AE: ANECDOTES WITH INTENTION

Dear Nettles,
You ask if I’m worried about the number of lapsed Catholics who have begun going back to Sunday Mass.
The truth is, I am and I’m not. Not that I ever want to see any human wretch go near Mass. Seeing them there is one of our sharpest pains down here. But we have to be realistic.
I mean, once the economic downturn began to bite it was natural that those with any sense at all would turn to religion.
And the deeper it bites the more we can expect even the most dense among them to start thinking about Him above, to rediscover their dependence on him.
After all, trying to keep them from thinking about Him, and happiness, and heaven, and all that kind of stuff is a huge strain, it’s like trying to keep a ball in the air.
You can do it, but it’s not natural and it takes a lot of work, and once you let up it returns to rest on the ground.
Natural
In the same way, keeping the human wretches from worshipping Him above is keeping them from what is natural.
We can do it, especially if we keep distracting them with immediate satisfactions, but it takes a lot of effort and if we let up, their interest in Him soon resurfaces.
But back to your question about how worried I am. The more interesting question, I think, is how deep is their ‘conversion’ when they do return to religion.
In other words, are they there just for the comfort and the sense of security it gives? Or do they realise that more is demanded from them?
Let me explain. When they’re away from religion not only their way of behaving but their whole way of thinking begins to change. Soon they no longer think like Christians.
But most of them are too full of themselves to even realise the change that has come over them. On topic after topic they end up thinking like pagans, or the characters they view on TV.
Slogans
They’ll have the same slogans: “I don’t want to impose my view on others”, “who am I to judge”, I only gave him what he deserved”, “it’s her right to choose”, etc.
They’ll talk about their “partner” and, like the media, they’ll only use ‘husband’ or ‘wife’ when they’re talking about gays!
They never even wonder what’s behind all these slogans, what kind of an outlook on life they contain, what way their own thinking is being twisted by them.
My big fear is when real conversion takes place, when they decide that they need to change both their behaviour and their thinking.
Worst of all is confession. Every time one of them mentions that I have a panic attack. At that point I know they’re serious about changing, that they want to turn away from past sins and turn towards Him above.
This is the real change we have to watch, the num- bers returning to confession.
Yours anxiously,
Dumbag