A City Under Siege

 He moved away from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he named it Rehoboth, for he said, “At last the Lord has made room for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”

Before I started this blog, I read a lot of books on the Vatican II Council.   What started the reading project was

 (1) the Covid shutdown that included the closing of all the churches, at least in my state, and pretty much all the sacraments

 (2) the promulgation and implementation of the Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes.    

There were some other things going on at the same time:  social, political, personal, familial.   Everyone probably has their own memories of the last 4 years.    

During the time, I tried to keep notes on the books I was reading, and some of the posts I've put on this blog are from those notes.   In the end I decided I didn't want to write a blog that was only about the Council and its after effects.   For several reasons, but of course one reason is that it is a gigantic subject and even scholars devoted to researching the Council often have to pick a sub-specialty or two within it, because otherwise they would have no hope of getting through all the documentation written since.

Still, it's almost impossible to be a serious Catholic or even talk about current affairs without a working sense of that period of ecclesial history and its aftermath.    It is like living on the slope of a volcano that erupted in your lifetime and still sends out plumes of smoke and ash.   That makes it sound like Mordor, and I don't intend that.   Maybe you could say it's like living near the coast; you have a splendid view but the ocean also can't help being a subliminal focus especially if you and your family are earning your livelihood on it, and you know that to some extent you are going to be affected by its ongoing moods and changes.  

For one thing, almost everything you do as a Catholic, every decision you make, has become a shibboleth to a greater or lesser extent.   I am sure this has been true in the past, as well; nothing is really new.    Just look at the Psalms.   But the information overload has exacerbated the situation.     I can hardly think of a truly neutral ground.   

For almost ten years I avoided the internet, but that didn't solve the problem either.    It followed me into normal parish life, etc.    At the same time, both in life on the ground, and on the internet, there are so many good things.     The Catholic faith, embattled as it is at the moment, is a city on a hill.   

This recent series of posts has been kind of an angusto initio.   I'm hoping to get into the broader land eventually.    As the Psalmist said, talking to God: 

You.. have set my feet in a spacious place.