My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Welcome to The Watchman’s Lamp. Today I come to you with a fire burning in my heart, because I believe the Lord is calling us to face something that most people don’t want to acknowledge. It is a truth we see with our eyes, we feel in our bones, and yet the world – and far too many in the Church – treat it as nothing at all. And the truth is this: we are becoming a numb generation. A generation that no longer notices when the serpent is standing right in front of us.
This numbness did not fall on us overnight. It crept in slowly, quietly, almost politely, dulling our senses little by little until the things that once would have shocked us now barely stir the soul. We have grown used to darkness, and not only used to it – we have adjusted to it. And when the eyes adjust to darkness, the darkness begins to feel normal.
The prophet Jeremiah warned about this spiritual blindness when he said, “Hear, O foolish people, and without understanding: who have eyes, and see not: and ears, and hear not” (Jeremiah 5:21). He was not speaking about pagans; he was speaking about God’s own people who had grown desensitized to sin, corruption, and spiritual danger.
And my friends, this is exactly where we stand now. We live in a time when the grotesque, the distorted, and the spiritually unsettling can be placed in front of millions of Catholics, and instead of crying out in alarm, most simply shrug. We can fill sacred places with images that pull the heart downward rather than upward, images that stir confusion rather than reverence, and the vast majority of the faithful do not even blink. That is not a sign of progress – that is a sign of numbness.
It says something tragic about the age we live in that evil no longer needs to hide. Satan does not disguise himself because he no longer fears that anyone will notice. The serpent walks openly because the people of God have grown accustomed to the hiss. We have forgotten the sound of danger.
Prophet Isaiah warned us about this inversion when he cried out, “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness … ” (Isaiah 5:20). This is not ancient poetry – it is the daily news of the Church and the world today. We tolerate the intolerable. We normalize the abnormal. We explain away what should make us tremble. We defend what should make us fall on our faces before God and cry for mercy. Our charity grows cold because our senses have gone dull.
Our Lord Himself told us this would happen: “Because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). Cold charity is not hatred – it is numbness. It is the inability to feel the ugliness of distortion, the sorrow of sin, the danger of deception. And cold charity is spreading like frost over the vineyard of the Lord.
My friends, look at the state of our times. We can witness sacred spaces filled with chaos and disfigurement, where the beauty of Christ is replaced with imagery that disturbs the soul, and the faithful have been conditioned to remain silent. We have leaders in the Church who hesitate to speak truth plainly out of fear of offending the world. We have homilies that soothe but do not save. We have shepherds who whisper when they should warn. And meanwhile the serpent walks through the sanctuary, unchallenged.
Pope Paul VI said plainly, “The smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.” That was not rhetoric. He smelled the sulfur that others pretended not to notice. And that smoke only thickened. But the greater tragedy is this: many Catholics no longer smell it at all.
This numbness affects everything. It affects the way we see. It affects the way we worship. It affects the way we react to distortion, to heresy, to blasphemy, to moral confusion, to deception. A generation whose senses have been dulled will tolerate anything as long as it is presented politely. And Satan is more than willing to be polite if it helps him enter unnoticed.
Do you remember Gethsemane? When Jesus begged His disciples to watch with Him? He returned and found them asleep. “ … What? Could you not watch one hour with Me?” (Matthew 26:40). The danger was near. The betrayal was unfolding. The soldiers were coming. Yet the Apostles slept. Not out of malice, but out of exhaustion, distraction, and human weakness. And this, my friends, is the tragedy of our age. The Church is not filled with millions of people who hate Christ – it is filled with millions who have simply fallen asleep while the greatest spiritual battle in centuries unfolds around them.
Christ did not rebuke the disciples because they were wicked. He rebuked them because they were unaware. They did not grasp the urgency of the moment. They did not recognize the nearness of the danger. And this is precisely how Satan conquers a people: not by making them evil, but by making them numb … sleepy … unconcerned … desensitized.
