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  Do you know the story of the 3 little pigs?

It’s a cute  children’s tale that teaches an important moral lesson. The story is this: 3 little pigs go out and build their homes to guard against the “big bad wolf” who wants to destroy them, to eat them.

“Little pig, little pig, let me come in,” the wolf bellows to the first little pig, who built his house with straw.  “Not by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin,” the pig says. “Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll BLOW your house down!” cried the wolf.

So he huffed and he puffed and —because the first house was made of straw—he BLEW the house down —and had ham for dinner.

The wolf came to the second little pig’s house. That little pig had built his house with twigs. The huffing and puffing was again successful, and the wolf had ham for 2 nights in a row.

Not satisfied—he went to the house of the third little pig.  But he could not blow the house down because this little pig was smart and had built his house out of bricks. The wolf  huffed and puffed until he was out of breath, and then tried to get in through the chimney. But the pig had a plan there too.  The little pig  put a boiling pot of water on the fire in the fireplace and, to make a long story short, ended up having wolf for dinner.

So the moral of the story is that we need to build our houses with something strong enough to withstand the storms of life, the wolf at the door, the terror of the night,  and the arrow that flies by day.

And that lesson is important for us today as we see what is going on in the world.

We need to build a house of bricks to prepare for the gathering storm. We need bricks of courage, to stand for the Truth no matter the cost. We need bricks of Faith and Prayer, to be committed to Jesus no matter the consequences. We need bricks of preparedness, to gather together and pray, to form and strengthen communities of believers who do God’s will and present His message of hope with determination and fearlessness. We need bricks of community to gather people together to support and help each other –and others in need— to get us all  through these storms.  We need a Missionary Spirit, the Spirit of Saint Juniperro Serra, who despite infirmities and hardships tirelessly brought the Love of Christ to the people of the Southwest.

And we need a cornerstone. Our cornerstone—the cornerstone of our house of bricks– is Jesus Christ.  He is our Rock and our Redeemer, the source of our strength.  We need to make a firm commitment to Him and  to Truth, no matter the cost.

And sadly, it appears that there will be a cost for the true followers of Christ, even in America, which began as a country founded upon Judeo-Christian principles and prospered exponentially as a result of its foundation. “America is great because America is good,” wrote Alexis de Tocqueville.  “And when America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

As the Communist goals of the last century have been achieved one by one, especially #’s 27 and 28—eliminate prayer in schools, in the towns, and infiltrate the churches—America’s goodness has been on the decline.  And as God is shoved out of every corner, what replaces Him is corruption and the poverty, crime, and utter chaos that every Godless society experiences.  As we’ve tolerated evil and have now codified evil in American law, the next progression is not far behind.  Those who oppose evil will, in an insane irony, be looked  at as the ones who are evil, who are the ones to be destroyed, who are the ones targeted for persecution.

Christians and those of all denominations are being persecuted in every country now.  As we see the destruction of our culture, of our heritage, our symbols of greatness and holiness destroyed—our churches burned, our statues defaced, our people attacked by self-described Marxist groups, we need to understand that what they are doing to symbols of Mary and Jesus and our churches may soon be done to us. They hate our churches because they hate us. They hate us because they hate Christ.  And they are now beginning to express that hatred with violence.

John 15:18 “If the world hates you, remember that it hated Me first.”

John 15:19 “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. that is why the world hates you. 20 Remember what I told you, ” a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.”

A wise pastor once said the power of our faith is in the gathering—the power of Christ is in the gathering together of His people to pray.

Jesus said, “Whenever 2 or more are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them.”

We need to be praying together like never before and gathering together like never before. We need to be going to Mass and receiving the Eucharist more, not less.  And yet we can’t.

Some of the shepherds in the hierarchy of the Catholic church do not wait for persecution by civil authorities  to  persecute their own sheep. They close churches proactively, folding before the slightest whiff of  discrimination against Christians by local authorities.

Archbishop  Fulton Sheen once said that the clergy will fold and fail at some point in the future and that it is up to the laity to revive the church.  Apparently, that point is now.  We need to SPEAK.

When we speak up we are not detracting our church leaders, we are encouraging them to have the fortitude to face this challenge with bravery and prayer and to lead and feed their flocks as they are meant to do, as is their vocation.

Do not be afraid to respectfully criticize those who fold like a cheap suit at the first sight of government infringement on the rights of believers. Your time is now to stand up for what is right and to encourage those who are too timid to speak out against injustice to begin to find their voice.

I was puzzled by the lack of response from the Catholic Bishops about all that is going on until I saw this wonderful sermon by Fr. Altman. * “What did they ever do to you in the seminary that made you all so afraid to speak up?”

Now I understand. The reason why many priests and Bishops are afraid to speak the truth is because if they were the type of people who spoke the truth, they would not — in many dioceses—have been made priests.  This is also the reason why unfathomable crimes were covered up and shrouded in silence in the church hierarchy during the last century or so. Everyone was afraid to speak up because those who did lost everything.

But Father Altman is one of few who does have the courage to speak the truth.  And others—the many other good priests and bishops who were cowed by corrupt superiors into silence and have not lost the desire to “fly under the radar”  during crises—can be convinced  by us, the laity, to find their courage and begin to speak up for the people; to regain their passion for ministry and begin to be true shepherds and saints, unafraid of the hardships that will come from truly following Christ.

There are of course others who can be counted among the persecutors, unfortunately even within our own church.  Read Bella Dodd’s “School of Darkness” and  Dr. Taylor Marshall’s  “Infiltration” to see the history of how the infiltration of our country is unfortunately true for our church as well. The Catholic church, the church that Christ founded, His Bride, has always been a great threat to evil, a great enemy to satan, and conquering it from within thereby neutralizing it as a force against evil was a necessary goal in order for the father of lies to destroy the good.

In any case, the time is now to speak up—respectfully but bravely—so that the good but timid priests and bishops come out of hiding and join the fight against evil.  Courage is contagious. Spread it around.

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P.S. I once saw a funny video depicting a man who absent-mindedly used hand sanitizer to bless himself as he entered a grocery store. Various people wrote funny captions for the gaffe. But it got me to thinking. If grocery stores are allowed to open but churches are not, why not gather to pray at the store? Today we are permitted to  feed the body but not the soul, which makes no sense. But if we are already at a location in order to feed the body, why not feed the soul too? Why not get creative as we move into the catacomb-Christian phase of persecution?

I am certainly not saying that it is a good substitute. But maybe it’s time to find creative ways to gather for the most essential activity we have as human beings—worshipping God.

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*https://youtu.be/1xM6-N0NfjY God bless Fr. Altman!