is facing right now, by any means. We have to address those as well.

But, there is more at stake here than the loss of our physical lives.

Eternity is at stake.

 And the most frightening thing is:

 Half of the people here on earth aren't even aware there is a war going on.

"Depart from me, I do not know you."

Source: Wikimedia Commons

This is how the story went
I met someone by accident
Who blew me away
Blew me away
And it was in the darkest of my days
When you took my sorrow and took my pain
And buried them away, buried them away
           (lyrics: Hiding my Heart by Adele)



There are little truths, small truths in life that we accept about ourselves, others, and the world around us because they are facts. Facts we can easily prove.

For instance, we know that bee stings hurt. Ouch. (Well, you may not know this but my arm knows this and assures you it's true. My hand knows this too, unfortunately.)

And then, there are TRUTHS.

You know, those TRUTHS that are so huge we can barely wrap our minds around them, and so...

... we prefer to ignore them most of the time.

But ignoring them doesn't take away the truth of them. We can ignore them all the day long but the time will come when we have no choice but to face them.

This happened to me. I came face to face with the fact that I wasn't who I thought I was and the life I was living in NO WAY resembled the life I was meant to be living. Not even close.

My life was a sad caricature, a mockery if you will, of what I was created for.

Can you imagine seeing your real true self and then realizing that you somehow created a false persona that didn't really even exist in the eyes of the Lord? And that you walked in this false self for fifteen years?

Heartbreaking.

This is what sin does to a person. It shrouds you in a cloak of filth that makes you nearly unrecognizable to the Lord.

And, sadly, it was extremely hard to let this false self go because it fit better into the "mockery" we've made of this world.

A world that should be readying  people for heaven but is instead, prepping them for hell.

Because, the truth is, the world as we see it right now resembles hell more than heaven.

Billions are living lives that are a parody of who they really are.

These seem like harsh words but they are true, nonetheless.

 TRUTH:

The moment you were conceived in your mother's womb you were born into eternity.

 You will exist forever.

You don't have to wait until you die to stand in eternity.

No, no, you are standing in it already.

Heaven exists.

But only the REAL YOU can get in there.

Gardening and the Poor Souls

Yep, you are ugly my friend. Even St. Francis thinks so.

(Noah, did you just shout, "MY BAD" ?)

Bet you never thought you'd see a gardening post here, did ya?

At ease, folks, the "zucchini queen" has laid down her weapons (temporarily).

Yes, that means YOU, my dear neighbor who put the "DANGER! MINE FIELD!" poster up on my lawn, may freely step out onto your front porch once again without fearing a zucchini apocalypse.

Though, do be aware I planted some fall crops.

Just giving you a heads up.

But who really worries about tripping over spinach and sugar snap peas, right? It's the zucchini that folks run away from most of the time and here in the Northeast zucchini season is winding down. (Except for this ONE massive zucchini plant that WILL NOT DIE. It's kind of spooky actually.)

Have I told you that the souls in Purgatory LOVE people who garden?

Yep, they do. They LOVE 'em. Especially *squeamish* Catholic gardeners.

Really, you have to hand it to the Catholic Church:

NOTHING goes to waste.

And the poor souls just love it.

I mean, they get a "twofer" when I have to pluck BOTH slugs AND tomato hornworms out of my garden.

Tomato hornworms make me shudder. From a distance they look like little green puffed up cartoon character caterpillars but up close they are like something out of a B rated horror flick. Fat, gushy, and twice the size of a grown man's thumb.

The souls in Purgatory are tickled when I come face to face with Mr. or Mrs. Godzilla T Hornworm.

Me, I simply close my eyes, reach out a gloved hand, and PLUCK.

Pluck, yuck, offer up.

 Pluck, yuck, offer up.

There's a sacred rhythm to it, my friends.

I can still hear the echo of the poor souls now:

 "Bean beetles coming up next! And there are thousands! Yee haw!Fling those gates open, St. Peter!"



P.S. (Yuck! I mean, SHEESH, did you SEE the HORN on that thing?! And it looks like it has dozens of eyes on its sides to boot! God should count them as a "threefer", don't you think?)