"And the enemies of a man shall be those of his own household."
There's more on my heart than I find I can write about this Lent. These are decadent times, and we seem for the past decade or more to have passed into a period of clarification where the hearts of men are laid bare. Ultimately this is salutary: it's good to know the truth of things. But how painful it is to find that people you thought were in your band of brothers have defected to a different road, with entirely different premises about reality.
I'm not speaking of any personal affront. No one has done anything awful to me. But the number of companions on the journey keeps dwindling in ways I both humanly understand and have compassion for, and yet cannot help but receive as blows. I have a friend who's begun posting pictures of herself in an adulterous relationship, and they hurt my heart so deeply. It's not a matter, as she thinks, of "judging" her (her marriage has been hard for a long time and I totally understand the human desire to just grasp at a little tenderness and happiness. Women do get weary).
It's that my own longings in these days where innocence is constantly being crushed have gone the other direction. The more the adults of our time live for today and force their children to bear all the heavy burdens of life, the more I long for a restoration of innocence and purity and know that only a Savior can grant it. I am thinking of Christ's lament over Jerusalem, His longing to spread his wings over us like a mother hen but we would not.
Fr. Scalia with a good reflection on Judas and all these things.
