Many years ago I learned a word that I had never previously known. It was a word that I thought best described America, and generally the world. It was the word acedia. I have thought of it often as I watch America’s rapid descent sliding towards Sodom. Acedia has several meanings, but one is the “Lack of respect for spiritual things.” As America descends into a moral abyss due to a lack of spiritual formation and an abdication of spiritual thinking, America is moving to a place it has never been before.
Growing up in a New England state not far from everything to do with salt-water activities like boating, scuba, surfing, clamming, and fishing, it was a simple and wholesome way of living with few complications. My mother kept her car keys in the ignition so she wouldn’t lose them. I cannot remember having a key to our home, as we never locked the doors. One night I came home during my senior year of college unannounced and couldn’t get in the house. I had to ring the doorbell because the house had been broken into the month before. In the span of twenty years a lot had changed.
When America decided by order of the Supreme Court to ban prayer on the fateful day of June 25, 1962, and one year later Bible reading from the classroom, the United States sealed its fate. The Lord being the gentleman He is, gave mankind free choice — and man doesn’t always make the best choices if they are void of His statues and commands. The Trinity must have had a long discussion in heaven before they ever gave man free choice. Free choice with an unbridled libido has caused a lot of problems over millennia.
So, the question is often asked, “Is the United States different from other civilizations and empires in world history?” One thing is certain among historians, and that is there are great similarities to the ascent and decline of empires. There have been twenty-two empires preceding the American empire, and the rise and fall has nearly identical attributes. Many know of the Greek, the Roman, the Persian, Mesopotamian, the Dutch traders, the mighty Spanish Armada, the French, the British sailing the world pillaging commodities like those that preceded them. These countries still exist, just not as empires. They all fell on the ash heap of history the same way.
America entered the Great War (World War 1) on European soil April 1917 after President Woodrow Wilson campaigned he would keep the U.S. out of war. Thus a largely rural agrarian vast United States tooled for war and the military industrial complex was in its nascent stage hatching for the next wave that began in December 1941. With that war finished, America engineered having the dollar as the reserve currency of the world. The ability to print money from thin air with everyone wanting it was a dream come true for central bankers of the new industrial power of the U.S. The USA was now unstoppable and was on the top of the world.
People can remember their grandparents, and parents fighting for survival after largely being uneducated immigrants coming to U.S. shores for a better life. Then they fought a war to maintain the status of an empire thrust upon them by a banking and geo political ruling class elite in the 1930’s. The question must be asked, “Is America really different than those empires that preceded us?”
Historians largely agree there are eight major stages to the rise and fall of empires. They are:
- BONDAGE — The people are subject to an authority other than themselves.
- SPIRITUAL — People develop a sense of identity through a faith in God and come to have a purpose.
- COURAGE — They develop a sense of where they need to go to further themselves as a race. They venture out, breaking away from the shackles of their bondage.
- FREEDOM — Manual work and a sense of fulfillment bring an identity. Laws are made to govern themselves.
- ABUNDANCE — Work, identity, and accomplishment bear fruit. Risk over generations becomes worthwhile.
- SELFISHNESS – Human nature forgets it is God who grants favors due to fidelity. Lack of cooperation and not helping others less fortunate. Creature comforts are now generally sought.
- APATHY – A cynical approach sets in for many as the effort seems worthless. In abundance there is no spiritual advancement, thus they lose their vision of the higher good. They have become a visionless godless wasteland.
- DEPENDENCE – Laws cripple initiative and answers are looked for in all the wrong places. There is no sense of purpose in life as ease of lifestyle is sought. The people are back to bondage and don’t even know it.
What we are seeing in the world today is darkness and evil being exposed. Due to this evil, many are experiencing what Catholic mystics call The Warning or the Illumination of Conscience. Some call it a “near death experience” or “life review.” It is happening to many people as the world unravels.
Some people are seeing the state of their soul before God —and many in public. Many books recently have been written on near death and life reviews and are best sellers. People are taking notice and acknowledging they are real. The veil between heaven and earth is beginning to lift for some. The Triumph of the Immaculate Heart will bring changes to the world never seen before and we might just be watching heaven’s process of bringing in a New Era — in real time. The Blessed Mother, appointed by the Most Holy Trinity as the Mourning of the New Dawn, is heaven’s chosen instrument.
Jesus, I Trust in You