In The Strangeness Of Our Times Is Mass Reading On Final Untold Mission Of Jesus

It's getting strange out there. Perhaps such is symbolized by a wild "dog" killed by a car the other day in Maine, while it was chasing a cat. Believed to be some kind of hybrid, it had a startling, foul appearance, with witnesses describing it as "evil, evil looking," and exuding a "horrible stench I will never forget," in the words of one woman from the town of Turner.

There seem to be many strange animals traipsing across the countryside these days, but this one drew special note because it was sharply fanged and to some it looked half-dog, half-rodent. An author who examined the animal (officials declined to study it) opined that it was a relatively small dog like a chow that was feral, while others pondered whether it was a cross between a wild dog and a coyote. DNA tests are in order, as they also are in that strange case of a man who claims he killed Jon Benet.

Whatever the upshot, one wonders if even something like a wild dog or hybrid can be an emblem for the sinister, especially when so many witnesses keep using the term "evil-looking" or "like something out of a Stephen King story." (Coincidentally, King is from Bangor, which is about eighty miles from Turner).

Strange times indeed. Let us not get carried away. But crows everywhere one looks. And more seriously: strange crimes every day. Just this week, several stories on stolen statues or icons.

Such affords us an opportunity to appreciate the role of the Blessed Mother and the very mission of her Son when it comes to evil -- which was expressed so directly in the Mass readings on her great feast of the Assumption this week, for those with ears to hear.

"A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars," said the first reading, from Revelation 12. "She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems. Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth. She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod. Her child was caught up to God and his throne."

This tied dramatically into the second reading from 1 Corinthians 15 -- wherein we are told that the chief goal of Christ is to destroy "every sovereignty and every authority and power" of the devil.

Before He hands the Kingdom back to the Father, says this incredible passage, He must put "all His enemies" under His Feet.

And then will Christ erase the final enemy, which is death itself.

Often, His mission is not preached as such. In fact it hardly ever is! And yet we must know this so that we can be His foot soldiers and so we can urge our good priests to more directly address the evil of our times, which currently they do not.

We should never focus too much on evil nor should we exaggerate its manifestations, but ignoring it and leaving it in the dark prevents us from extirpating it and is exactly what the prince of darkness desires. Hail Mary! Come Lord Jesus!

8/19/06

[next week is Mary's Queenship]