I am the vine: you the branches: he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing.
JOHN 15:5 DOUAY-RHEIMS
This post and this particular verse has been in my mind for over a month, so hearing it in the readings for this Sunday seems like a kick in the pants to get it done. Whenever someone says "thoughts and prayers," the eyes of worldly types roll in cynical disbelief. Praying in the view of the world amounts to a gigantic waste of time. What we need is ACTION. Action is what gets it done. As a former atheist, I believed this at one time in my life. I don't believe in it anymore. If you're not praying, you are wasting your time.
I didn't get this message from the homily that accompanied this reading from the Gospel. Somehow, it turned into a sales pitch for the Church of Ceaseless Activity. The Gentle Reader may wonder where I got the Ceaseless Activity nickname, but it comes from Saint Paul's admonition in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to "pray without ceasing." We are to be a Church of Ceaseless Prayer not Ceaseless Activity.
This may seem to be a call from Yours Truly to be passive, but the question is not a matter of passivity or activity but futility. Without prayer, you will achieve nothing and do nothing. It doesn't matter what you do or don't do. Without prayer, you are wasting your time, money, and energy.
Bergoglio has taken to giving a hard time to contemplative nuns. Those nuns just sit around praying and doing nothing. They are a waste of time and resources especially when they are occupying choice real estate that can be sold to fund all sorts of material evil. In a similar fashion, the Church of Ceaseless Activity demands "time, talent, and treasure." They never demand our prayers. This is the point in the blog post where the Gentle Reader needs to pause and reflect upon this irony.
Prayer is the difference between the Church and an NGO. Ceaseless activity seeks the material and not the supernatural. It wants to turn your parish into the Rotary Club. The result is a decline in both the supernatural and the material.
Once upon a time, I visited a parish down in Florida. This particular parish was booming. They had it all with high attendance and numerous activities. I wondered what the secret was, and I found it. Each week, a handful of parishioners would meet in a little used building on the back of the church grounds. They belonged to the Legion of Mary. The Legion does a lot of activities, but their principal activity is praying. I will candidly admit that I am not up to this level of prayer. In comparison, my Knights of Columbus parish council would do an Our Father and a Hail Mary before getting down to the real business of pancake breakfasts, Tootsie Roll drives, and rummage sales. That council ceased functioning years ago.
The implosion of that group is why I refuse to participate in the Church of Ceaseless Activity now. I spend my time praying for our priest and our deacon and our fellow parishioners. Mrs. Columbo and I pray the Rosary every night. We both agree that it is the best thing we do. It is better than anything that I ever did in the Knights of Columbus.
Satan doesn't want you praying. He doesn't want those contemplative nuns praying. If he can busy you and everyone else with ceaseless activity, he will win. He will beat you into the ground. But when you pray, you beat the Devil. Praying the Auxilium Christianorum each night has taught me that lesson.
My nature is to be a workaholic. I work first and pray later. That strategy hasn't done me much good. It hasn't done our parish much good either. My traumatic brain injury has forced me to pray more than I have ever prayed in my life. I am utterly dependent upon God. I am in this weird place where I can't do anything, yet everything gets done.
Electrical appliances work best when they are plugged in. Likewise, we work best when we are plugged into God through prayer. Our Lord is the wall socket. You are the toaster. No one thinks much about the electricity coming out of the wall until you become unplugged. And that, Gentle Reader, is the profound lesson from today's Gospel.
My critics will condemn me with the straw man argument that I am a "do nothing Catholic." I ignore this idiocy. I am simply pointing out that you will achieve more if you put the plug in the outlet. The Church of Ceaseless Activity is too busy to grasp this obvious fact, and the declining numbers and stats bear this out.
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Recycled from the Smoke of Satan blog
