Why The West Can't Be Converted

[ToJesusMyHeart]

Is "ill-gotten money" a good explanation of mammon? Or perhaps "ill-disposed of" money?

[arfink]

All the cool kids had that Gospel reading a few weeks ago. :|

 

[Era Might]

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

 

And for all this, nature is never spent;

    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

 

--Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ

[An Historian]

The West can and will be converted.  When we look at the case from a purely human perspective and discount the the supernatural aid we will receive then naturally we would assume that it is a lost cause.  But we cannot ignore the part that prayer has to play in the conversion of man.  The reality is that prayer works and that by prayer we can accomplish anything.  Including the conversion of western society once again to Christ's cause.

 

But even if we set this aside for a moment I believe that you have done western man an injustice.  Hedonism reigns in him, immorality is the latest fashion trend.  He has money, drugs, music and women.  It is not that he does not believe in God it is that he is entirely indifferent to God or religion.  Everyday he searches for a new high, something else, something more.  The joint doesn't have quite the same impact it did a year ago so he moves on to cocaine.  His pornographic tastes become more debauched and depraved as the months stroll by, yesterday's fetish just not enough for him any more.  But why is there a progression in the degradation of human nature?  Because none of it is enough.  Why does he keep going to further extremes?  Because nothing so far has fulfilled him, nothing has complete him.  He will exhaust the means at his disposal until there is only one thing left.  Yes!  It's going to get worse, graver and more horrible than we can imagine.  But eventually he will stand at a mountain constructed from the worst sins that man has yet conceived and he will look down upon it and the reality will stop his heart.  None of it, none of it, fulfilled him, none of it, gave him what he wanted.  And this was determined at the very moment of his creation because he was created for God and God alone!  He does not exist for himself, he does not exist for his own selfish desires!  His existence is for none other than God and he will not find God in fornication or the host of other offenses he has indulged in!  After he has exhausted all the sins under the sun he will turn to self-deification.  Man will seek to make man God, to try and turn himself into his own end and think "finally I will be satisfied!"  But in the end again he will be left desolate because man cannot be satisfied outwith God.  Some will be stubborn and refuse this truth and they will have earned their eternal perdition.  But others, and I believe the greater majority, will be converted in that terrible moment, and will live.  Selfish seeking of pleasure will not avail to satisfy man, the bottle will not numb him to the sense of his own incompleteness.  In the end God will reign supreme before him and he will have one or two choices.  God or man?  And by prayer, by our prayer, the west can choose God.

 

How many people have I come across that I would call a "modern"?  A product of a modern world with a modern mind?  And how many of them express, even without explicitly knowing it themselves, their own sense of dissatisfaction with what the world offers?  The world is not stronger than God, the world is not equal to God!  To say that the west cannot be converted is to give worldliness a victory that it is unworthy of and incapable of.  That is right the world is incapable of victory in the face of the awesome majesty of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.  It will be converted by prayer, our prayer, and the prayer of the Blessed Virgin Mary, our Mother and Mediatrix.

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

Is "ill-gotten money" a good explanation of mammon? Or perhaps "ill-disposed of" money?

 

 

I think it is where money is the main focus, and perhaps where a person or peoples think money is the key answer to all problems, when usually the root of a problem is a lot deeper then having more material wealth. Money helps but it isn't the key. These are all just my opinion anyway and i don't know exactly what scripture means when it says mammon, i do know saint paul says that the greed for money is the root of all evil but he never says money itself. The book of tobit says when tobit gives his dying speech to his on tobias that the more you have the more you have to give, and the less you have the less you have to give and to not be ashamed of the little bit you can give if you don't have much. Jesus also states that "it is harder for a rich man to get into heaven then for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle", but pretty soon afterwards reffering to his parable he says " but anything is possible to God." 

 

God bless.

[stevil]

Hedonism reigns in him, immorality is the latest fashion trend.  He has money, drugs, music and women.  It is not that he does not believe in God it is that he is entirely indifferent to God or religion.  Everyday he searches for a new high, something else, something more.  The joint doesn't have quite the same impact it did a year ago so he moves on to cocaine.

