Germany experienced a terror attack last week, in which a gunman fired into a crowd.
According to the German government, the gunman, who was an Irani-German who some observers said was yelling “Allah Akbar,” was not an Islamic terrorist but a right-wing neo-Nazi who modeled his actions on the the tragedy at Columbine.
The week before that, an Islamic terrorist murdered innocents by driving a vehicle into a crowd that was celebrating Bastille Day.
During the same time period, Turkey experienced an attempted coup, and three ISIS suicide bombers killed 80 people and wounded over 200 others in Kabul.
The week before that, another gunman, who was yelling about Allah, killed 50 people and wounded others in a gay bar in Florida.
Meanwhile, the Republicans nominated Donald Trump for president. Right now, he’s experiencing a post-convention bounce that makes him a contender in several electoral-vote rich states.
His running mate, Governor Mike Pence of Indiana, is the only pro life person in the upcoming race. But he betrayed all of us last year by signing a bill that destroyed the Indiana Religious Freedom Act.
Ironically, he had just signed this bill into law a few days before he back-tracked and destroyed it. He betrayed us at the behest of business interests. If he’s our pro-life hope, we do have a problem.
The Democratic Party begins its national convention this week. They claim they will demonstrate more dignity at their convention than the Republicans did at theirs.
They might pull that off. After all, the Rs didn’t set the bar that high. But there is a worm in the Democratic chili.
Wikileaks has released 20,000 internal DNC emails showing that, as Mr Trump said, the primary elections were “rigged.”
The party machine evidently decided they wanted Secretary Clinton to be the party’s nominee. They backed it up with underhanded machinations. That, of course, is why the super delegates, who are all party people and whose votes are necessary to put her over, backed her.
Democrat press outlets are running the party’s line, advancing the moronic claim that the DNC’s actions didn’t make that much difference. Meanwhile, the Republican press extracts embarrassing tidbits from the emails and brandishes them about.
In the midst of all this, the world’s Catholic youth are beginning a week of holy happiness in Poland. The 26th World Youth Day is underway, and our Holy Father has begun it by telling us to Have the courage to be happy.
Islamic terrorists are blowing up, running over, and shooting innocent people. Politicos are lying, conniving, betraying and bowing before the corporate money god that rules their every action.
And our Holy Father tells us Have the courage to be happy.
Be happy in the face of a press that will not stop flogging us with lies, manipulations and propaganda?
Be happy despite the murderous unpredictability of young men who shout about their god while channelling satan?
Be happy when there is no meaningful pro life, pro family, pro religious freedom presence on this year’s presidential ticket?
Is he naive?
No.
He’s not naive. He is Peter.
He is speaking to us from an eternal perspective where the mercy of Christ means you and I can personally know and relate to the God Who made everything, everywhere. He is reminding us that the battle is already won, and Jesus Christ is the Victor; that we are children of the living God and heirs to eternal life.
We can choose to Have the courage to be happy, to live the peace that passes all understanding, and move forward with the conviction of our faith. We can do it because we are Christ’s followers, not the world’s.
Americans have the power to change their government. But we cannot do it by allowing ourselves to be used as pawns. We can do it by following Christ.
Political parties are not churches. They are power-seeking organizations. They are tools. In the wrong hands, they become weapons.
If we want to play the political game we must get off our knees before the false idols of power, greed, and political partisanship and accept reality on reality’s terms. Reality is that a true Christian serves Christ and Him only. Christians are the not the pawns of any earthly power or potentate. They are free.
Our vocation is to convert the world to Christ. We cannot do that unless we turn from following the little ‘g’ gods of this world and follow the real God.
If we follow Him and Him only, there is no fear, and no failure. We can survey the sorrows of our time and know that the battle is ours. We can look at all of it and Have the courage to be happy.