THE EVIL PIED PIPER

 

 

Do you  recall Robert Browning’s “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”?  A weird flutist answered the appeal of the city council to rid Hamelin from rats:

 

 

“He advanced to the council-table:
And, "Please your honours," said he, "I'm able,
By means of a secret charm, to draw
All creatures living beneath the sun,
That creep, or swim, or fly, or run,
After me so as you never saw!

 

 

Browning’s poem is an English rendition of the famous legend about some character freeing a city from vermin but not getting his promised wage.  In revenge, he led all the children of the town with his sweet-sounding pipe either into a forest, or a cave, or ship, etc.,  and they were never seen again.

 

 

The Pied Piper’s nefarious magic spell appears to be re-incarnated in American media culture.  Movies, TV, magazines, videos, the Internet - and let’s not forget the Hollywood stars -  have a startling power in warping the  consciences of people, especially the young.  And not only over North American youth.  We export this self-centered, hedonistic value-system throughout the world.  “By means of a secret charm,” it appears capable of drawing “all creatures living beneath the sun” to share its worst tenets.

 

 

True, there have always been “Pied Pipers.”  But the contemporary media version appears to be more pernicious, and far more widespread than most.  Bishop Jenky of Peoria, in an address to the Hibernians of the area, summed up its venom when he described American culture today as “living in direct opposition to the truth of Christ’s Gospel and … aggressively hostile to the Church … It is at war with Jesus Christ.”  Too strong?  As an overarching description of our post-Christian culture, how could anyone deny his words?

 

 

The Bishop posed this question: “Will you tolerate the holiest things of our religion on a daily basis being mocked and ridiculed on TV, in the press and in the movies? … even the most blessed and glorious Mother of God becomes a joke for comedians and sports writers … Will American materialism and gross pagan immorality, disguised as personal autonomy and moral neutrality, finally succeed … ?”

 

 

Hollywood and  the media establishment are, for example, making a frontal attack against marriage and the family, the very building block of any human society.   A culture of death is promoted with bold arrogance and shipped abroad through cinema, lyrics, etc.  Any tool is used – no matter the expense – to get this “freedom” out to “poor, underdeveloped countries.”

 

 

The final query of Bishop Jenky: “Why do we  Catholics not stand up and fight to defend our faith?  What will it take to finally get us mad?”

 

 

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St Louis de Montfort got mad.  Yet he lived at a time when his prime territory of evangelization, northwestern France, could surely be called “Catholic.” Yet He complained loudly about  the laxity of Catholics, especially the wealthy in their mansions and the clergy in their luxurious apartments. His evangelical anger would burst out when seeing the tepidity of the faith at the time of Louis XIV.  He cries out for a Christocentric passionate love which enflames the whole of life without any compartmentalizing;  a raging passion for the Triune God Who sends the Son to become our crucified redeemer. 

 

 

It is the heart of Mary ablaze with the Spirit, so Montfort is convinced, which can transform us into dynamic copies of her divine Son.  Mary, Mother of the Incarnation, should be our milieu where we live Jesus with total, passionate love.

 

 

Why do we Catholics not stand up and fight to defend our faith?  St Louis de Montfort gives his evangelical response: because we have not found Mary.  We have not accepted the Incarnation in its full meaning.  To put it succinctly, we must live our baptismal consecration to Jesus, always through and in Mary.  Our faith will then really come alive.

 

 

Shall we permit contemporary media – the new Pied Piper – to continue assailing our faith and thus wreaking havoc among our children?  We are all so lukewarm in our faith  and therefore so liable to be charmed by the piper’s ungodly but enticing tune!  However, in Mary and through Mary, the Spirit  abundantly fills us  with so ardent a love for Christ, that at last, each one of us  will  get mad,  i.e., so passionately centered on Jesus living in Mary that the Church will be reformed, the face of the earth renewed!