Alas, it’s been a tough winter here in New England where I live. A couple of weeks ago, while shoveling some of our winter snow, I slipped on hidden ice and took an impressive fall. I immediately knew my right shoulder was likely broken. For about ten minutes I was alone on my back on the ground, unable to move, amazed at how beautiful the sky looked.

Anyway, my neighbors called an ambulance which whisked me painfully away and it was confirmed that the shoulder of my dominant right arm was fractured. Without the use of my right arm it’s difficult to even comb my hair and shaving is not possible. So… I spend more time than I’d like listening to Times Radio, UK, and watching YouTube videos of some interest.

While doing so I was amazed to hear a podcast where some Catholic guy was doing a series I guess on the Last Days. In a world armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons and all kinds of other atrocities, moral abominations and plagues, who can blame him for contemplating such things? We have become so desensitized to nuclear weapons — I have lived my entire life in a nuclear world—  the only shock I get is at hearing it so blithely spoken of by nonchalant geopolitical analysts, Catholic or not, who only mention it in the context of their Left-Right political hatreds.

This man doing the podcast spent quite a lot of the hour talking about Marian apparitions: Fatima, La Salette, Guadalupe, Lourdes, Knock and others. But I was surprised to hear him speaking of these apparitions only in terms of his overall schema about what he thinks is to come in the relatively near future.

Nothing he said was outlandishly wrong so far as I know. It was more what he did not say that concerned me. I have heard this approach countless times across the decades of my life. A speaker, broadcaster or podcaster sets out to show his sophisticated grasp of the theological subject and not a few appear theologically informed, sometimes impressive, even the ones who, though I often disagree with details, obsess on apostasy, Pope Francis, the Jews, the Third Secret, the New Mass, so-called “neo-Catholics,” (I was once targeted as that), or any number of common traditionalist themes and tropes. The message of warning or wrath is most often directed at “them,” the other.

What I seldom hear however is the focus on our own faults, our own contributions to the dire predicament we are all in, our failure to pray enough, our need to do penance for our own sins and which is no small part of the world’s and Church’s crisis; and our need to do penance not only for ourselves but also for the culprits we blame, especially for those who have fallen so publicly—all of which is the very reason and substance of Our Lady’s message, the very purpose of her appearances and pleas for our time. These are messages directed to us.  The Gospel.

SH