The Light which overcomes the Darkness!

On Friday morning, as I was researching this article I started feeling a little bit down and wondering what I could write. New scandals concerning priestly convictions for child abuse were breaking in the Church. The corruption of children through state sanctioned sex education was gathering pace. I read a piece from someone who has left the Catholic Church where he said, “I saw no indication that God was really in the details, that he was faithful to those who were faithful to him, or that he would do anything to stop a deepening crisis.”

I left my office and went down to speak with my wife. When she asked what was wrong I said, “I am looking for hope. Where is Hope to be found amidst the growing darkness.” It was a beautiful morning so we walked around the garden chatting and discussing the world we live in. There are some beautiful shrubs in our garden which are coming into flower. These types of realities are a part of what keeps me believing in God. The beauty of nature reveals the hand of God, the Divine artist, even when He seems to remain hidden. St Paul mentions this to the Romans as he speaks to them of those who reject God’s laws.

“Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God has manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity”

I have always known of the existence of God through His creation, even when I had abandoned my Catholic faith for a while in my late teenage years and early twenties. I have never doubted God’s existence. I knew that He was there but I didn’t really know Him. I was also living a sinful life which kept me from God’s presence and which was incompatible with the practice of the Catholic faith into which I was baptised. When one is living a sinful life, one has to justify the sin in order to be able to continue sinning.

St Paul, after speaking about the evidence of God from His creation, outlines to the Romans what happens to those who refuse to believe in God.

“Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and of four footed beasts, and of creeping things.

Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error.

And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers, detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy.

Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.”

St Paul could be writing about modern Ireland or about many of our western democracies. Men, hell bent on indulging their sexual appetites without restraint, have even gone so far as to legalise the killing of the innocent human fruits of their lusts. It is obvious that they know that this is wrong, because they also deny the humanity of their innocent victims. These advocates for abortion will strenuously claim to be against child abuse and other forms of cruelty to children all the while promoting child murder and encouraging children to become sexually active.

Others want to legalise prostitution. What these men seek to do is to ‘normalise’ casual sexual encounters and to distort the meaning of the sexual act so that they can indulge their passions. It should not be a surprise to anyone, that this would eventually lead to the sexualisation of children and to attempts to ‘normalise’ sexual acts both with and amongst children.

In my recent presentations I mention Dr Jennifer Roback Morse and I quote from her book ‘The Sexual State’ where she explains that, because the ideologies of the sexual revolution are false, they constantly need to be propped up by the power of the State.

“The ideology needs government coercion, media propaganda, economic restructuring and educational indoctrination to break the connection between sex and babies in the social order and in people’s minds.”

The connection between sex and marriage and between marriage and babies is also broken. The State uses mind-control propaganda techniques, which are constantly repeated and bombarded at the citizens to achieve this end.

Dr Jennifer Roback Morse founded ‘The Ruth Institute’ to show clearly what is going on and to offer help to those who seek to protect their children from the decadence. I highly recommend a visit to her website – https://ruthinstitute.org/ You can also download a free booklet – ‘Protecting your Family from the Top 5 Gay Myths’ when you sign up to the e-mail list.

We are all affected by the pornified culture in which we exist and it is easy to fall for the temptations that are constantly before us. St Paul tells us that this is the direct result of rejecting God. This is also the first temptation that satan presented to Eve in the garden of Eden.

“No, you shall not die the death. For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5)

Man desires to take the place of God, to become godlike, and to exalt himself above God by declaring certain evils as good and passing legislation which enables the evil actions. When this does not work out, the blame is placed elsewhere. Adam blames Eve and even dares to suggest that it is God’s fault for putting the woman with him in the garden. Eve blames the serpent.

“And Adam said: The woman, whom thou gave me to be my companion, gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

And the Lord God said to the woman: Why hast thou done this? And she answered: The serpent deceived me, and I did eat.” (Genesis 3:12-13)

Nothing has really changed. Those who complain that God does not seem to care enough to intervene in the affairs of sinful man, seek to place the responsibility for the current darkness on God. If God does not act, then He must not exist. This is circular logic which ignores Who God is and which ignores the great gift that God has given to us, namely, our free will.

