Why Indeed?

One of the trends I have noticed among the more traditionalist minded Catholics is a sense of malaise about the Church they are in.  They look at the problems of the Church today, they look to the decline of vocations, they look to the scandals… and they complain about how "The Church" does nothing whatsoever about it.

They ask why nobody is doing anything about it.

I was struck with how odd this looks when we look at the saints of the Church in times when we had these exact problems of another century.

In my Lives of the Saints book, I was reading of St. Godfrey, Bishop of Amiens, who lived in the eleventh century AD.  When he entered the religious life, there was a strong decline of vocations, there was moral laxity among the faithful and among the religious.  Some religious and clergy were failing to live up to their vows.

So what did he do?  He went to work restoring the Church in the area he lived in, restoring discipline, making his own life an example of the holiness he preached.

Today, many look at the problems of the Church and they ask "Why does not God send saints to bring about reform?"

To which I think the counter question could be asked:

Why are we not seeking to be saints, serving Christ's Church from our love of God?

Why indeed?

This is a little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.

There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.

Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job.

Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.

It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done