Those who attended Mass each Sunday at the Carmelite Monastery in Elysburg knew their time was running short. For the past two years, the “For-Sale sign” had been standing guard prominently outside the monastery’s entrance as a vivid reminder of what awaited.
The papally enclosed Carmel of Jesus, Mary and Joseph Discalced Carmelite nuns packed up and departed to Fairfield, Pennsylvania during Holy Week in March of 2021 and remain in the process of building a monastery there that their website said, “will last a thousand years.” It is a pity their stay in Elysburg was a blink of an eye in monastic time lasting a mere 13 years after arriving from a small convent in Mount Carmel and replacing another group of nuns who were not cloistered.
I was once told by a pious priest that there are no such things as coincidences. As things would have it, the Latin Mass that I attended at the monastery would find a new home at the closed St. Peter’s Church in Mount Carmel. This is the same church my maternal grandmother received the sacraments as a young girl. In her day, it was also the same Mass being celebrated as it is today – the Traditional Latin Mass. It is also on the same street, West Avenue, where the Carmelites had their convent before moving to the Elysburg monastery.
Shortly after high school, my grandmother and her sister made their way to New York City and eventually settled in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn where they would raise their families. Both would live out the rest of their days in New York. It was in an era of Americana when the local parish church was the epicenter of the neighborhood.
The parish had events happening daily and it was an anomaly if a school wasn’t attached. Between CCD classes, CYO games, Knights of Columbus, St. Vincent de Paul Society, Legion of Mary, the rosary, novenas, scouting, bingo, dinner dances, annual festivals, there was no denying the parish was the heart and soul of the community. These events cultivated a strong sense of solidarity. Perusing my Dad’s high school yearbook at Brooklyn’s St. Francis Prep all students were identified by their parish. Some famous St. Francis’ alumni besides Frank Maresca include Vince Lombardi, Joe Torre, and Richard Magnani.
Their faith was more than just a cultural hearth but a tangible safeguard and backbone that sustained against the nonstop aberrations of life – an everlasting sacramental blessing. Sadly, this muscular Catholicism has atrophied in a huge way. This metastasizing religious illiteracy growing unabated runs parallel to Leftism which remains the fastest growing faith of the last century.
Many think of worship as something to be consumed, a task to be performed, a box to check. This shift away from biblical morality has only intensified to the detriment of society. While Christians in the East are losing their lives, Christians in the West are losing their souls. We have become sedated by a false perception of security resulting in a stagnant and stale faith.
Jesus warned us about building a house on sand.
The call to follow Jesus is universal and our ability to respond is too often overcome by the distorted lens of leftist culture that is agnostic, if not downright atheistic.
An overhauled Mass celebrated in the vernacular supplemented by a uninformed knowledge of Scripture and catechism has resulted in a record number of fallen-away Catholics who spend more time waiting in line at Duncan Donuts than to receive the sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist.
Passing down the faith has been diluted and dismissed under the crushing weight of ignorance and indifference.
Such an abdication has been the peril of many souls.
Everyone reading this was chosen for this particular time in history to combat this nonstop wave of biblical immorality destroying the American soul. The passionate and vibrant Church that triumphed over the Roman Empire and has sustained and nourished Western Civilization must be taken off life support.
Too often our sense of purpose, belonging and direction are opaque, and we lack the initiative and experience to understand much of our religious traditions and history. Ignorance of such matters is a consequence few are willing to overcome.
To read, study and reason deeply requires work, but its rewards are eternal.
