SOME words of
St. Paul in his letter to the Romans appear
to be a good description of today’s trouble in the world.
In that
letter, he describes the troubles and identifies the
cause.
worthwhile to remit the whole text if only to realize how
St. Paul
ably captured the why-and-wherefore of today’s troubles.
To wit, he
says:
“The wrath of
God is being revealed from heaven against
all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who
suppress the truth
by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is
plain to
them, because God has made it plain to them.
“For since the
creation of the world God’s invisible
qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been
clearly seen,
being understood from what has been made, so that people
are without
excuse.
“For although
they knew God, they neither glorified him as
God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became
futile and their
foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be
wise, they
became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God
for images
made to look like a mortal human being and birds and
animals and
reptiles.
“Therefore God
gave them over in the sinful desires of
their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of
their bodies with
one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a
lie, and
worshipped and served created things rather than the
Creator…
“Because of
this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.
Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for
unnatural
ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural
relations with
women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men
committed
shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves
the due
penalty for their error.
“Furthermore,
just as they did not think it worthwhile to
retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a
depraved mind,
so that they do what ought not to be done. They have
become filled
with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.
They are
full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are
gossips,
slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful.
“They invent
ways of doing evil; they disobey their
parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no
love, no mercy.
Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who
do such
things deserve death, they not only continue to do these
very things
but also approve of those who practice them.”
I consider
these words a bullseye description of the
situation of much of the world today. Let us hope that we
react to
these words properly by launching a deep desire to return
to God, to
be most faithful to his teaching as taught and shown by
Christ, and
now by the Church. This is not going to be an easy task,
but neither
is it impossible.
And as St. Paul
himself recommended, let us help one
another in this task of going back to God in such a way
that we would
be “mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.” (Rom
1,12) This should
be a concern of everyone.
As we approach
the celebration of the 5th centennial of
the Christianization of our country, let us hope that we
grow in our
faith, attaining a more mature faith able to see God
everywhere, to
cooperate as fully as possible in his will and ways, one
that is
operative, knowing how to gain more ground in our
spiritual life and
more able to bear our human frailties and resist
temptations and sin.
Let’s hope that
we can have a faith that knows how to undo
or resolve the moral troubles we have at present.
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