Because Wickedness is Multiplied
“And because wickedness is multiplied, most men’s love will grow cold.” (Mt 24:12)
Jesus foretold of this coldness, this chilling of the heart toward one another, because of the growth, the multiplication, of wickedness among men in the Last Days. We can see, I believe, this ugly, bitter fruit of evil growing among us even now. A growing distrust – a growing impatience – a growing cynicism that suspects the other as enemy. Even in one’s own home, and family – workplace, and church – the buyer, and the seller – what is he working against me? What harm to me, like an arrow, is drawn back in his bow? What is he really saying? What is he really planning, scheming, in the back of his mind?
Wickedness is growing! Chasms of separateness are being revealed between us, the one and the other, and the old bridges seem to be collapsing before our disbelieving eyes: how can this be? What happened to the bonds of past days? Why does he seem so cold – distant?
I look at our national leaders, and see two factions as if in a fight to the death! Not two approaches to the best for our country – for the common good of us all – but a clash of enemies having no compromise admissible, allowable, or even possible. I look at my Church – Catholic, universal – and I see progressives against conservatives, traditionalists opposing modernists, seekers of God in prayer confronted by seekers of human rights in law. I see, in our holy Church, factions of ideology in the same conflict as our secular cousins – different uniforms, different vocabularies, different playing fields, but the same goals, the same futile end, the same bitter fruit: a growing institutional coldness.
What are the faithful to do, as the tide of evil rises? Where ought we to turn, as the consequent winds of contradiction and controversy grow in fury? We must remember our Lord. Jesus taught us about the wise man, in such a time:
“Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. (Mt 7:24-25)
Our house – our home – must be built upon the rock. Our Church must be built upon the Rock, and our Domestic Church – our personal home – must be built upon the Rock. The work of building, the constructing, the assembling, must be the works and the material of Truth, of Light, of Life. The foundation upon which the building stands or falls must be True, of the Light, of His Life: then it will stand, then it will not fall. The foundation must be the Rock, our Lord, our eternal God.
Jesus taught this parable to all and any having ears to hear. The world is not interested, not listening, not hearing. The Church? Are we listening? Are we hearing? Are we learning? The teachings of Jesus are wisdom: precious, priceless, potent. This Rock is eternal. His Truth is rock-solid and cannot perish: He will always be true. And we? Will we listen, and learn, while there is time? Will the Church be Church, living her mission to be Light for the world, as darkness and dying creep into and among us, the light fading into night, the hearts of men cooling and hardening as wickedness grows?
Friends, while there is light, let us seek Him in holy prayer more and more, listening to Him in His Holy Word, holding Him close, tight, until His Word, His Truth, presses into our hearts and lives making us new! Let us be done with the compromises and contradictions of half-hearted religion, and double-minded believing! Let our “Yes!” to Him be single-minded and pure; let us guard the integrity of our hearts – His altar is holy! Let us be enkindled with the fire of the one Holy Spirit – the fire that consumes not life but death, the fire that is not of death but is of eternal life.
