Brothers and Sisters,
It is evident to all of us right now t hat we are in a new season of cultural upheaval. The contrast between a culture of darkness and a Culture of the Holy Spirit are on display in a way that hasn't been seen for at least a generation.
I was born at the end of the baby boomer generation in 1959. Even so, I remember at a young age the change in the liturgy of the Mass after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, and the grumbling I heard from adults about those changes. At the end of the sixties, during the height of the Vietnam war, the streets were filled with anti-war protests, and soldiers returning home were mocked and treated like criminals. Race riots were causing looting, burning, and destruction in our major cities. The "sexual revolution" was in full force with the rise of radical feminism that culminated in the Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion. If you are my age or older, you are nodding your head right now in remembrance of these dramatic cultural events that were some of the hallmarks of a sort of "revolution" in our secular culture during the '60s and early '70s. Crisis and uncertainty in the World are nothing new!
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We are all struggling to make sense of the current news in our world with the pandemic, riots, and unrest. Evil is called good, and good is called evil. There is much deception, and sin is running rampant in our streets.
I recently watched a documentary on the history of medicines. One segment spoke about medical treatments derived from poisons, particularly from scorpions (one of my least favorite things in the universe). Some brain cancer tumors are difficult to treat since cancer and the healthy brain tissue look the same to the naked eye. Taking too much healthy tissue in surgery as an abundance of caution often results in a catastrophic disability for the patient. Being able to pinpoint only cancer in surgery is critical. The venom of a scorpion named "The Death Stalker' contains a substance that paralyzes and kills the animals it hunts for food. But in humans, scientists discovered that this ingredient instead has an attraction to cancer cells and, in fact, binds to cancer cells exclusively. The poison is not strong enough to kill the cancer cell, but instead, when mixed with a fluorescent dye, it highlights only the cancer cells allowing surgeons to avoid cutting out healthy brain tissue. With a special kind of lighting, the tumor is highly contrasted against healthy tissue allowing it's removal while minimizing damage to the healthy.
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