How to Maintain Your Peace As the World Falls Apart

Many people today believe that the world is heading to a scary place. This includes those of different faiths and political persuasions. They may not agree on what’s wrong with the world, but they feel something big is about to happen — whether that be a civil war in the U.S., more worldwide pandemics, nuclear war, increased religious persecution, or even a complete collapse of modern civilization.

From a Catholic perspective, it’s hard to close our eyes to just how bad things are — especially on the spiritual front. There was a time in the United States and Europe when most people held certain Judeo-Christian values in common. They didn’t always live up to those values, but they accepted them in principle.

Now, those values – the nature of marriage, the importance of the family, the existence of objective morality, and the freedom to evangelize – are under attack. And proponents of the many anti-Christian “isms” seem intent on silencing those who speak the truth.

What’s a Catholic to do when the entire world is going mad? Rely on your Faith and follow these principles to maintain your peace.

1. Accept the state of things with a healthy degree of pessimism
Don’t pretend things are sunny when they’re not. Realize that you’re in a decadent, decaying culture. Expect that God may increasingly call upon you to make heroic sacrifices. We’ve already seen faithful Christians lose their jobs because they refused to get on board with today’s LGBTQ+ ideology.

God willed to send you into a battlefield, not a garden paradise. We’re here to help save people from spiritual death.

2. Realize that Christ has already won the war
You may lose many battles in the near future, but we already know the outcome of this great spiritual war. Christ won it 2,000 years ago with His Passion, death, and resurrection. He destroyed death and opened heaven to all who answer His call to follow Him.

Always remember, you are on the winning side! God has provided the whole story, including the final chapters. The Book of Revelation — while full of symbolism — offers a glimpse of what will actually happen at the end. Despite horrible events unlike anything ever seen in history, Christ will come to rescue His faithful ones from the darkness to live with Him forever in heaven.

3. Understand that you need supernatural faith
So great will the final battle be, that without supernatural faith you’ll perish in the fight. That’s why you need to nourish that faith by frequenting the sacraments and praying without ceasing.

Purely human faith, while helpful, will not be strong enough for this supernatural battle.

Of course, we don’t know if the events of the present are the beginning of the end of time. Even if they aren’t, we need to be ready for the spiritual fight of our lives.

Let’s take inspiration from the words of Samwise Gamgee from “The Lord of the Rings”:

“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. . . . Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. . . . There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.”