St. Peter warns us soberly, “Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour” (I Peter 5:8). Lions do not devour the watchful. They devour the inattentive. They prey on the numb.
A numb Church no longer reacts when wolves enter. A numb Church stops noticing when truth is twisted. A numb Church tolerates spiritual poison because it has forgotten the taste of purity. And my friends, a numb Church cannot evangelize in a world drowning in confusion.
We must ask: How did we get here? How did the people of God become so dull to the things of God? The answer is painful – but necessary. We became numb the moment we stopped expecting holiness from ourselves. We became numb when silence replaced clarity, when comfort replaced courage, when diplomacy replaced truth. We became numb when we forgot that the Gospel is not a decorative idea but a sword that cuts through lies.
The serpent has not grown stronger. The Church has simply grown quieter. And yet – hear this – numbness is not permanent. Grace can pierce it. Light can shatter it. The Lord can awaken His people in a single moment if only they desire it. The prophet Elijah experienced this when God said, “ … Arise, eat; for thou hast yet a great way to go” (I Kings 19:7). God did not scold Elijah’s weakness – He awakened him. He strengthened him. He stirred him to rise.
Brothers and sisters, this is what God is doing now. He is awakening the remnant. He is stirring the watchmen. He is rekindling the fire in those who refuse to sleep while the serpent coils around the vineyard.
But awakening always begins with truth. And the truth is this: the serpent has entered our culture, our homes, our screens, our minds, and yes – even our sanctuaries – because we stopped noticing him. We stopped calling him by name. We stopped resisting him with the authority Christ gave us.
St. Paul tells us, “For we are not ignorant of his devices” (II Corinthians 2:11). But today, many are not only ignorant – they are indifferent.
Indifference is deadlier than ignorance. Indifference is deadlier than hatred. Indifference is the triumph of numbness.
My friends, what happens to a limb that has gone numb? It becomes injured without feeling it. It can be cut, wounded, damaged – and the body does not respond. Spiritually, this is where we are. The Mystical Body of Christ is being wounded daily, yet so many feel nothing. The serpent strikes, and the people of God do not react.
But the Lord is calling His watchmen – you, me, and every faithful soul – to feel again, to see again, to discern again, to notice again. Not with fear, but with holy alertness. Not with panic, but with spiritual clarity.
St. Paul commands us: “ … Rise thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead: and Christ shall enlighten thee” (Ephesians 5:14).
This is the cry of The Watchman’s Lamp.
This is the cry of every soul who refuses to drift into darkness.
This is the cry of the Church in exile, longing for purification and restoration.
My friends, if we are going to shake off this numbness that has settled over the Church, then we must begin by returning to a holy awareness – a deep, trembling recognition of God’s presence and God’s authority. The serpent gains ground where the fear of the Lord has faded. When a soul fears God, it cannot be fooled. When a Church fears God, it does not hesitate to speak the truth. But when the fear of God grows dim, everything else grows confusing.
One of the first signs that numbness has set in is the loss of reverence. Look around at what has happened in so many of our sanctuaries. The sacred has been treated as ordinary. The altar has become a stage. The Eucharist, the very presence of Christ, is received or celebrated with a casualness that would have horrified the saints. St. Francis of Assisi once said, “Let everyone be struck with fear, the whole world tremble, and let the heavens exult when Christ, the Son of the Living God, is present on the altar in the hands of a priest.” If the saints trembled, and we do not, then something in us has grown dull.
And that dullness doesn’t just affect how we worship – it shapes how we live. What we allow into our senses matters. The world today floods our eyes and ears with distortion, noise, ugliness, and confusion. And, after a while, the soul simply stops reacting. The serpent doesn’t need to roar. He whispers through the screens we stare at. He moves through the content we consume. And if we are not vigilant, his presence feels normal. A numb heart cannot discern danger because it is drowning in distraction.
