War! What Is It Good For?

TRANSCRIPT

The whole world is riveted, it seems, on the war in Ukraine right now — especially with Zelenskyy recently saying if his proposed talks with Putin either don't materialize or break down, we could be in a third world war.

War is always a frightening prospect, and back in the days of the Vietnam War, a multitude of songs were produced decrying war — in particular, Edwin Starr's notable hit, "War (What Is It Good For?)." The answer to the rhetorical question in the smash hit was "absolutely nothing."

That's not always the case, however, depending on what's being fought over. Sometimes, in a fallen world, war is necessary. But thinking of war in a different type of world, it's not only necessary but demanded. We're speaking here of spiritual war. Here, it is good; it's good for our salvation. In fact, without engaging in spiritual war, there is no salvation.

Here at Church Militant, spiritual war is what we are all about. And, seeing as how it's Lent, we'd like to focus on that for just a moment. We are all aware of the three pillars of Lent — prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Here at Church Militant (as a reminder), you can join us in either or both of our morning and evening Liturgy of the Hours.

Each morning, right here on the site, we livestream (beginning at 8 a.m. ET) the dayside shift praying the Rosary — followed immediately by morning prayer, the Liturgy of the Hours. As always, we invite you to add your prayers to ours. If you only have time for one or the other morning offerings, each takes about 20 minutes.

We begin with Rosary and move immediately into morning prayer. We also devote some of our chapel time in the morning to praying from our St. Michael's Chapel Prayer Book with prayers specific to this apostolate and the work we do.

Any of you who have been on any of our retreats with us are familiar with our little black book (available in our store as well).

Also, given that it's Lent, there is, of course, a pretty severe dialing back around here of the usual table of goodies that would normally be descended on as though by an Old Testament swarm of locusts. Alas for the crew, the pickings are pretty slim.

As in any truly Catholic crowd, Lent is taken pretty seriously around here, although let's just say we were grateful for the Solemnity of St. Joseph and are grateful for the upcoming Solemnity of the Annunciation this coming Friday.

As a brief programming note, Church Militant will be live on the air 30 minutes before Pope Francis begins the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in union with the bishops of the world. We'll have those details for you as Friday approaches.

The last pillar of Lent, of course, is almsgiving and, along these lines, we like to bring to mind that this is a work of the Church. It's your apostolate — we just run it on the day to day. If you love what we are doing, please become a monthly supporter — which you can do by clicking on the provided link and donating what you can.

Your contribution helps us produce all of the articles, videos, investigative reports — and even this Vortex. We make much of what we produce free to you. But, of course, it isn't free for us to produce. We have a sizable staff, and television is freakishly expensive to produce.

We've grown — and continue to grow so much that it's difficult for us to keep up with. Between Evening News, Church Militant Resistance, political coverage, travel, conferences and so forth, we are delighted at the explosive growth. But it takes vast resources to keep up with it all and keep providing it.

So as we find ourselves in the middle of Lent, with the call to do what we can to support good works financially, please consider making a monthly donation to support all this. Again, please click on the link — and thank you in advance.

Human war may oftentimes be good for absolutely nothing. But spiritual war is good for everything.