BURNING LOVE OR BURNING CITIES?

Do we want burning love or burning cities?  The horrible out of control wildfires that recently made large swaths of Los Angeles County look like they'd suffered a nuclear attack shows us the folly of thinking that governments always have our best interests at heart and worshipping the State rather than our Creator.

Clearly those in charge in the Los Angeles Fire Department were more concerned with various environmental and “social justice” issues than making sure there was actually enough water readily available to put out fast moving raging fires!

It makes you wonder: what if those people had been as focused on doing our Lord's will as they were with various secular concerns, including matters inimical to our faith, wouldn't they have made sure, just as a precaution considering people's safety, that there would be enough water to contain whatever fires did break out; and as well, to clear the brush regularly so that it wouldn't become such kindling?

Whatever dreams those in charge in California thought might come true from various politically correct nostrums seem to have turned to smoke and ash like so many communities in the area around Los Angeles. 

Fire can have positive and necessary attributes, such as in providing heat and being used for cooking. And we read in the prayer to the Holy Spirit “come Holy Spirit and fill the hearts of thy faithful and kindle in them the fire of thy love”.

We also read in scripture about how our Lord Jesus once said He came to cast a fire on the earth and how He wished it were already kindled (Luke 12:49). This is the fire of His great love for us, as shown also in depictions of His Sacred Heart (such as the one pictured above).

Yet tragically over the centuries fires have consumed lives and property in numerous wars. In this way the fire of God’s love from the Holy Spirit has so often become the fire of God’s wrath!

Think in this regard of these telling words from Chapter 4 of the letter of St. James: What causes wars, and what causes fightings among you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your members? You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions (Jas:4:1-3).

California politicians and even some of the citizenry have been all too ready, willing, and able not only to countenance but even support egregious violations not only of the 6th Commandment, especially in the Hollywood entertainment industry, but the 7th as well.

Shoplifting was legal up to $950 until it was finally outlawed in a referendum this past November! Various sociopolitical issues have been considered more important than keeping California cities and counties safe from drugs, crime, and now massive wildfires!

However, this is not to mitigate the genuine suffering that people are going through, nor to assume that all residents of that plagued area somehow “had it coming to them”.

Now getting back to the fires themselves we're seeing the bitter fruits of years and years of insistent forest mismanagement for various ecological concerns that on balance seemed dangerously arcane whether it was just from a tiny fish or for whatever other reason that was deemed essential by various environmental and other groups. 

So as a result, with no controlled burns of the brush you had a tremendous amount of kindling that would be fuel for any fire that broke out to the extent that these fires in Los Angeles county did.

On top of that there were the reservoirs that were not filled properly and fire hydrants that couldn't even give out water. This created traumatic conditions that are going to affect quite a number of people for some time to come. We must pray for them, regardless of how we might feel about some of their mores. 

The kindling of all that overbrush piling up near trees that was allowed to just grow and grow reminds me of how our sins can pile up, especially mortal ones. 

What we've seen the past few years is a breakdown of traditional morality so that too many times what is good is seen as evil and vice versa! 

And getting back to Los Angeles for a minute when you see a reservoir that's completely emptied and not able to give any kind of support in putting out fires we can compare this to many parched souls steeped in sins “wandering in desert wastelands” as we read about in Psalm 107, verse 4. 

God Himself ardently complained to the prophet Jeremiah about the numerous deadly sins the royal and religious authorities were committing in the 7th century BC in Judah. Jeremiah records Him as telling the prophet  that “my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the foundation of living waters, and hewed out cisterns [that is to say stone reservoirs used for storing rain] for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jer 2:13).

We see here that water is essential for life (in this case for putting out wildfires) as well as for the sacrament of baptism where we become adopted children of God. (Holy water, by the way, is a great sacramental that can help us in pursuing sanctity.) 

But you're not going to get that well spring of life giving water that Jesus spoke about in John’s Gospel (chapter 4, verses 13-14), when he spoke to the woman at the well, from a reservoir that's empty.

That is to say, if you’re not checking in with God frequently in Communion and Confession, as well as in having a faithful prayer life, when faced with a personal crisis of some sort you are more likely to experience the fires of your out of control emotions causing you bitterness and despair.

All that dry forest overbrush acted as kindling to turn a small flame into a conflagration. In a similar way, think of our numerous sins as kindling that can spark similar tragedies for humanity. 

So many times in human history God has chastised us through our own hands. When we become so corrupt, so arrogant and so far away from Him that all we can think of is our own selfish desires God in effect shows us the results of our own misguided corrupt sinful actions, both mortal as well as venial sins. 

This was certainly true for example when God warned those wayward elites in Judah through the prophet Jeremiah mentioned earlier that if they didn't repent of their many sins the Babylonians would conquer them with no Divine interference to stop them.

And indeed Solomon’s temple was destroyed by the forces under King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC and the citizens of Judah were forced into exile by the conquering Babylonians.

For another example, closer to our own time, our Lady of Fatima warned in 1917 as the First World War raged on that if we did not stop offending God an even worse war would come in the not too distant future. And indeed only some 22 years later Hitler started World War II which led to some truly historic destruction in various cities.

God fervently wants to care for us sinners, the sheep of his flock. Unfortunately, while respecting our free will to choose him or not, at numerous times, He’s allowed us to experience His Chastisements at the hands of our fellow human beings.

That’s what happens, figuratively speaking, when we sheep don’t see the wolves in sheepish garb, or worse, foolishly try to run with them! Ultimately, many people have found out too late, time and time again, that they were not the wolves’ honored dinner guests but rather the main course!

Looking at the TV and Internet images that have come out of Los Angeles County we see a striking example of what Hell may look like. Hellfire and brimstone sermons used to be much more common but we've reached an era where hell, sin, and the need for repentance aren’t preached about much by our clergy.

In fact, some of them hold to a pernicious notion that at the end of your life if you don’t wind up in heaven your soul is just  annihilated, as if it never existed! 

God wishes as many of us as possible to have Eternal Life with Him in heaven. Jesus died for that, after all! Yet, the fate of our Eternal Souls, be they in joy in heaven with God or in eternal misery and separation from God in Hell is up to us to choose.

Far too many people seem to think these days that basically everybody's either going to heaven or to a state of non-existence and that's far from the truth!

Think also in this regard when the church is functioning properly its clergy and clerics and such can act a bit like firemen helping to put out the flames of disordered passions which can flare up all too easily especially nowadays.

Which is to say again that fire is not necessarily a bad thing depending upon its function, of course! If the fires burning out of control are from the seven deadly sins: lust, greed, pride, avarice, sloth, gluttony, and envy, these can be best extinguished with a solid prayer life and partaking of the sacraments of Eucharist and penance better known as confession as frequently and fervently as possible.

Pray that those who have lost everything in this horrible blaze may may not turn against God but turn to him instead and for those who have not turned to him at all that they may have see this as an opportunity on some level with the help of the Holy Spirit for them to turn their faces not their backs to him. 

God Bless,

Christopher Castagnoli
for www.ourcatholicprayers.com