“To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures.” Flannery O’Connor
The trumpet is an instrument that has been used to announce cavalry charges, horse races, at army funerals and remembrance events, and is heard quite frequently in certain types of Latin music and jazz. It was also the instrument chosen to bring down the walls of Jericho, as Scripture tells us: “And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark; and on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, the priests blowing the trumpets.” Joshua 6:4
In Revelation chapter 8, Scripture tells us that seven trumpets were given to seven angels. The first six were used to sound warnings to calamities that soon followed, but the seventh, would be used to announce God’s glory, ” that in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God, as he announced to his servants the prophets, should be fulfilled.” Rev 10:7
Like Jericho of old, modern day cities like Toronto or San Francisco, find themselves closed within the walls of their hardened hearts and unable to hear the sweet sound of Grace. With the advent of moral relativism and will to power, even words themselves begin to mean so many different things that they lose meaning altogether, creating a problem of truly Babel-ian proportions. And so the shouting begins.
Dr Peter Kreeft once said in regards to one of St Augustine’s classic books, Confessions, that “unless we read it as a prayer, we will not understand it; we will only study it.” How much more so with the Scriptures? Whether through trumpets or tablets (of the stone variety, not the ones branded with the forbidden fruit), thieves, prophets or priests, our Lord has always found ways to get His message to us despite all the noise around. The greatest trumpet of all-time may have been St Paul, who wrote beautiful lyrics and wasn’t afraid to sing them in public! A priest once said that “when Paul preached, there we riots in the streets. When he preaches, he’s offered tea and biscuits”. We might not all be called to be Christ’s trumpet, but might we accept to be His donkey and carry not only His Cross, but Jesus Himself? Carry Him into the cities that most need Him.
Some say the good thief stole salvation. No purgatory, no penances, no carrying of the cross. Yet a closer look should help us see the obvious: the good thief was literally hanging on a cross! Watching at a safe distance, was a man….. who looked whole a lot like me. Or perhaps it was Nicodemus, the night-time Christian. Yet, another man, married and with his own fishing business, was also watching. This man, who earlier had denied being part of the band or knowing its Conductor, would one day play the trumpet not only in Jerusalem, but in Rome itself. Despite a hostile crowd, he set the stage for the whole band to take on residence there, and so it remains today. He died as did the next 29 lead singers of this famous band, but the music plays on.
Today’s crowds are no less hostile: arrests of those standing in quiet prayer, crisis pregnancy centers labelled as terrorist institutions, churches set on fire, court motions by educated professors of education to enable them to mutilate children and show their students pornographic material, and so on. Not long ago in Toronto, a Catholic could not apply to be a lawyer, doctor or teacher. More Christians were killed in the 20th century than in the previous nineteen combined! Yet instead of trumpets, we play the violin…
Bishop Barron recently wrote that “Catholics must be in the world but not of it”, meaning we are not called to hide backstage, but to play to a different tune than the world. God’s Holy melody is nothing more than a love song, whilst the last time we heard of three-word political slogans, the Reign of Terror descended on the population! In a country not far away, a soldier wrote, “Take up our quarrel with the foe; to you from failing hands we throw; the torch, be yours to hold it high; if ye break faith with us who die…” Lest we forget.
America has sounded its trumpet. Will Canada join the band? Dare we sing “Christ is King”?
St Joseph, pray for us.
St Michael, pray for us.
Roberto Freire
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