We may not all share equal responsibility for the darkness that engulfs our nations but we all share some responsibility for it and we have a duty to do our part to relieve the burden of darkness in our world.

St John tells us: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (I John 1:8-10)

St Paul confirms this in his letter to the Romans. “For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:22-23)

One of the attributes of God is that He is infinitely Good. Evil cannot exist in God and God is incapable of creating anything Evil. God is not directly responsible for the evil actions of angels or of men, even though it is on account of the gift of free will, which comes from God, that men are capable of sinning.

The Catholic Encyclopaedia of 1917 gives some insight into this problem. If we accept that God is infinitely Good, it follows that the gift of our free will is also good, even though it allows us to commit sins against God. God does not Will the sins, but He permits them because free will is a Godlike good.

God knew from the beginning the extent of evil that would enter into the world through man’s misuse of his free will. Because God is infinitely Good, we can say with certainty, that, “it is better that God should have created free beings capable of sinning than that He should not have created free beings at all.”

It also follows from God’s infinite Goodness “that sin is hateful to God and essentially opposed to His infinite holiness, and that the wilful discord which sin introduces into the harmony of the universe will somehow be set right in the end.”

God cannot be thwarted in His plans even though it is possible for us to exclude ourselves from the great good that God has in store for us, by our freely chosen rejection of Him. Our greatest fear should be for the salvation of souls, beginning with our own.

“And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28)

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is prudence.” (Proverbs 9:10)

Our personal sins are the only thing capable of separating us from God. Whilst others may influence us or tempt us to commit sin, each sin we commit is an act of our free will. We cannot sin accidently. Sin is always a conscious action.

When St Paul complained about a certain trial he was under he asked God three times to remove it from him. God’s response to St Paul is for us too.

“And lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt me, there was given me a sting of my flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me. For which thing thrice I besought the Lord, that it might depart from me. And he said to me: My grace is sufficient for thee; for power is made perfect in infirmity.” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9)

Our struggles both internal and external, when viewed through the Catholic faith, keep us humble and force us to realise that all power comes from God and that without God we can do nothing.

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine: you the branches: he that abides in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit: for without me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4-5)

Herein lies the secret to holiness and to overcoming the darkness which surrounds us. We must abide in Christ and permit Him to abide in us by keeping His commandments and by striving to help others to do so as well.

Yesterday evening my wife and I went to the Sacred Heart Church in Limerick to partake in the novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This great feast-day is on Friday 16th June this year. We arrived shortly after confession was finished and I was disappointed as I desired to go to confession on account of my morning dejection. Just before Holy Mass began, two priests of The Institute of Christ the King entered the confessionals to hear confessions. I was so thankful for confession, for Holy Mass in Latin, and for the Novena and Benediction afterwards. I came away refreshed once again, ready to do battle and to continue the struggle to become holy. No doubt there will be moments of sadness as so many people choose to live in darkness rather than come to the light. But we must never give up hope for the salvation of souls and for the return of the ‘lost sheep’.

“What man of you that hath an hundred sheep: and if he shall lose one of them, doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, and go after that which was lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, lay it upon his shoulders, rejoicing: And coming home, call together his friends and neighbours, saying to them: Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost?

I say to you, that even so there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need not penance.” (Luke 15:4-7)

I would like to finish with an extract from the prologue of St John’s Gospel, which is read at the end of the Latin Mass. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the Light which overcomes the darkness. Let us learn to trust absolutely in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, formed in the virginal womb of the virgin Mary constantly reminding ourselves that in the end, her Immaculate Heart will Triumph.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

 The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” (John 1:1-5)

May God bless you,

John Lacken
Caherea
Lissycasey
Ennis
Co Clare V95 T6D0

E-mail: john@truedevotions.ie

Tel: +353 (0)85-1208779

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