Blog | Subscribe | Free Trial | Contact Us | Cart | Donate | Planned Giving
Log In | Search
facebook
rss
twitter
  • CURRENT
    • Winter 2025 PDF
    • WINTER 2025 HTML
    • THE HUMAN LIFE REVIEW HTML COLLECTION PAGE
    • NEWSworthy: What’s Happening and What It Means to You
    • Blog
    • Pastoral Reflections
    • About Us
  • DINNER
    • GREAT DEFENDER OF LIFE DINNER 2024: NEW MEDIA ADDED!
    • Great Defender of Life 50th Anniversary Dinner Ticket 2024
    • Great Defender of Life 50th Anniversary Dinner TABLE for TEN Ticket 2024
    • Great Defender of Life 2024 Young Adult / Pregnancy Center Staffer Tickets
    • HOST COMMITTEE Great Defender of Life Dinner 2024
    • DINNER JOURNAL ADVERTISING 2024
    • ARCHIVE: GREAT DEFENDER OF LIFE DINNER 2023
  • ARCHIVE
    • Archive Spotlight
    • ISSUES IN HTML FORMAT
  • LEGACY
    • Planned Giving: Wills, Trusts, and Gifts of Stock
  • SHOP
    • Your Cart: Shipping is ALWAYS Free!

Pastoral Reflections

1 Comment

The Eclipse of God?

Fr. Gerald E. Murray
Cardinal Robert Sarah, crisis of faith, Easter, eclipse
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

 

Today the West lives as if God did not exist . . . This estrangement from God is not caused by reasoning but by a will to be detached from him. The atheistic orientation of a life is almost always a decision by the will. Man no longer wishes to reflect on his relationship to God because he himself intends to become God.

 

Cardinal Robert Sarah offered this stark analysis of the present crisis of the West in his 2015 book God or Nothing, in which he zeroes in on the nature of the contemporary loss of faith. It is, he says, the result of the choice to replace the worship of God and obedience to his law with self-worship and the anarchy-producing rejection of any limits upon one’s actions.

Of course, when man tries to become God, he always fails. No one can make himself into the Supreme Being and Creator. But he can attempt to give the impression of omnipotence by disregarding God’s law and daring anyone to stop him. Thus, people exempt themselves from the Seventh Commandment as they pile into duffle bags items they are stealing from CVS or Walmart. Crime and social anarchy are the predictable outcome when people are emboldened to decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong.

Cardinal Sarah observes that “the eclipse of God leads toward practical materialism, disorderly or abusive consumption, and the creation of false moral norms. Material well-being and immediate satisfaction become the only reason for living. At the end of this process, it is no longer even about fighting God; Christ and the Father are ignored.”

Ignorance is not bliss, and a conscience deadened by willful sinfulness can, by the effect of God’s grace, respond to salutary qualms. The misery and unhappiness that inevitably result from turning away from God serve as providential reminders that there must be a better way to live.

Cardinal Sarah’s prescription for countering the current slide into despair is a call to action for believers: “In season and out of season, the Church must recall that life cannot be summed up in terms of the satisfaction of material pleasures, without moral rules. At the end of the journey without God there is only the unhappiness of a child deprived of his parents. Yes, hope abides in God alone!”

The Easter Season is a good time to reflect on the ways in which we may be trying to live as if God did not exist. Christ’s victory over sin and death is ours for the taking. We can go to God confident that he never fails to hear and answer our prayers. The happiness of the saints is a shining invitation to overcome the temptation to “do it my way.” God’s way is really the only way. Everything else is a plunge into darkness and fear.

Our confidence in God’s goodness as we listen to his word and put it into practice will radiate to others who have chosen to live under the shadow of the supposed eclipse of God. Those who close their eyes to God may pretend He is not there. Societies can do the same. Yet self-imposed spiritual blindness is about as rational as thinking that taking narcotics will make one a happy and fulfilled person who has successfully chosen for himself what is good.

Let the Divine Light be our guide. No eclipse can overcome God.

675 people have visited this page. 1 have visited this page today.
About the Author
Fr. Gerald E. Murray

Fr. Gerald Murray is Pastor of the Church of St. Joseph's, Yorkville, New York City.

Social Share

  • google-share

One Comment

  1. Allen Roth April 15, 2024 at 3:38 pm Reply

    The world needs to open its mind to these truths. Cardinal Sarah continues to preach these truths. As the world crumbles perhaps eyes and hearts will once again embrace God. We need teachings like this to help us along the way to salvation.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Comments will not be posted until approved by a moderator in an effort to prevent spam and off-topic responses.

*
*

captcha *

Get the Human Life Review

subscribe to HLR
The-Human-Life-Foundation
DONATE TODAY!

Recent Posts

Pro-life Groups Can’t be Forced to Accommodate Abortions, Federal Judge Rules

14 May 2025

Yonkers Woman Learns Abortion is Not the ‘Quick Fix’ She Thought 

12 May 2025

RFK Jr, Autism, Eugenics--and Pro-Life Silence?

09 May 2025

CURRENT ISSUE

Alexandra DeSanctis Anne Conlon Anne Hendershott Bernadette Patel Brian Caulfield Christopher White Clarke D. Forsythe Colleen O’Hara Connie Marshner David Mills David Poecking David Quinn Diane Moriarty Dr. Donald DeMarco Edward Mechmann Edward Short Ellen Wilson Fielding Fr. Gerald E. Murray George McKenna Helen Alvaré Jacqueline O’Hara Jane Sarah Jason Morgan Joe Bissonnette John Grondelski Kristan Hawkins Madeline Fry Schultz Maria McFadden Maffucci Marvin Olasky Mary Meehan Mary Rose Somarriba Matt Lamb Nat Hentoff Nicholas Frankovich Peter Pavia Rev. George G. Brooks Rev. Paul T. Stallsworth Rev. W. Ross Blackburn Stephen Vincent Tara Jernigan Ursula Hennessey Victor Lee Austin Vincenzina Santoro Wesley J. Smith William Murchison

Shop 7 Weeks Coffee--the Pro-Life Coffee Company!
Support 7 Weeks Coffee AND the Human Life Foundation!
  • Issues
  • Human Life Foundation Blog
  • About Us
  • Free Trial Issue
  • Contact Us
  • Shop
  • Planned Giving
  • Annual Human Life Foundation Dinner

Follow Us On Twitter

Follow @HumanLifeReview

Find Us On Facebook

Human Life Review/Foundation

Search our Website

Contact Information

The Human Life Foundation, Inc.
The Human Life Review
271 Madison Avenue, Room 1005
New York, New York 10016
(212) 685-5210

Copyright (c) The Human Life Foundation.