The Sin of the Last Days

One of the saddest realities in the Western Church today is the bored Catholic. We are afflicted with ignorance and apathy for our own conditions and the condition of creation and our fellow human beings—a kind of agony of accidents coupled with a predominate self-interest. I would suggest that the pervasive apathy of our time is a result of rebellion and its resulting aimlessness is the most potent evidence of our living in the last days.

In these democratic last days, we have been lured into the belief that we have a right to say whatever we want about whomever we want, and to revolt by word, action, or thought against leadership tenets that we disagree with, whether in politics, family, or career, but most especially, and most destructively, in the Church.

In fact, the very leadership structure of our country encourages this mood of democratic, lukewarm Catholicity. St. John’s Apocalypse calls this attitude “Laodicea” which means “people rule,” and reveals the lukewarmness that results from a majority rule where it is most inappropriate: the Church.

St. Jude also paints a frightening picture. Strategically situated at the end of the New Testament just before the Apocalypse of St. John, is a brief letter from Jude the Apostle, in which he begins writing about issues common to salvation, but suddenly digresses with an urgent warning against the immediate danger of “ravenous wolves” who would devour the faithful by persuading them to abandon obedience to Church leadership and the deposit of faith.

He illustrates with an Old Testament account familiar to his Jewish audience, the “rebellion of Korah” (Jude 11). In this rebellion (Num. 14), spies have been sent into the Promised Land, seen the abundance and fruitfulness of the land that God had promised them, and brought back an “evil report” of the giants who possess the land—giants they will have to fight in order to take control of the land God promised them.

In keeping with this report, the majority decides they don’t like the direction their leaders are taking, and rejecting Moses, they attempt to choose their own leader and return to slavery in Egypt. The leaders and two lay people respond by pleading with the group to persevere into the Promised Land, reminding them of the wonders of the Land, the reliable provision of God, the trustworthiness of God’s promises of success, and a warning against rebellion.

In an act of complete rejection of God (Num. 14:11), the people promptly take up stones to stone the divinely appointed leaders, and God “shows up” to defend them, sentencing some to immediate death and others to a slow demise of aimless wandering in the desert. Interestingly, when the people realize judgment has fallen, they try to take the Land against the warning of failure by Moses, continuing presumptuously though neither the Presence of the Lord, nor the leaders went with them. They were utterly defeated.

The simple truth is, God provides for His people through leaders, even the bad ones: “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves” (Romans 13:1). In the Old Testament, bad leaders were often a judgment against the peoples’ rebellion against the good ones.

What do leaders we consider “bad” have to say to us about our own spiritual state with God? In a wider application, have we made a single issue, like abortion, our pet issue while ignoring what the Church teaches about contraception, capital punishment, war, personal and national financial responsibility or other issues of social justice that we don’t care for? Where do we murmur against the decisions made by Church leaders, whether at the parish, diocesan, or Vatican level, causing unholy divisions within our own hearts, and leading others in the same?

And what do we do with real hurts and complaints? The Lord’s command is prayer, and His promise is to heal: “If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (2 Chron. 7:14). “If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which is not mortal, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin that is not mortal” (1 Jn. 5:16).

In perfect communion with these Scriptures, the Saints continually insisted that making judgments on any matter not an issue of mortal sin is destructive and that we must trust God with our issues in prayer, while taking advantage of the legitimate means of justice Holy Mother Church makes available to us.

I have seen church people mount scandalous attacks on cherished pastors and leaders in secret meetings, backbiting, small group studies that turn into gossip parties, all of which finally split parishes. I experienced it after first participating in such, and I know it was a judgment against my own sin.

My own predominant fault, and therefore my path to sanctity, rebellion has been the source of both my most searing pain and soaring victory. The trembling daughter of an angry, career military pilot and state patrolman, it strikes me with a holy irony that my ascent of Mount Carmel would wholly depend on my cooperation with God in resurrecting and healing deep authority wounds.

My whole life has been one gaping rebellion rupture, it will be the swansong of my soul, but the Lord has done and is doing extensive work in me in this area, and what I have learned, is that “rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, presumption as idolatry” (1 Sam. 15:23). It is the basis of every evil, the cause of all destruction, chaos, confusion and darkness, the sin of Satan in refusing to serve, the ruination of creation, the majority’s sin in the wilderness journey, and it is the hallmark of the last days.

The majority cannot rule in the Church, and no Christian may presume on his privileges, since those who were brought out of Egypt by a series of astounding miracles nevertheless died in the wilderness because of their unbelief in unwillingness to follow (Heb. 3:7-19). In these last days we must not “despise dominion,” scorning authority like the disgruntled Israelites, and we must discipline ourselves against “reviling majesty,” or speaking ill of those who exercise authority (Jude 1:8). We must pray for them and for our own deliverance instead. Jesus taught that trusting in those He sends is the mark of true faith (Matt. 8:5-13). Will He find true faith on the earth when He returns?