I must admit, gentle Readers, that I have been at times sometimes frustrated and saddened; 
and well, honestly, quite skeptical of the "brick by brick" concept. Things feel like they are moving only at a glacial pace, but then I step back and think about the over 2,000 year old history of Christ's Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church and realize that 40 years, while a generation of souls, is very little in the life of the Church. Even at a glacial pace, glaciers move miles when given time.
and well, honestly, quite skeptical of the "brick by brick" concept. Things feel like they are moving only at a glacial pace, but then I step back and think about the over 2,000 year old history of Christ's Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church and realize that 40 years, while a generation of souls, is very little in the life of the Church. Even at a glacial pace, glaciers move miles when given time.Part of what helps me is that I love to study history, and in the 2,000 year history of Christ's Church, there have been some really terrible epochs... times when State authorities or popular revolution has tried to extinguish the light of the Church... and at times it has appeared that these evil forces had succeeded, but the Church has survived! -- protected and guided by the Holy Spirit and witnessed by the blood of the Martyrs.
Whether Roman persecutions, English Reformation suppression, French Revolution anti-clericalism, Post-Vatican II liturgical confusion, and Obama administration anti-Catholicism... the Church will survive until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ!
But we must also defend the Church, and we must be witnesses to her Truth as the martyrs of the past, and frankly, the martyrs of today... look at Iraq, Iran, N. Korea, China, Philippines, Latin America, and so many other places that even in today's "enlightened" world, Christians are tortured and murdered for their faith in Jesus Christ.We must stand up to be counted in the public square as well as in the private square of our own homes. We much teach and live the Faith that has been given to us to our children, family, and friends... Pray for our Pope! Pray for our Church and her priests! Let history not record us as deserters of our Faith, weak and lacking in courage; but rather, may it record us as a generation that lived to up to the traditional teaching of the the Church Militant who at the end of the race had fought the good fight.
Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam, et portae inferi non praevalevunt adversus eam. -- Matthew 16, 18
