- Justin Haggerty | The Daily Knight
Stepping Back into the Fray, the Modern World
Justin Haggerty | The Daily Knight
I have stepped back into the fray, the modern world. After five short months, the Lord blessed me with a release from federal prison, a furlough to attend my grandmother's funeral, a reunification with my wife and children, and a return to work. It has been a spiritually testing journey; one that is far from over. I rejoin a world that continues to crucify my Lord.
Although I have a residence, a family, employment, and a stable home life, it appears that I will have to reside at the federal half-way-house until the middle of March. The normal costs of myself staying here have been suspended under COVID-19; more than likely, the non-profit that manages the facility is receiving additional funding from the Stimuluses' or CARES Act to hold residents longer, foregoing home confinement. Nevertheless, it has been a tremendous blessing to return to work and see my wife and children, who have regularly visited me at work for lunch and some other quality time. I understand that many are not as fortunate as I.
Returning to the modern world has been a shock to my spiritual life. It was a spiritual battle in prison, but it was easier for me to manage my time properly to dedicate myself to a more proper regiment of prayer. Since my release, I have found it much more difficult to pray the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, reading the daily liturgy, and praying the Holy Rosary. I have gone from praying all of the hours of the day to rarely praying Lauds and Vespers.
Part of my removal from my previously dedicated prayer life is the ever growing distance between my soul and Christ in the Holy Eucharist. It has nearly been five-and-one-half months since my last Confession and Holy Communion. Because of COVID-19, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) erroneously and unconstitutionally bared religious services and all inmates' rights to see a visiting priest to receive the sacraments. This is not an issue for Protestants, Jews, Muslims, etc., as they all reject the Supernatural mysteries of the sacraments that our Lord Jesus Christ instituted during His earthly ministry. The half-way-house, originally founded by a Catholic priest, also bars movements and passes to attend religious services and the Holy Mass. I have contacted the St. Thomas More Society to help me engage the BOP and affiliated non-profits that have violated the First Amendment of thousands of inmates during this fabricated pandemic. My spiritual confessions and communions only went so far; and, my weak nature has allowed me to slip deeper into sin and farther from prayer. To deprive the faithful, even those incarcerated, from the sacraments, would be like to deprive St. Dismas from from the Crucified Lord. Ironically, Dismas Charities, which manages my half-way-house, was named accordingly.
Cardinal Robert Sarah, in his book The Power of Silence, wrote about the sublime peace and silence of the Beatific Vision and the need to unite ourselves to that silence through prayer. The world, especially the modern world, is full of noise and distractions that engrain the soul in the world and not in Christ. For those with responsibilities, jobs, families, businesses, authorities, etc., it is nearly impossible to clear the noise and focus entirely on Christ. Hours quickly pass and opportunities to pray are missed. Prison, with little to no responsibilities and noise, was very conducive to spiritual silence. My days were well scheduled to exercise, reading and writing, prayer, and caring for a fellow inmate, who was epileptic, blind, and in a wheel chair. I read more books than my entire four years at West Point and completed over four hundred pages of my book on the "revolutionary underground." Spiritual silence delivered me to this productive state, giving me my first glimpse of the monks of old. But, it has all been lost since my departure. I have returned to spending countless time on my phone, computer, and television. Along with prayer, my spiritual silence has fled from view.
Upon my return to the modern world, I discovered, to my fear and concern, the increasing marxist and satanic war on Christianity and Jesus Christ. By the summer, there had been over a hundred violent attacks against Catholic Churches, the faithful, public devotionals, and statues in the United States and Canada. In the past two years, communist revolutionaries have burned dozens Catholic Churches and attempted arson on many more. Since my self surrender in June, the crisis appears to have escalated and gained the full attention of the USCCB, but produced little to no effect. Unfortunately, many bad bishops continue to ignore the marxist violence in their dioceses and have refused to address the growing militant atheism and revolutionary iconoclasm in urban societies. Some, at the direction of the Vatican, join marxist social-justice campaigns to preach about climate change, immigration, and homosexuality more often than attending to their divinely invested vocation to save souls.
Across the United States and Canada, new attacks against Catholics appear weekly in the news. The stories and reports are often buried deep into the news tab on Google, purposely hidden to conceal political and atheistic agendas. DuckDuckGo and personal posts on social media illustrate a more thorough display of the crisis that Catholics have faced and continue to face. A list of recent violence from the past couple of months is listed below; but, perhaps the most concerning violence is that of sacrilegious, blasphemous, and heretical attacks against the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ made by Catholic institutions themselves. From rejecting the Real Presence of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, the proper dispensation to receive Holy Communion, to condoning sin and a world without Christ the King, many Catholic institutions, dioceses, and clergy have trampled on Christianity and become Catholic in name only.
Prime example is the recent blasphemous and heretical depiction of George Floyd as Jesus Christ in a rendition of Michael Angelo's Le Pieta, which was recently stolen after being displayed at Catholic University of America. While maintaining the affects that illustrate Christ's divinity (i.e. the unique halo that depicts the three bars of the cross and Ο Ω Ν, "the Existing One," all indicating the divinity of Jesus Christ in unity with, in, and through the Holy Trinity) Floyd is laid in the arms of the Blessed Virgin Mary after the Crucifixion, insinuating an extremely offensive and perverted sacrifice made for marxist revolutionaries and racial socialists. No such sacrifice occurred in reality, and the world has fabricated the martyrdom to further reinforce the errors of modernism, no different than immortalizing Barabbas, the murderous insurrectionist, who the Jews chose over Jesus Christ.
Through modernism, the synthesis of all heresies, it will not be long before the world replaces all of the Churches and statues of the world to celebrate Barabbas, rather than Christ the King. For my own battles in returning into the the fray of the modern world, I also must reject Barabbas and publicly carry the cross of my King, Lord, and Savior.
In Christ Crucified and the Most Victorious Heart of Jesus.
Recent Attacks Against Catholicism:
Police Investigate Vandalism at Manhattan Beach Church Surveillance Video Shows Vandal Damaging Jesus Statue at Miami Shores Church
25 gravestones vandalized at Catholic cemetery in Framingham Boulder County Catholic Church vandalized with pro-choice messages
Over 1,000 Defenders and Growing
Volunteers wanted! We are in a state of open war with communists in the United States. BLM and Antifa have burned their second Catholic Church, after desecrating dozens of chapels and statues over the past two years. They diabolically threaten to burn down cities across America.
Police and government are unable and unwilling to protect the Faith and the faithful. We need good men to defend Catholic Churches from the attacks of communists. Military experience is not required, we will train you to safely, lawfully, and effectively defend your parish.
Other orders, such as the KofC, are welcome. The Army of the Vendée waited too long to address the French Revolution; we cannot sleep on the enemy.
