Photo Courtesy Mont Saint Michel

Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael

The stunning image is of Mont Saint Michel Abbey in Normandy, France, takes me back to a journey there before my conversion. That trip comes to mind because after my friend and I climbed the 350 steps to enter into the Abbey, we’d no idea we were witnessing the celebration of a Catholic Mass. Nor had I any idea of who Mont Saint Michel was honoring. Or even what an Abbey was.

And yet, within ten years, I’d become Catholic and a Benedictine Oblate. I must remind myself periodically, that I was just as lost as the people I write about below, those living in deadly fear of followers of Christ. It looks and sounds like anger, even rage, but it’s fear. I know, I used to live there.

The Christian liturgy celebrates the feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael on September 29th. Three days later on October 2nd, we celebrate our Guardian angels. Catholics of a certain age were brought up believing, even trusting and praying to their Guardian Angels. For the rest of us, the notion of such heavenly beings is fitting fodder for television and fantasy. In this post-Christian-now, anti-Christian age, the notion of heavenly beings is comedic. Like John Travolta playing Michael.

More recently, however, we read that satanists are drawing members because of a “real fear of Christian nationalism,” Religious studies professor Joseph Laycock’s statement prompted my look into this new label, Christian nationalist and its insistence on the intrinsic evil of “whiteness.”

We dearly love our labels for they take us by the hand to lure us into the facile, perhaps demonic, categories of Us vs Them

The content and number of hits for Christian nationalism is startling and sobering.

From Time Magazine:

The term “white Christian nationalism” has recently emerged in the social sciences and the media as a way of describing the worldview [of Trumpism] … The toxic blend of ethno-religious identity politics has become central to the trajectory of the contemporary Republican Party, two thirds of whom identify as white and Christian….

We white Christians no longer represent the majority of Americans. We are no longer capable of setting the nation’s course by sheer cultural and political dominance. But there are still more than enough of us to decisively derail the future of democracy in America.

Excerpt adapted from The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and a Path to a Shared American Future by Robert P. Jones, Time Magazine

And from PBS:

Brad Onishi, Co-Host, “Straight White American Jesus”: Christian nationalism is an ideology that is based around the idea that this is a Christian nation, that this was founded as a Christian nation, and, therefore, it should be a Christian nation today and should be so in the future.

According to survey data, Christian nationalists agree with statements like the federal government should declare the United States of America a Christian nation. Our laws should be based on Christian values. being a Christian is important if you want to be a real American….

They also are deeply invested in the notion of spiritual warfare, the idea that we are called as Christians to fight a cosmic battle between good and evil, and that it’s our duty to be boots on the ground for God in that conflict. What this has led to some decades later is, the New Apostolic Reformation leaders, the apostles and the prophets that are really at the head of this movement were some of the earliest to support Donald Trump in 2016.

And they have remained steadfast in that support. They were at the very avant-garde of trying to get the 2020 election overturned in the wake of Joe Biden’s victory and mobilizing folks to be at January 6. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of New Apostolic Reformation Christians at January 6, as an example.

What is Christian Nationalism and Why it Threatens Democracy

Back to the angels,

Modern physics lends credence to other realities:

Most likely, you have  have read the startling findings of what physicists call dark energy and dark matter. That over ninety six percent of the universe is composed of ‘dark energy’ and ‘dark matter.’  That’s worth a repeat. We perceive only 4 percent of what surrounds us.

In his book The 4 Percent Universe, physicist Richard  Panek writes about the puzzling riddles that remain unsolved. 

“”Dark,” cosmologists call it, in what could go down in history as the ultimate semantic surrender. This is not “dark” as in distant or invisible. This is not “dark” as in black holes or deep space. This is “dark” as in unknown for now, and possibly forever: 23 percent something mysterious that they call dark matter, 73 percent something even more mysterious that they call dark energy. Which leaves only 4 percent the stuff of us. As one theorist likes to say at public lectures, “We’re just a bit of pollution.” Get rid of us and of everything else we’ve ever thought of as the universe, and very little would change. “We’re completely irrelevant,” he adds, cheerfully….

