By Judie Brown
In presidential historian Jon Meacham’s most recent book The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, he writes:
“In our finest hours . . . the soul of the country manifests itself in an inclination to open our arms rather than to clench our fists; to look out rather than to turn inward; to accept rather than to reject. In so doing, America has grown ever stronger, confident that the choice of light over dark is the means by which we pursue progress.”
The sentiments expressed in this statement sound mighty fine, but the truth of the matter is that they are wrong.
On a daily basis, we witness the fact that hordes of Americans do not open their arms in welcome to certain members of our society—the preborn child, the ailing, or the elderly. On the contrary, we have laws and courts’ decisions that support the self-centered. In our midst are countless citizens who clench their fists in attitudes designed to preserve their personal rights as they reject anyone who might inconvenience them in any way. It does not matter whether we are talking about pregnancy or someone in the family who might require us to sacrifice of ourselves for their well-being. So many of us clench our fists and reject such vulnerability as beneath us.
Hordes of Americans do not open our arms to welcome the preborn child or the ailing or the elderly. No, on the contrary we have laws and court decisions that support the self-centered.
— Judie Brown (@Judie_Brown) February 18, 2019
We do not accept that which we do not feel suits us. We reject the very individuals who need us to love them unconditionally without counting personal cost. So, clearly, many do choose darkness rather than light; such people choose the demon and not the angel.
Bishop Thomas Olmstead of Phoenix, Arizona, articulated this very sentiment eloquently in a recent homily entitled “Do Not Rejoice in Wrong-Doing”:
“Love does not rejoice over wrong-doing but rejoices with the truth.” (1 Cor 6) This key teaching of God about love instructs us on how to interpret the horrific “rejoicing over wrong-doing” that occurred when the governor of New York State gleefully signed an infamous abortion bill into law and led those around him in a raucous applause. They applauded the fact that unborn children, the most innocent and vulnerable among us, now, have no legal protection in New York State. This is demonic! The Second Vatican Council called abortion “an unspeakable crime (Gaudium et spes, 51).” Pope Francis recently said that abortion is like hiring a hitman to murder the innocent. St. John Paul II wrote (58):
The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behavior and even in law itself, is a telling sign of the extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake. Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name. . . . In this regard the reproach of the Prophet is extremely straightforward: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Is 5:20).
The truth of this insightful teaching could not be more obvious. Killing is of the evil one. St. John Paul II could not have been clearer when he taught:
“No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church.”
Our opposition to these crimes against God and human dignity must be pursued with zeal but also with love and charity. Again, we quote Bishop Olmsted, who said,
“If we but persevere in hope, we will discover a deeper truth: God is with us. If we persevere, we will discover the wisdom St. Paul describes in Philippians 4:13, ‘In God who is the source of my strength, I have strength for all.’”
In Him, and through the intercession of His Blessed Mother Mary, we will find the courage to persist in driving the demon out of our nation’s soul.