Proximity Alerts, Decisions, & Chivalry

I am convinced of a great many things, thanks to the overwhelming initiative of the grace of God. But two things stand in stark relief most specially. First, I am convinced that whereas we may be gifted with a fabulous gift of intelligence and reasoning, it will or will not be of any lasting use or benefit to the common good in direct correlation to its starting proximity to Christian faith and morals as taught and vouchsafed by the Catholic Church.

This means that if I happen to be born, raised, and given my first shove out of the "nest", so to speak, outside the sphere of influence of Christian faith and morality, that will nearly and most surely mean that these will not be of great import in my decision-making or actions. Therefore, this is likely to happen. If, on the other hand, I have been blessed to be born, raised, and catechized in or near the teachings of Catholic revealed truth, this is much more likely to happen.

The second thing I am convinced of is that a reversal, a "coming to oneself," can and may occur equally by God's grace (but not without our remorse and repentance). We Four Mass'keteers are living proof that men can be taken up, shaken by the scruff of our necks, and set on the right path by God's grace and the Sacrament of Reconciliation (is there a difference?).

But the former matter is borne out in today's contemporary western society in innumerable and tragic scenes, high and low, common and prestigious, pathetic and pathological.

Ours is the work of Marian chivalry; or, as T. S. Eliot observed, "prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action." God bless us all, and pray for the (on-going) conversion of sinners (that's all of us).