The Church is weak everywhere, but there are pockets of resistance. However, geography has had an impact. The old pioneer spirit has lasted much longer between the Ohio River and the Rockies than elsewhere.
It is obvious that the Church is much weaker on both coasts. It is obvious that there are more non-church going people than in the Midwest or the South.
Memories of Christianity have been snuffed out like smoking candles for two generations here.
I blame parents, fully, and not priests. In some missionary countries, Catholicism was kept solidly by the laity underground.
But, now, it is so clear to me that those generations of youth who had no Catholicity at home may very well be so closed as to not even want to consider converting.
I see this in the two generations after mine. Obviously, the Baby Boomer parents did not do their jobs.
God allowed me to see the rot in Catholic schools in the 1980s. Even then, I decided if I ever married and had children to home school them.
God allowed me to see the hypocrisy and outright hostility to Rome when St. John Paul II asked all the colleges and universities which are Catholic to insist on all teachers taking the Oath and Promise, so many times posted on this blog.
The laity is responsible for the end of the Christian culture in America and Europe, but more than that, those clergy, priests, bishops, and cardinals, who spread modernism or were just too selfish and greedy for power to object to the status quo, caved in.
For many, there are no preachers, no teachers, no missionaries.
It will get worse.
I am, today, grieving over the children who are now adults, who are labeled GenX. They are the most in danger, as they are true materialists.
I grieve for those Millennials who are children of the GenXers, who have never, ever had to sacrifice, do chores at home, work for anything and were raised as hothouse plants.
To be a member of the Church Militant is hard work. To be a saint is hard work.
It means sacrificing "stuff" to raise your children Catholic. It means being salt, being the sign of contradiction in the world, to really stand up daily for the Faith and never compromise.
My generation will be judged strongly, as we had the last of the great education of Catholics.
And, as I had Classical Education, I, too, shall be judged severely, which is one reason I continue this blog. I have to make up for the wasted years, the sins of leading others astray when I was a youth.
Millions of people in America and Europe would go to hell today is there was a nuclear or natural, or planned disaster. Do not kid yourselves about this.
Stop spending time on trivia, any type of trivia is time away from your salvation and the salvation of others.
The last two generations spend more money on entertainment than all the rest before them. My friends in Iowa told me this.
When I was married, we went out to eat maybe four times a year, max. My parent went out once a month, but they had more money than my little family.
Now, I have some friends in the two coastal areas, California and the East Coast tell me that people go out everyday to eat and do not eat at home.
One of my dear friends, in her early forties, and an excellent cook, told me last March that people in her generation do not know how to cook. She is a Gen Xer. Their moms did not teach them how to cook, sew, can, clean, or take care of children.
The Millennials cannot do these things, either.
When my son was ten, for Christmas, I gave him a tool kit and a cook book. He can fix anything and is a fantastic cook.
Why? I made him do these things at home. He likes working with his hands.
How many kids have never done anything like fix steps, paint walls, plan and take care of an entire garden, learn easy plumbing jobs for maintenance, make things, bake.
Two generations are lost. I am not sure they can be found. If you are not planning podding, it may be too late.
Windows of opportunity for existing Catholics will open up, but, again, the time of mercy is short, coming to a close. I know this.
Our Lady warned us at Fatima, and Christ spoke to us over and over again about the consequences of sin.
In both nature and supernature, there are consequences.
Get holy, teach your children to be saints, to be martyrs.
If you are not, you are derelict in your duty as parents.
A wise woman said to me several days ago that it is clear to here why there are no vocations. Young people are simply too far away from God to hear His Voice. They have been totally seduced and given in to satan.
God forgive us parents for all our failings, for the results are two lost generations.
I was taught leadership training, that we could change the world and make it Catholic, moral, good, focused. What happened?
(PS: There is a manga on Dante's Divine Comedy. Has anyone read it? Is it good?)
