We live not in an age of apostasy, but of spiritual regression

Fr. Brian Van Hove, S.J., who has written several pieces for Ignatius Insight, gave the homily today on EWTN's televised Mass; his thoughts about apostasy and regression are well worth pondering. He also makes passing mention of Hans Urs von Balthasar and of a brilliant two-volume work, Covenantal Theology: The Eucharistic Order of History (University Press of America, 1991), by Fr. Donald J. Keefe, S.J., which I bought years ago at the urging of Dr. Mark Lowery (University of Dallas), who studied under Keefe at Marquette.



Fr. Van Hove is the Chaplain to the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Michigan.

Comments

[LJ]

He doesn't specify, but it seems to me that Father is drawing a distinction, perhaps subtly and non-committally (is that a word?) in light of the popular eschatological discussion of "the Great Apostasy."

End times discussion is magnified in our time by our literacy and abundance of media and the Protestant tendency in some quarters to emphasize and over emphasize eschatology has affected Catholics in some measure as well. But Catholics in times past, before Protestantism even existed, had periods of great speculation on the end of all things.

Psychologically, there can be a phenomenon among those we would consider the most faithful; that is to view the state of the Church and the surrounding degenerate world so exclusively in the light of some end times prophecy that a paralysis of evangelization sets in. It is almost the faithful's equivalent of the world's cry, "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die."

Father urges us to view this with the perspective of covenant faithfulness, of bridal fidelity to our betrothed. In that light we can see as he points out, it is possible to go back to our beloved, spiritual progress is possible when we see our current state as regression.

It seems to me that "apostasy" has taken on the ring of finality. For some people that may be the case. But if we are not witnessing the Great Apostasy, we are running the risk of standing around with our hands in our pockets, not evangelizing to the max, not catechizing to the max, and many will be lost as the world makes another turn waiting for the return of Christ. Meanwhile we will be dead and gone and have to stand before Christ and account for our inactivity.

[Mark Brumley]

The Reverend Jesuit Father Brian Van Hove is brilliant, as usual.