...a great peace shall come into our souls

That title is very hopeful isn't it? On this dark day of days. I had every intent to write a sewing post today. A nice little post on stitching new skirts and reading new books.

My day got kind of ruined around 10:20 a.m.

I guess I didn't realize how much confidence I had in our Supreme Court to do what's right. Now I realize the Supreme Court doesn't rule on right, they rule on what's legal. Just because something is right doesn't make it legal, and just because something's legal doesn't make it right. We all know that, right? Abortion is legal, but it's wrong.

I am very anxious to see what the Church will do. Will they make a move or wait for more rulings? My guess is they will wait...but for what? It's not likely the Supreme Court will overturn the HHS Mandate...they would have done that today.

I have it from a good source that the American bishops will use the "nuclear option." No more Catholic Church except for churches. No schools, no charities, no universities, no hospitals. Gone. I don't know when or how long it would take but I have heard that is the only choice in this case.

For me this means my husband could lose his job, or have to choose between his conscience and his job. It means my son will not attend a Catholic school.

All Catholics will have to choose between conscience and medical insurance for their families.

For all Catholics this is the martyr's dilemma. Not the red martyr -- not the ultimate dilemma: "Will you claim Jesus or deny him for your life?" But the white martyr's: "Will you stand by while we kill the innocent and do nothing? Will you pay for the killing of the innocent?"

It would be easier to live with the red martyr's question, in so many ways.

I spoke with my oldest son right after the decision came down. Sadly, he has very little confidence in his fellow American and has been saying for years that he plans to leave the U.S. after he gets his degree. In a conversation we had not too long ago, I tried to convince him that it is no better elsewhere. National healthcare is almost universal now. He said that elsewhere he doesn't have to watch it happen. He isn't a party to it. When we spoke a little while ago this morning, I said that the hardest part of this whole scene is that I thought we (the U.S.) were better than every where else. But now I am not certain I can say that. Are we? We essentially have no religious freedom. I guess we can still own guns, at least for now, although we don't own guns anyway. And we can vote according to our conscience. We just can't live according to our conscience.


And for how much longer can we own guns and vote according to our conscience? Are we the frogs in the pot of heated water? We know it's happening, but there is not much we can do about it.


When I think of this decision, this day, I wonder if this is a day which will live in infamy, and I'm not trying to be dramatic. Is this the beginning of the end of many ways of life? Will we be free to homeschool in the future? Will we be free to demonstrate? To attend church? Those are big questions, but we have no answers, only more questions.


I think at this time in our lives it is so difficult to have faith. But we must. It is a sin against the Holy Spirit to despair. It is a mortal sin to despair. We must pray, we must turn to God.

Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned. John 15:4-6 

My mother-in-law reminded me of this meditation by Fr. Bede Jarrett:

Never look forward to the future with anxiety. “Be not solicitous. Consider the lilies.” The present is the will of God. Therefore no over-compunction for past faults, no worrying over the future, no anxious peerings into the darkness. “Watchman, what of the night?”
We can safely leave all that in God’s hands. They are the hands not only of a clever, but of a wise architect, and all power is in them. In our Lord’s last hour, when he seemed utterly forsaken, and gave that cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Even then he yet realised that it was by his Father’s will that he suffered, and presently, when dying, again cried out, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Whatever happens to us through God’s will is always the best possible thing for us. God is not only good, very good, supremely good, but the only good. Therefore his will is and must be always the best for us…

So we see that all circumstances, however adverse they seem to be to us, are always favourable to God’s plan, always, always, as to the blind man, the best thing for us.

His hands are strong and powerful hands and we can confidently rest there. Can we not sometimes see in the hands of a clever artist, or surgeon, the strength and deftness expressive of the mind that directs their action? But with God, they are not only the hands of power, and not only the hands of wisdom, but of love, and it is only when we leave all things in his hands that we find complete serenity; and then a great peace shall come into our souls.

 In these dark days it is something we would do well to remember, every single day.