"Since 1975, more than 40,000 Vietnamese are believed to have been killed and about 60,000 others maimed by what is known as unexploded ordnance — land mines, artillery shells, cluster bombs and the like that failed to detonate decades ago. Quang Tri Province alone, along the border that once divided Vietnam into North and South, is said to have been more heavily bombed than all of Germany was in World War II. Unexploded yet active remains of the Vietnam War now lie in wait for incautious scrap-metal scavengers or for unsuspecting children at play."
Around the same time as the Vietnam War the Second Vatican Council was convening. As in the war, the Council left acres of unexploded land mines that to this day are being detonated inadvertently by the unsuspecting who step foot on them. We have been walking through acres and acres of landmines--faulty catechesis, perverted scandals, heresy, lack of fervor, liturgical abuse, and deficiency of faith and devotion for the past half century in the wake of modernism and the pall it has cast. I don't blame the Council for the mass apostasy of our day--it has simply made it harder to walk without being somewhat on edge.
I came across the article in my google searches because I was thinking about apostasy, the spectre that seems to hide in every closet, every corner, under every lampstand I encounter these days. The smell is nauseating and unnerving; it gets in your clothes like cigarette smoke. Faith in this age is under siege, and I'm not even talking about the collective faith of Catholics or Christians in America; in the heart of each and every man, his faith is under fire. Someone or something is seeking to wrench it from his being, cause him to lose heart or strip him of faith or consolation, hope and fortitude. My buddies and people I know are lying all around me, getting picked off by snipers, getting legs blown off, getting mowed down by machine guns, losing their souls one skipped prayer, one missed Mass, one self-justifying excuse, one innocent click at a time.
Why do people abandon the Faith? Who will endure to the end? Is it just a matter of time before I join their ranks? Will I lose my children to the age? A friend of mine, a once faithful Catholic and family man, stopped going to Mass. Family members too. People experiencing loss and suffering, instead of doubling down and tying themselves to the mast, gradually stop praying altogether and simply drift away or run aground. For some it's a sin they can't let go of, or a past, or a trauma, or a hurt, or a betrayal, or seeing too much of how the sausage is made. For some it's the old question of why bad things happen to 'good people,' or why God would allow someone they love to suffer, or some earnest but unanswered prayers. I feel like the guys to my left and to my right and in front of me and behind me are just being shredded by machine gun fire, and whose to say I'm not next, my family, my children.
If you want to survive and navigate this cluster-bomb littered modern age, you're going to have to have grit and a tolerance for pain. You're going to have to read, pray, study, and hold on when all odds point towards death. You have to be stubborn too--stubborn enough to keep praying and keep holding onto faith when you have every reason not to--not easily swayed, and ok going at it alone if need be when reinforcements aren't coming. You have to be innocent and you have to be shrewd, resourceful, not ignorant of the cost, and diligent in training. Most will not be saved. If you want to make it out alive, you cannot, CANNOT, let go of your faith. Coupons for apostasy are being passed out at every street corner, in every circular, set to detonate in every landmine laid by the Enemy and those working for him, to blow you to pieces and destroy your faith.
Some days I feel like I am simply that wounded soldier being carried on the back of a comrade, one greater and more selfless and determined to live than I am. He knows where the landmines are, he knows where to step, and he knows how to survive. We are surrounded by bodies being left behind. This is the Lord Christ, and his foot soldiers, the army of saints, that carry me when the threat of an explosive that threatens to destroy my faith is held just at bay. But I have to fight for breath, have to maintain consciousness just long enough to get to the medic, have to fight to live and grit and grind through to come out the other side. I'll never forget him, the one that saved my life and continues to carry me when I falter. I just hope my buddies make it out alive to join me.
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