“He who is to come” (11:3)
Fr. Campbell
The
Son of God, Jesus Christ, is anointed King of all the earth and of
every nation, yet every year at this time there is a vicious campaign
against Him. It appears to be a campaign against Christmas, which is
really a war against Jesus Christ. For instance, Christmas movies, most
of them, present a Christless Christmas. Santa Claus is there but he is
not the holy St. Nicholas whose feast we celebrate. The modern Santa
Claus is completely paganized, and Jesus Christ is almost forgotten. If
we could only understand what is going on. Unbelievers, pagans, who hate
Jesus Christ and all he stands for, are controlling our lives through
the media. They want to make us forget our anointed Lord and King. With
few exceptions, they are our enemies.
Even
children’s movies and TV programs are vehicles for the devil to corrupt
the minds of the little ones. Children are now taught that vulgarity
and immodesty, crude jokes and situations, and crude language are
acceptable and funny. They are being prepared to accept worse things
later on. Our Lord gives this stern warning: “And whoever causes one of
these little ones who believe in me to sin, it were better for him if a
great millstone were hung about his neck, and he were thrown into the
sea” (Mk.9:41).
Pardon
the graphic language, but would you allow an intruder to break into
your home, beat up your wife and kids, and try to beat your brains out
with a baseball bat? Of course not! But we allow far worse than that
when we allow the media to corrupt the minds of our families and turn us
all into worse than the beasts (with apologies to the beasts). It’s
much easier to recover from physical abuse than from the terrible mental
and spiritual abuse that confronts us every day through the media.
Those agents of Satan who supply pornography on the internet are worse
than the demons themselves, so how can we cooperate in our own
destruction by looking into it? Who are these corrupters of our minds
and the minds of our children anyway? Who put them in charge? How dare
they invade our lives with their garbage!
Our
whole governmental, legal and judicial systems are being taken over by
enemies of Christ and His Church. How have we allowed it? We have not
been on our guard but have let the enemy walk away with all that is
important to us.
Since
Jesus Christ is our hope – “Now may the God of hope fill you with all
joy and peace in believing” (Rom.15:13a) – we must do all in our power
to restore to Him what has been stolen. The world is His and all that is
in it. Christmas is His birthday, but it has been turned into a pagan
bacchanal. Lets be campaigners for the restoration of the Catholic Feast
of Christmas!
Don’t
take part in the pagan revelry, the immodesty, the crassness of the
mindless mob. Restore the Feast of Christmas to Christ! Make it a true
celebration of the day the Prince of Peace entered our world, the
innocent and holy Child who was born to lead the nations into truth and
righteousness! Give Him His place of honor once more! Be obedient and
holy servants of Christ the King! Throw out the pagan celebration, which
is over the day after December 25th so that they can prepare
us for the next pagan bacchanal on New Year’s Eve. Celebrate the feast
of Christmas this year, the “twelve days of Christmas,” with carols and
festivities suitable to the Birthday of Christ the King! And remember
that Advent is to be a time of prayerful and penitential preparation for
the Feast itself.
We
have to be radicals. Our homes must be sanctuaries of goodness and
prayerfulness like the home of Mary and Joseph. We are not in debt to
the devil and his cohorts, but to Jesus Christ, who paid a great price
for our salvation – His innocent blood poured out upon the Cross. How
can we let Him down? How can we be the friends of those who caused His
bitter suffering and death, and who are now working day and night to
blot out His memory from the minds of men?
We
can’t lead double lives. We can’t be Catholics on Sunday and live like
pagans for the rest of the week. St. John the Baptist was not welcome in
polite Jerusalem circles. His appearance and clothing of animal skins
made him an oddity, an outcast on the fringe of society. He was despised
particularly by Herod’s wife, Herodias, because he publicly chastised
Herod for taking his brother’s wife. In the end he was thrown into
prison and was eventually beheaded due to the trickery of Herodias, and
her daughter Salome.
Because
John the Baptist was not a part of Jerusalem life and activity he was
able to take a good look at it and judge it for its worldly spirit, its
injustices and its obscenities. Jesus and His disciples also stood apart
from the crowd and were able to see through their hypocrisy. This is
what it takes. If you are immersed in the worldliness you don’t see it
for what it is, and you pass things off as not so bad. Then you start
living like the pagans live, and you will be swept to your destruction
along with them. Pray for them and for their salvation, but give them
the example of those who live for Christ the King.
The prophet Isaias (quoted by St. Paul) reminds us of who we are, and in Whom we must hope:
“Praise
the Lord, all you Gentiles; and sing His praises, all you peoples…
There shall be the root of Jesse, and He Who shall arise to rule the
Gentiles… in Him the Gentiles shall hope” (Rom.15:11,12). Lobbying!
Campaigning! Politicking! Pleading for dollars – billions of them at a
time! We live in a world in which people use every trick in the book to
get what they want. We just witnessed a political campaign which was the
most expensive and time consuming in history, and who is satisfied? The
worst may be yet to come.
What
does God think of all this?: “He who is throned in heaven laughs; the
Lord derides them; he terrifies them in his wrath: ‘I myself have set up
my king on Sion, my holy mountain’” (Ps.2:4-6).
