Since Jason decided to call me out on the mat for my extreme sloth, I have been shamed into posting my second article here on Sirach 40:20. Well, whatever it takes I guess.

I just came off an incredible men's retreat with my household, the Brothers of the Eternal Song (I guess we're going to have to explain that whole household thing sometime...yikes), on which there was a tremendous outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Now, this could lead into an interesting discussion on the spiritual gifts or charismatic vs. traditional prayer, but what struck me last night was something else. I find it so strange that the Catholics that I know, which, I suppose, would be almost exclusively American Catholics, are so ready to supplant tradition and church teachings with their own experience. Why do I feel so entitled to say that my experience is so unique, so deserving of special considerations? Particularly after experiencing the spiritual gifts (tongues, wisdom, discernment, resting in the Spirit, etc), I am tempted to believe that this somehow makes me particularly blest, that my revelation takes precedent over God's revelation to millions and billions before me. We can see this in any range of issues, from catholics supporting abortion and euthanasia to women priests and beach weddings. I believe that is starts very small with these habits, and maybe even the initial experiences were rational or even holy. But somewhere along the way we decide that we don't really need to check ourselves against the Christ or His Church; that our revelation is ours and no one is going to tell us we're wrong. It's a slippery slope from there to where we are now.

Where did I get this crazy idea? It's obviously nothing new, or particularly American (see the vast number of Protestant Churches around the world), but I wonder if we have a bent to it that other nations don't struggle so much with. Has this sort of problem exploded since the "Right to Privacy" and "Sexual Revolution" (just for the record, I find that term offensive...as if they weren't just rehearsing what others have said throughout history in terms of sexual license. The only sexual revolution in the last hundred years has been done by JPII in Theology of the Body) fiascos? Or have we always had to be more wary of our individualistic tendencies? It has to have been fed by the loss of fathers and the explosion of divorce in recent years in society at large, but was it there before all that? Does anyone, particularly a non-American, have some light to shed on this issue? You help is much appreciated.