Our Lord never promised us that it would be easy. “It” being to follow Him and to confront the challenges to faith and to living His words entrusted to us.

The Scriptures tell us of the early challenges encountered by Jesus’ followers. St. Paul on his missionary journeys had variable levels of success. And for his efforts he recounts his hardships and sufferings (2 Cor 11:24-26). All but one of the Apostles witnessed to Jesus by his own martyrdom. And Christians were targeted early by worldly authority, as in the case of being falsely blamed for the burning of Rome.
The point is that throughout history, and even throughout the world in our own day, to live our Catholic faith is to be challenged as Jesus was. But even as we are called to give witness before the world, we are given that sense of joy that comes from doing what is truly good because it is what God intends. We also live with a firm and real hope. He has not abandoned us but is with us until the end of the age.

Pope Francis, in a recent morning homily, touched upon the modern persecutions confronting the faithful. He noted the cruel persecutions even to death that still take place today. But he observed that especially in the western world, our situation, there is another form of very real persecution.

Pope Francis spoke of persecution that comes “disguised as culture, disguised as modernity, disguised as progress, … as an educated persecution.” Pope Francis went on to explain that in such cases, the faithful are not persecuted for speaking the name of Jesus. Rather, they are persecuted for wanting to live the values of one who is a child of God.

Pope Francis called this a persecution “against God the creator in the person of His children.” In the end, according to the Holy Father, this kind of persecution ends by taking away human freedom, especially the freedom of conscience.

For some time now the secularizing trends in our own beloved country have quietly built the foundation for this kind of polite persecution described by the pope. Little by little we have been told that to pray publicly or to link our moral values explicitly to belief in God is divisive. Under the language of tolerance and by exaggerating individual freedom, the educated persecution seeks to silence faith and to make faithful people feel uncomfortable, stuck in the past, or even intolerant.

The consequences for a society losing faith are visible around us. The family and family structure are not supported or are even undermined. The most basic unit of solidarity is treated as an option or even a form of limitation of liberty.

Respect for the dignity of every person in the image of God is lost with the result that we are pitted against each other. That highlights our differences be they racial, financial, social or personal, but not in a way that can bring us together as one family under God. As a result, even our political structure seems incapable of addressing our problems.

Our response cannot be simply a deeper reliance on human ingenuity. Reliance on experts, programs and government, while it has its place, is simply more human effort. Instead, what will be needed will be faithful witnesses to Christ. We will need to be unafraid to live and bring holiness into the world.

Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto recently outlined three elements to our Catholic witness to the challenges before us.

First, turn to the Eucharist and our eucharistic Lord. Mass and prayer before the Blessed Sacrament link us to Christ. The Eucharist is His presence in the world and in our hearts. How can we not come to meet Him there?

Second, each of us must examine our hearts to see where we have compromised, how we have displaced God from the center of our hearts. All of us are tempted not to put Christ first.

Third, he suggested that we regularly and explicitly pray for those who espouse or argue for this polite persecution. This we must do lovingly and seeking their good, even in times of trial.

In view of this summer of violence, and especially the recent shootings of and by law enforcement authorities, we sense even more acutely the wider societal dangers before us. We are to be the light of the world, even if it costs us, even if we are despised.

Our country needs the example and contribution of holiness. Our Catholic faith and the Pope call us to that same response.