As tensions mount in our social fault lines, a new splendor dawns. The singular victory of an Unstained Heart is disguised only in the disfigurement caused by cacophonies of judgment, accusation and blame. Families may turn against each other - the powerful against the vulnerable, the prideful against the lowly, the rich against the poor, the born against the unborn - but holy truth shines where least expected, flashing forth free, liberating from the cold harsh shackles of a merely material existence. Through a maternal fiat, the Lord of Peace extends his reign even as calamity grips the world and whole churches wonder whether to pray.
What this mother's Son is doing in the world is a painful question before which all speech fails. Do we find ourselves at the threshold of events that anticipate the end of time? If the conscience is at peace, there is nothing that cannot be faced. Sun and moon can fall from the sky but we have a Word that lasts forever. In the end, Love wins - love alone remains. That is why we have had the courage to camp on doom's precipice for quite some time, crying out with the Bride's hope-filled prayer, "Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!" If this is chastisement, we believe that it is the Divine Action of the One who works in human history with loving discipline, lest left to our own devices, we destroy ourselves.
The idolatry of success and security is shaken to the ground of truth when the Son of Mary comes in judgment: if you have been shaken, the Lord who loves you is nearby. Earthly dreams are dispelled before the dawn of heaven. Under the shadow of this glory, cry out to the Lamb who was slain for He opens horizons so much more meaningful that the boorishness of the latest cause and convention. By simple conversion of heart, this Cornerstone holds us together, building us into a temple that will never pass away. By this mystical Body, in society's very fault lines, God's love reshapes the world.
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