The overwhelming majority of the universe is: who knows?”

The 4 Percent Uiniverse

Statements like his cast some doubt on our prevailing sense of reality.

Or should.

But ignorance doesn’t stop us.

Especially if we’ve expended gazillion dollars, effort and energy in obtaining terminal degrees. I doubled over laughing when I got Dr. Brian Keating’s lastest piece, “Why Your PhD Makes You More Likely to Believe Nonsense. Not for the first time, I reflected on the events surrounding completing my doctorate as gift. Although at the time, it was harrowing.

On the morning I was to defend my dissertation, I came to work early. And found my boss, a man I admired deeply, packing his office. Despite his astounding success in saving Hermann Hospital in the Texas Medical Center from financial insolvency, the Board of Trustrees fired him. Three hours later, the fourth member of my dissertation committee arrived thirty minutes late. And proceeded to rant that my dissertation was a shambles, full of inconsistencies and error and he could not sign off on it. And then stormed out of the room.

My advisor and the two remaining members of my committee were fittingly distressed and apologetic. Apparently, the physician was an alcoholic and was lilely drunk. But I was numb and barely remember my advisor Steve quietly telling me not to worry, He would get me registered for the next semester and would ‘fix’ what was necessary. I would graduate in June.

He did.

And I did.

Arrogant ignorance

is a brilliant definition of pride that I read somewhere recently. The phrase explains the blessings of my anguish upon completing my forty-five chapter textbook and later, the doctorate. At the time, however, they felt more like curses.

These humiliations are imperative:

I suspect I’m one of the few people who, upon finishing their doctorate at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Housto, sat on the steps of the school and sobbed.

It took close to ten years to complete the course work, the qualifying exams and the dissertation-while working full time.

So why not joyous celebration?

A very simple answer. My goal had been wisdom, in undergrad and then the doctoral program. But with each degree I knew less and less. I couldn’t find what I searched for in a classroom or a professor’s theory or the receipt of letters after my name. At the time, it felt that all that study, sacrifice and energy had been an exercise in futility.

Of course this humiliation was ginormous grace from God.

• I had to be flattened to get back on my knees.
• And see there is just one source of wisdom.
• I had to understand there are just two answers to the questions imposed on us in this life:

Joseph Ratzinger and the Divine Project

Essential warriors?

Just as we’ve no concept of the depth of our ignorance, we’re equally blind and deaf to satan’s superior cunning and undiluted hatred of humanity. I’d not considered before how cleverly American politics have been demonically perverted, nor had I thought about the dangers of my faith to those compelling writers and their followers who are convinced that I’m not just another idealogue. I’m a very dangerous one.

And I understand-sort of-the profound hatred of some to all that Charlie Kirk stood for.

Mine and clearly Kirk’s are no ideology, CatholicChristianity was founded by Jesus who placed Saint Peter as the head of his Church:

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”

The longer I’m given the privilege of participating in the Mass and sacraments, the deeper I feel my obligation to offer reparation, penance and fasting for those who don’t know Jesus. Those who are as lost as I once was.

These are not mere word games- we’re talking about our eternal souls.

Of course we need Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael: Essential Warriors!

Let us pray, “Saint Michael, free me from confusion, let the light of Christ guide my thoughts and decisions, we beg you for the grace of spiritual clarity. Let His light be a lamp to my feet on this my pilgrimmage of the Christian life.”…

“Saint Michael your name is a question filled with awe:

“Who is like God?”

Your vocation is to reveal His power and His

wisdom and so your name teaches us that

nothing can compare with His might

and goodness. What is there that we cannot hope to

receive from God’s hand through your intercession and care?

We entrust to you the intentions we bring to you in this

Novena: for Holy Church in her trials, for our

homelamds so much in need of healing and grace, for our families….

Saint Michael novena Day seven

In conclusion, Chris Stefanick’s twenty-minute video warrants our close attention;

“I don’t care who you voted for!”

Chris Stefanick