Do you really believe this rubbish?
Besides the sexist tone of this post, it is absurdly miss of any real correlation towards why people don't accept Catholism as a way of life.

[Winchester]

Guess what: "The West" doesn't exist. Individuals exist. You cannot convert what does not exist.

[John Ryan]

I think there should be an option: "Yes, and we should try to focus on coexistence and ecumenism rather than conversion." I am a staunch proponent of celtic evangelism. Therefore, I believe in a conversion that is not really conversion at all in the traditional sense. It is more akin to Aikido and the Chinese notion of the Dao, where we do not actively seek to convert, but merely live the Gospel and let love and grace be our movement. We build bridges, show our fruits and if people convert great, if not we have created a new relationship that is meaningful in itself. 

Edited October 7, 2013 by John Ryan

[Apteka]

I think there should be an option: "Yes, and we should try to focus on coexistence and ecumenism rather than conversion." I am a staunch proponent of celtic evangelism. Therefore, I believe in a conversion that is not really conversion at all in the traditional sense. It is more akin to Aikido and the Chinese notion of the Dao, where we do not actively seek to convert, but merely live the Gospel and let love and grace be our movement. We build bridges, show our fruits and if people convert great, if not we have created a new relationship that is meaningful in itself. 

 

How do you relate your view to early and apostolic Christianity, which actively sought the conversion of Jew and Pagan alike?

[An Historian]

I think there should be an option: "Yes, and we should try to focus on coexistence and ecumenism rather than conversion." I am a staunch proponent of celtic evangelism. Therefore, I believe in a conversion that is not really conversion at all in the traditional sense. It is more akin to Aikido and the Chinese notion of the Dao, where we do not actively seek to convert, but merely live the Gospel and let love and grace be our movement. We build bridges, show our fruits and if people convert great, if not we have created a new relationship that is meaningful in itself. 

 

And untold numbers of souls would go unbaptised and thus never enjoy the beatific vision... all because we refuse to actively evangelise and persuade them of the Truths of the Catholic Faith?

 

I am also a fan of Celtic evangelism.  The evangelism of Saint Ninian that dwelt among the southern Picts, the evangelism of Saint Columba that worked actively for their conversion in the north.  There is no Roman or Celtic evangelism really.  There is Catholic evangelism that follows the first rule of the Church.  The salvation of souls.  And outwith that one, holy, catholic and apostolic church under the authority of the Roman Pontiff, none can be saved.

[An Historian]

Do you really believe this rubbish?
Besides the sexist tone of this post, it is absurdly miss of any real correlation towards why people don't accept Catholism as a way of life.

 

It is not rubbish and I firmly believe it.  God created man and outside of God man cannot come to his end, which is God.  All the pursuits of this life that do not aim towards God as their end will ultimately leave man unsatisfied and a walking husk.  Man cannot know peace outside of God's loving embrace.

 

Though I am genuinely curious as to your statement that my post had a sexist tone.  Please explain what you mean.

[Nihil Obstat]

 

Though I am genuinely curious as to your statement that my post had a sexist tone.  Please explain what you mean.

Probably your (presumably) stylistic choice to use male pronouns in their neutered sense. 

A valid choice in English, I suppose, but rapidly becoming archaic.

[Apotheoun]

Probably your (presumably) stylistic choice to use male pronouns in their neutered sense. 

A valid choice in English, I suppose, but rapidly becoming archaic.

You mean archaic in certain ideological circles.

[Nihil Obstat]

You mean archaic in certain ideological circles.

I mean in the sense of how language is used day to day, either professionally or colloquially.

I am not making any ideological/value judgements about whether or not neutered male pronouns are good or bad, PC or not, or whatever. And I realize that in some contexts it is still common. But I do not think it will be considered strictly grammatical - or at the very least it will not be considered to be standard usage - descriptively speaking, as the English language develops further. I am not a linguistic prescriptivist. 

[Apotheoun]

Colloquially there really has been no change, but I do agree that in certain professional situations, again motivated by specific ideologies, you will run into the use of so-called "inclusive language." But it is an artificial construct applied to the English language, much as Newspeak was applied to language in the book Nineteen Eighty-Four.