Lent – 2

Now that we live in the post-Christian Era, we experience the diminishment of the Church. The Church, Mystical Body of Christ, will not end until the final coming of Christ in judgement. Jesus promised that He would remain with the Church until the end. Recently Popes have, with sadness and some regret, predicted and written about this change in our culture and society. Many, once faithful, have and are leaving the Church to find a new life in secular society. This change is experienced in not only the Roman Catholic Church but in all the mainline Christian denominations, namely Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Episcopalian. Non-denomination (fundamental) churches are beginning to experience this downsizing as well. Those who have turned their backs on the Church are called apostates: those “who renounce a religious or political belief or principle.” They still consider themselves as Christian but no longer belonging to organized religion. Now they are referred to as the unchurched.

During this holy season of Lent, the faithful are called to repent and to seek a deepening of Faith. Those who anguish the loss of loved ones to secularism should cry out to the Lord: “Lead back to your friendship and truth all who have gone astray; teach us, O Lord, how to help them.”