One Catholic at a time

I just got back from a road trip, and I had brought a stack of Father Corapi CD's with me to listen to while I was driving. He is such a charismatic speaker. What I like about his talks is that he pulls no punches and tells it like it is, whether he thinks you will like him for it or not. He is also very humorous in getting his point across - like when he said you don't get to heaven any faster in a Ferrari.

One story of Father Corapi's I want to relate here is the importance of holiness for each member of the Church Militant in keeping evil at bay. He stresses how God gave us the Church to hold the world up morally, and how the prayers of the faithful are what keeps the Church strong in a world of iniquity and sin. He uses the Biblical example of how Moses prayed with arms outstretched to defeat Amelec's army. As long as Moses was able to hold his arms up in prayer, the Israelites were strong against Amelec's army. When Moses grew tired and his arms sagged to his sides, Amelec's army overpowered the Israelites. Aaron and Hur, who were with Moses, held his hands up until sunset, so that Moses could maintain his prayerful posture, and the Iraelites were victorious in battle.

Father Corapi goes on to say that this passage prefigures the Church at prayer and that the Church is what holds up the world, morally speaking. While the Church is in itself indefectably holy, its members are sinners who are called to holiness through prayer. When we become lax in our prayer lives, we weaken the Church and evil takes hold. When we pray and strive for holiness, we are helping the Church to defeat evil. It's a wonderful analogy that emphasizes the importance of prayer.

Without prayer, all creation begins to sag, just like Moses' arms did, and the weight of the world's sins becomes too much for the Church, and sins like abortion, homosexuality and euthanasia take hold, spiralling the world toward hell. This is a battle each one of us must fight. We all share responsibility to strengthen the Church through prayer and virtue... one Catholic at a time.