Dearest
Brothers & Sisters in Christ,
“What’s old becomes new again” is all I
can say in response to a letter sent to the priests of the Diocese of La Crosse by our Ordinary, Bishop Callahan, this week. Bishop Callahan is joining many of his
brother bishops in re-instituting the practice of praying the prayer to St.
Michael at the end of Mass in the Diocese of La Crosse. And so, in response to our bishop’s direction
we will begin this practice in all of our parishes within our tri-parish
cluster next week – giving me time to get cards printed and giving you time to
digest and prepare spiritually for this change in practice.
The obvious first question is: “Why is
this being done?” The answer is that the
bishop’s, following the lead of Pope Benedict XVI continue to rely on the
Church’s firm belief that prayer must be our first remedy for the ills we
experience in our lives and in society.
We must also never forget that the foundation for action, if it is to be
godly and effective, must be prayer.
Over time the ills we face in society
change. When Pope Leo XIII first wrotethe prayer he had just experienced a vision of a conversation between Christ and
Satan. He immediately sat down and wrote
the longer version of this prayer and asked that priests pray it is often as
possible for the salvation of souls.
(The longer version is four pages long!
I offer it for our parishes each Saturday evening. The shorter version that we have all learned
growing up I offer every day.) Starting
in the 20’s many parishes began offering this prayer more specifically for the
conversion of Russia and other countries being taken over by Communism. My own parents recall offering this prayer
for the release of Cardinal József Mindszenty.
Today we are asked to pray for the Freedom
of Religion which has been under attack for some time before the recent HHS
mandate situation. In addition to the
mandate, the Obama administration tried a little over a year ago to force a
Catholic school in Indiana, to take back a teacher who was clearly
inappropriate to hold her position. It
went all the way to the United States Supreme Court where, thankfully, the
Church prevailed. It has also happened
recently that the state of Alabama passed a law forbidding clergy (including
Catholic priests) to baptize or in any other way serve those who may be
undocumented aliens. Obviously, this is
a completely unacceptable infringement on our freedom to practice our
religion. I am not an agent of the
government. My only concern, and it
SHOULD be my only concern, is whether or not someone wants to know Jesus Christ. And if a baptized Catholic comes seeking my
assistance I, of course, have a moral obligation to serve them. I am an agent of GOD, not Caesar!
We must all remember that the freedom of
religion is not the freedom to pray how we want. It is the freedom to live according to our
most fundamental beliefs – including the care and education of whomever is in
need (remember the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy?). Our nation was founded on this conviction and
it is enshrined in writing in our Constitution (the First Amendement). And so we follow our bishop’s lead and storm
heaven in prayer, begging God’s mercy, wisdom, and fortitude on us as we step
up to defend this most precious right for ourselves and our posterity.
