The fact that Japan remains a pagan country has been a niggling bother for me ever since I was a child reading on the history of the Church. At the absolute height of its power Spain could have cracked the heathen fortresses like walnuts and thrown down their demon idols - instead it stood back and allowed the martyrs of Japan to be overrun, heralding one of the longest and most brutal persecutions of Christians in history. That there are somehow still over a million Christians in Japan is I think an overlooked miracle, a testament to the power of the Gospel even in the blackest of circumstances.
It's also terrifying that, today, Christianity in Europe feels like it's in much greater danger than it is in Japan, a country where people were once asked to desecrate icons on pain of death.
I fear that European Christianity no longer presents itself as something worth dying for, let alone living for. Much of it is so anaemic that it has simply bored people into apostasy. If it is unchallenging to believe then it will be unchallenging to disbelieve. It is far easier to trample when it is indistinguishable from the pavement.
I can offer a silver lining, albeit a thin one. I am undoubtedly a person who was bored into apostasy - growing up Mass was something you went to on Easter, Christmas, and when somebody got married. The only signs of Christianity in my home were a Bible and a Rosary shoved into the lowest shelf of a bookshelf in the dustiest corner of the house. So, while nominally always Catholic, I was pretty much completely fallen away as an adult.
BUT! When I was at my absolute lowest, when it felt like every hand was turned against me, when in short everything was going to hell in a hand basket, the first thing I did was look for God in that dusty Bible. When push came to shove all the programming of the secular world couldn’t erase the memory of Christ.
So I guess what I’m getting at is that maybe the current apostasy is like a long fever. Maybe it has to get worse before it gets better. Maybe what ‘worse’ looks like is frankly horrific. But it will pass. I have faith that it will pass.
🏴 ⛪ 🇯🇵 Beautiful,
Grace and peace to you Father, Many Years!
Christ is RISEN!
The fact that Japan remains a pagan country has been a niggling bother for me ever since I was a child reading on the history of the Church. At the absolute height of its power Spain could have cracked the heathen fortresses like walnuts and thrown down their demon idols - instead it stood back and allowed the martyrs of Japan to be overrun, heralding one of the longest and most brutal persecutions of Christians in history. That there are somehow still over a million Christians in Japan is I think an overlooked miracle, a testament to the power of the Gospel even in the blackest of circumstances.
It's also terrifying that, today, Christianity in Europe feels like it's in much greater danger than it is in Japan, a country where people were once asked to desecrate icons on pain of death.
I fear that European Christianity no longer presents itself as something worth dying for, let alone living for. Much of it is so anaemic that it has simply bored people into apostasy. If it is unchallenging to believe then it will be unchallenging to disbelieve. It is far easier to trample when it is indistinguishable from the pavement.
I can offer a silver lining, albeit a thin one. I am undoubtedly a person who was bored into apostasy - growing up Mass was something you went to on Easter, Christmas, and when somebody got married. The only signs of Christianity in my home were a Bible and a Rosary shoved into the lowest shelf of a bookshelf in the dustiest corner of the house. So, while nominally always Catholic, I was pretty much completely fallen away as an adult.
BUT! When I was at my absolute lowest, when it felt like every hand was turned against me, when in short everything was going to hell in a hand basket, the first thing I did was look for God in that dusty Bible. When push came to shove all the programming of the secular world couldn’t erase the memory of Christ.
So I guess what I’m getting at is that maybe the current apostasy is like a long fever. Maybe it has to get worse before it gets better. Maybe what ‘worse’ looks like is frankly horrific. But it will pass. I have faith that it will pass.
God bless you, and may it be so.