Stay Awake and Watch

“The Church is a timeless society. Membership makes it possible to step outside of the contemporary milieu, at least mentally, and to measure it against something infinitely better and ultimately more real. But this is not possible for those locked into a de-spiritualised cosmos. Rejection of the idea of evil, coupled to belief in progress and the self-perfectibility of man, blocks awareness that the worst may be happening, a blindness reinforced by the fact that every person tends naturally to experience his own times as normal. Even believers can be blinded by the psychology of denial—consider the attitude of most Christians and Jews in Germany during the 1930s. As events become more and more extreme, the temptation grows to bury oneself in escapist dreams or in the distractions of comfort. The critical faculty is lulled to sleep. ‘To stay awake and watch,’ demands energy and the willingness to persist in a state of chronic tension. It is so much easier to be ‘optimistic.’”
~Michael O’Brien