And, in case you missed this, this is how lost they are...the lost generation. They make bad good and good bad.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/9140869/Dantes-Divine-Comedy-offensive-and-should-be-banned.html
More here and follow the tags at the bottom...
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2014/06/death-of-civilization.html
and here
Friday, 14 February 2014
Another Lost Generation
However, in Europe, those who were in their twenties in the 1920s seemed to have been characterized by the trauma of being young in the years of the war, and not having the greatest of role models, as so many of the best and the brightest had been killed in WWI.
We are now seeing a second "Lost Generation". But, which generation is the lost one? Some people, including myself, see more hope in the individualism of the Millenials than the over-conforming people of Gen-X.
But, with regard to religion, the Gen-Xers are a "mixed bag" of those who go to church simply because it is still the thing to do, and those who are completely secularized. Gen-Xers in America are those born from 1965-1980. In America, the Baby Boomer cut off in 1965, but in Europe, as people after WWII delayed marriage, it is considered a bit later.
Roughly,
25-30 years is a generation. But, this is not merely based on age, but
on a shared culture, and as the culture changes more quickly, so will
the generational years be shortened. The Millenials are those born after 1980, or from 1981.
A lost generation is one which lacks purpose because of being traumatized by war. The Baby Boomers, on the whole, are a positive, optimistic group who were highly successful, living in a time when education was still at a higher level, and where competition was considered a good. No one was afraid to speak of leadership training, for example, which is now a dirty phrase among the politically correct crowd.
The Gen-Xers have had focus as well but on the things of this world-money and status and this generation have been seen as much more conformist than the Baby Boomers. In America, the great symbol of the Gen-Xers was the SUV. Kids in my son's generation grew up watching DVDs and eating on the way to and from school in the family SUV.
This is the techno generation....and they are more introverted and loners.
But, the Millenials are not only more individualistic, they are the new lost generation.
They have not been traumatized by war, but by complete chaos in the world. They have been traumatized by watching wars and terrorism, violence and paganism on TV and in movies. They are surrounded by anti-heroes.
And, there is one huge reason for this. They were not "parented". Too many Gen-Xers wanted to be friends with their children, to the point of letting them call them by their first names. The Millenials have not been formed at all in the virtues, except for the few.
"Here are Paula and Sam, my parents, " is something I began to hear in the generation who were never disciplined, never "grounded", whose parents just "talked" to them as discipline was without consequences.
I saw the huge change as I had stopped college teaching in 1986, and stopped working with youth as a chaplain in 1987 to get married and be a stay-at-home mom in 1988. When I returned to the world of academia, in 1997, I was shocked at the change.
For the first time, I met youth who had never been disciplined, and never been inside a church. I was teaching in a Catholic high school, before going back to college teaching, and quickly saw the rot of the lack of parenting.
This is also the generation whose parents have never taught them any moral framework, and who have never learned to share. Why share when there are only two kids in the family?
The new lost generation is not inclined to religion or, ironically, are more religious than their parents. So, the extremes are more clearly seen in their groupings.
They are lost because they are beginning to perceive that they have no futures economically, and many have to put off marriage and having families because they are out of work. According to a Pew Research Document, 16% of the American Millenials of working age in 2013 were living in poverty, compared to 8% of the first wave of Baby Boomers.
Twice as many.....
We are losing our children or grandchildren to the greatest age of neo-paganism the world has ever seen. A post-Christian world is worse than a pre-Christian one, and parents who refused to form their children with religion and morals have created this lost generation. The rise of the occult in this generation is shocking and a direct result of the laissez faire attitude of parents.
It will be the job of those religious Millenials to bring some of their own generation into the Church, as few listened to anyone else. The peer group is all. The lost generation continue the heritage of "peter pans" and "predators" instead of "protectors".
But, sadly, the movement of converts will not make much of a difference to numbers, as the older generations die off and the new ones do not take their place in the pews. Up to one-third of this generation have been killed in abortion.
The new lost generation have lost their souls. Pray that these young men and women are open to God's call and grace, given to all despite the failings of their parents.