By Brian K. Kravec
I love you.
I sense our dialogue becoming rather contentious and this is something that I’d like to address as it actually frightens me to see that the enemy is working over-time and using our best personal intentions and convictions to divide us.
I’m much better at writing than speaking on the spot. So, writing out my thoughts is much better and charitable than tripping over my own brokenness in the spur of the moment and giving old red legs a crack to slither through.
No, I have not sat down with a black man to ask him what it’s like being black. To be clear, this is not to be interpreted or judged as an affront to people of color or imply, in any sense, that I am insensitive or disinterested or in denial of the absolute evil of racism.
Indeed, racism is REAL and it is EVIL. I’m one birthday shy of 60 and I’ve spent 25 years working in the most oppressively hostile melting pot of maximum security prisons. I understand oppression, spiritual and social and racial, and I have witnessed first-hand its deep scourges on humanity.
To be clear, I am very much an activist when it comes to combating the horror we are seeing unfold in our lives.
What I’ve done and am doing is prayerfully examining what is happening through the lens of my Catholicism. This isn’t to imply that I think you are not. Though, since we all share the same faith, I believe I would be remiss in my love for you and Holy Mother Church were I not to bring this into our dialogue and rally you to do the same.
It is to emphasize that this is what I believe I must do to decisively enter the battle as a baptized member of the Body of Christ. This isn’t preaching religion. This is me responding radically in faith as I believe we are called to do in this hour.
This is THE hour to live our faith as we have never lived it before. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. This, unfortunately, according to scripture, Church teaching, and the revelation of prophetic word, cannot be averted though it can be mitigated by the prayers and sacrifices of the faithful.
Since we all share the same faith, I believe that I can speak freely and with passion in this regard. I am specifically responding in a manner that I find is being universally encouraged by those within the Church – that is to fast and pray – to go deep with intention to enter the spiritual battle, as a Catholic, against the powers and principalities that are truly at the root of this historic confrontation prophesied by St. John Paul II more than 40 years ago.
I firmly believe that this battle isn’t about the color of my skin or your skin. It’s about generations – centuries – of failing to see (freely choosing to not see) and to not love God in whose image all people are created. That is what I mean by stating that the root of all this evil is in our free will not being rooted in the Divine Will of God.
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
I firmly believe – as we are told in Scripture and what is affirmed in public and private revelation – that we are reaping what we have sown in failing to love God with our whole being and failing to love our neighbor as ourself.
The same dark, spiritual forces driving the chaos today are the same powers and principalities driving the horror of abortion, genocide, euthanasia, addiction, pornography, racism, adultery, domestic violence and every social injustice and assault on mankind and family since the fall of man.
I cannot align myself in good conscience, even with the hashtag of BLM, knowing as an informed Catholic, the original tenants of the founders. This does not constitute, on my part or on the part of the Church which I consult to inform my response, a watering down or erasing of the history (or current tragedy) of the oppression of our black brothers and sisters.
This is not to dismiss the injustice and inhumane treatment suffered by people of color which at its root is the failure to recognize the very God in whose image we are created.
Personally and socially, I must guard myself, my spirit and my mind, from being swept up in the propaganda of BLM that the secular media constructs to dominate the narrative and manipulate our intellect and sensibilities. I am not a puppet. I believe that to be swept up and carried away in this cold and dangerous current is to make myself subject – even unconsciously – to the destructive and divisive power of its deception distracting me from my true purpose in the battle. Personally, I believe I can engage the enemy very effectively without repeating “the mantra” while being able to justify my position with intelligent defense and explanation.
The devil is the father of lies – a master manipulator – and he would like nothing more than to have us consumed by the emotions of this tragedy while neglecting to deploy the most powerful weapons of our faith and engage him in this spiritual war; weapons such as the Holy Mass, the Word of God, Fasting, the Holy Rosary, and Eucharistic Adoration. St. Padre Pio told us that the rosary is the weapon against evil for our times (second only to the Holy sacrifice of the Mass).
To understand and respond to this clarion call is as much a universal cause and witness, as a Catholic, in solidarity and support of those who uphold and defend the true dignity of all human beings in this present darkness.
We are not opposed. We are not the enemy of the other. To act or respond or judge as if we are is to give the victory to him who seeks only to divide us and the Body of Christ. We each have our individual charisms and we are each called to a different activism in response to what is happening. As for me, I am fighting on my knees, rosary in hand, as a part of HER army and HER heal that will crush the head of Satan. Genesis 3:15
St. Philomena, who stimulates the faith and courage of the faithful, pray for us.
In God’s Love,
Brian