{"id":35307,"date":"2020-05-06T10:09:12","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T10:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=35307"},"modified":"2020-05-06T10:09:12","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T10:09:12","slug":"after-the-crisis-encouragement-from-the-bacon-priest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2020\/05\/06\/after-the-crisis-encouragement-from-the-bacon-priest\/","title":{"rendered":"AFTER THE CRISIS: Encouragement from the Bacon Priest"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The \u201cbest preparation for a better future,\u201d wrote Fr Werenfried van Straaten, \u201cis to rise again with Christ to a life of goodness, mercy, pity, helpfulness and true love; and this, together with all men of good will.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Fr Werenfried van Straaten (1913-2003) was a Dutch priest who became known as the &#8220;Bacon Priest&#8221; for his humanitarian work, founding the international Catholic Charity, Aid to the Church in Need following World War II.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In December 1947, an unknown Dutch Premonstratensian wrote an article for his Abbey magazine called \u2018No Room at the Inn\u2019. In it, he pleaded for the restoration of love in a lacerated world, as he put it in a book he wrote many years later. To the people of the Netherlands, who had been defeated and humiliated by the Nazi regime, Fr Werenfried van Straaten (1913-2003) made an appeal on behalf of the defeated Germans. It was a remarkable call to action that received a remarkable response. \u201cThe result exceeded all expectations,\u201d he wrote. \u201cFrom Flanders the columns of charity began their trek to the East.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Fr Werenfried may have been in delicate health, but he had formidable energy and an amazing faith. In a very short period of time, he had arranged for hordes of rucksack priests and chapel trucks to take both the sacraments and practical aid to displaced Catholics across Germany. What an act of charity that was in post-war Flanders, a place that was still ravaged by the economic, physical and spiritual scars of war.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">What Fr Werenfried saw more clearly than most was the crisis that followed the crisis of war. As Pope Pius XII told him in 1955, \u201cEveryone is now preparing for war and hardly anybody thinks of preparing for peace which may take us unawares.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The great danger lies in the possibility that in our superficiality and false peace, we neglect to strengthen the spiritual defences of the Church, that we deprive our persecuted brethren of the spiritual, moral and material support they have a right to expect from us.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Fr Werenfried famously said that while the suffering Church is being tested in faith, we are being tested in love. This perception of the test that faces us when any catastrophe comes to an end runs through\u00a0<em>They Call Me the Bacon Priest<\/em>. In 1952, for example, he wrote about \u201cthe test that Christianity must undergo in the coming years\u201d:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Few men or women can match the astounding levels of charitable giving that the founder of Iron Curtain Church Relief and, latterly, Aid to the Church in Need achieved during his lifetime, but Fr Werenfried was under no illusions about the heart of his mission: \u201cthe best preparation for a better future,\u201d he wrote, \u201cis to rise again with Christ to a life of goodness, mercy, pity, helpfulness and true love; and this, together with all men of good will.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As we consider the crisis that currently engulfs us, we too need to plan for the peace that will follow. We cannot continue as before. However much we have suffered, we need to be ready to reach out to those who have suffered more. We need change at every level of government and society but the most fundamental change of all needs to take place within our own hearts where the living Christ is waiting to work more wonderful miracles than we can perhaps dare to imagine. And if we don\u2019t believe that, we need look no further than the life and work of a frail Dutch priest who transformed suffering into faith, hope and love all those years ago.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.catholicworldreport.com\/author\/peachey-roy\/\"><em>Roy Peachey<\/em><\/a><em>\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/acnmalta.org\/donate\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-35305 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Support-button-300x44.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"44\" srcset=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Support-button-300x44.jpg 300w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Support-button-580x85.jpg 580w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Support-button-600x88.jpg 600w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Support-button.jpg 627w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The \u201cbest preparation for a better future,\u201d wrote Fr Werenfried van Straaten, \u201cis to rise again with Christ to a life of goodness, mercy, pity, helpfulness and true love; and this, together with all men of good will.\u201d Fr Werenfried van Straaten (1913-2003) was a Dutch priest who became known as the &#8220;Bacon Priest&#8221; for&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - 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