:applause:to holysoulsacademy!
The missionary aspect of tradition is generally weak; of the resistance, except for a very few, virtually nonexistent. The Council hammered the final nails into the coffin that has become mainstream Catholicism. Vat. II killed the missionary spirit. Doesn't everyone know that,
"Catholics don't proselytize? That's for people who really believe their religion, Pentecostals, Baptists, Muslims, cultists like JWs or Mormons, 'the Moonies!' Religious nuts! Fanatics!"
Why is it generally assumed that those who come to tradition from being Catholic-in-name-only, or from the novus ordo have become "real" Catholics, but those from no religion at all, or, worse, from Protestantism, are somehow "suspect," maybe not really Catholic?
What would happen, I wonder, if traditional Catholics would begin proselytizing like Pentecostals? If we acted as missionaries, as the Jesuits of old, starting right where we are currently located? Why not hand out tracts to our neighbours and coworkers? Or, at the very least, take the bushel off our candles? (St. Mt. 5:16)
It will mean persecution in one form or another. Probably not torture and death, yet for us here in the spoilt West. At present, it will probably take the form of being socially ostracised for homeschooling, having more than three kids, dressing modestly, not having a TV, depriving our children of the latest iPhone, forbidding evil music and media from entering our homes, being perceived as weird, and, horrors! praying in public before and after meals, being seen with a Rosary, or scapular, or other sacramental...
If, for every hundred or so dirty looks, snide remarks, mental dismissal as nut-cases, what if ONE soul is lead to merely question whether there might be something more to his life of materialistic pursuit? What if one in one-thousand were to approach and ask, "Why are you so weird?"
Then, what if it were explained to him that God made him, sent His Son Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary to die for him, rise from the dead, that he, too, might be happy with Him in Heaven FOREVER! All he need do to have this is to be cleansed from his sins, be Baptized into God's One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church. What if it told him that God REQUIRES it of him?
Had Catholics been missionaries during the two world wars of the 20th century, had Catholic conversion been made prerequisite to the rebuilding of Europe instead of building churches, schools and religious houses in the U.S. during the post-WWII years, the disastrous Vat. II would have never happened.
But it did. So it's back to the question I asked on the E.C. #347 thread. The Church is in disarray, the Shepherd and shepherds struck, the sheep scattered. That the shepherds of tradition are now struck and their sheep rapidly scattering, is, as Bishop Williamson said, " the most natural thing in the world."
As scattered sheep, what are we going to do about it? What would Our Lord have us to do about it? What does it mean to keep the Faith under these circuмstances? Shall we huddle with our lambs in a corner of the sheepfold and hope the wolf overlooks us when he saunters in? Exit the fold and search for another enclosure? Go on as if all is well? Elect a new shepherd? Wander away? Lay down and die? Flee with your family to the wilderness and hope to ride it out?
Comments? Suggestions?
In the meantime, :dancing-banana: will be prayerfully studying (11th CH. of Hebrews) and being a weirdo to my family, colleagues, and neighbors.