God, do You know that Your world is rapidly tilting?

A View from the Back Pew

Mark Steele, the most ordinary of Catholics writes:

Mark Steele

I woke up an hour ago at 2.30 am here in New Zealand, which a friend in England used to refer to in terms of my writings as akin to a fresh breath from the antipodes! Well, if there was a fresh breath blowing out of here it was eluding my nostrils for the air was as frowsy as ever the way I found it.

I am not one of these super-duper all-perfection model Catholics, I just try my best which is not often self-considered to be ideal. For many years after a Catholic upbringing in the South American ‘colony’ of British Guiana which was my home, and after some years spent in London and then the Caribean with British Airways, I had moved my family to New Zealand.

Considerable travelling on business, more than a share of confusion in the mind over what was right, what was partially acceptable and what were ‘No No’s’ I struggled and stumbled with doubts and temptation, became a retired, ‘back-pew among the hiders’ mass attendee and ‘fell over’ once or twice. Father David Nolan at St Joseph’s laughed heartily at my summation of myself as being an RC or ‘retired Catholic!’

These days at seventy-nine and after ‘coming back’ into the Church, I still have doubts about several things and confusion often visits my mind in the form of depression, but at least I am now straight-up in my commitment and my beliefs and despite back and leg problems and an inabilty to kneel, I now stand up and be counted.

As a columnist for a few specialist publications in the hobby area, I don’t ram religion or politics down people’s throats for I believe them to be personal choices. Instead I merely try to set my example by being proud of what I have chosen to ‘re-enlist in as a believer of’, though I don’t to some extent like the term ‘a christian re-born.’

Anyway, what about the evident world tilt, I ask about, my God? You must know that it is happening, for way back in time Mother St Anne who prepared me for First Communion at the Ursuline Convent in Georgetown, I remember, instilled in me that You know everything.

Crime is rampant, illicit sex is evident, people kill each other these days without a thought. Kids are on drugs, others are abducted and molested and abortion is accepted by many in our society as being a ‘God given right!’ Morning prayers are no longer allowed in many schools, there are wars everywhere, media seize every opportunity to rubbish openly and challenge Your having created the world, indeed Your very existence. I feel sure that many must wonder, God, if the alarming tilt I speak about is evident where You are?

These are just my personal views, God the Father, Your only Son and the Holy Spirit. I pray that You will help us to save Your world, our world that we were born into, for I feel sure that many more devout than I share my concern