But the Lord never intended His people to drift in a fog. He calls us back to clarity, and clarity always begins with courage – the courage to resist the lie even when the lie is polite. The courage to say, “This is not of God,” even when everyone else is shrugging. The courage to stand up for the truth even when it costs something. Think of St. Athanasius, who stood firm when nearly the whole world accepted heresy. He didn’t wait for approval. He didn’t wait for popularity. He simply refused to pretend blindness. And that is exactly what breaks spiritual numbness: refusing to pretend we don’t notice what we plainly see.
My friends, if your heart feels heavy, or dull, or overwhelmed, then hear this: Jesus Christ can restore the spiritual senses as easily as He restored sight to the blind. The same Lord who said to Bartimaeus, “What wilt thou that I should do to thee?” says it to us as well. And the only right answer is, “Lord, that I may see.”
Give me back my sight. Give me back my hearing. Give me back the ability to feel what is holy and recoil from what is evil.
God promised through the prophet Ezekiel, “And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of flesh.” A heart of flesh is a heart that feels again, that burns again, that recognizes the serpent instead of walking past him.
And this, my friends, is why we are gathered here under The Watchman’s Lamp. Because a watchman must stay awake. A lamp must stay lit. God told Isaiah, “I have set watchmen upon thy walls … which shall never hold their peace day nor night.” That is the calling of every believer today. Not to panic. Not to despair. But to remain awake – awake when others sleep, awake when others shrug, awake when others say, “It’s not that bad.”
The watchman sees what others ignore. You may think, “But what can I do? I’m only one person.” But that is how God begins every renewal – with one awakened soul. One heart that refuses numbness. One believer who no longer glosses over the truth to make it easier for the world to swallow. One soul who stands, watches, prays, and refuses to be lulled into spiritual sleep.
The world may be numb. Even much of the Church may be numb. But God always preserves a remnant who can still feel the pulse of heaven. And the remnant becomes the spark that re-ignites the whole Church.
My friends, part of waking up from numbness is learning to recognize the very things we have stopped reacting to. And this is where many Catholics become uncomfortable, because true spiritual awakening means we must be honest – painfully honest – about what is happening in the Church and the world. When we stop reacting to error, when falsehood no longer startles us, when confusion from our leaders no longer grieves us, then we are already deep in the fog.
Think about how often we hear things now that would have shaken the Church to its core just a generation ago. We hear it said that “all paths lead to God,” as though the Incarnation were optional, as though the Cross was unnecessary, as though the Church’s very mission were negotiable. We hear it said that we should not fear ideologies that openly deny Christ, that we should not be concerned when nations or religions hostile to the Gospel grow in influence – and we are told that objecting to this is nothing more than a fear of immigration or a lack of openness. My friends, this is not pastoral wisdom – this is spiritual numbness masquerading as charity.
We have become numb to the dilution of doctrine. Numb to leaders speaking like diplomats instead of apostles. Numb to the twisting of mercy into permission. Numb to the betrayal of the Gospel under the banner of “dialogue.” Numb to the silence that greets blasphemy.
When the Holy Father himself downplays the dangers of ideological religions, or dismisses fear of Islam as if it were simply political discomfort rather than an acknowledgement of spiritual reality, the faithful must be clear-eyed. We are not judging his soul – but we must recognize the effect such words have on the Church. They make Catholics numb to the real spiritual battle, numb to the truth that Christ alone is Lord, numb to the necessity of conversion.
And this is the heart of the problem: numbness has made us polite toward evil and defensive toward truth.
We hesitate to speak plainly because we do not want to be “divisive.” We hesitate to warn because we don’t want to seem “uncharitable.” We hesitate to call error by its name because the world has taught us that clarity is cruelty. But, my friends, the serpent thrives wherever clarity dies.
And so if we truly want to break numbness – if we want our children, our parishes, our Church to wake up – then we must be willing to say aloud what the world demands we whisper. We must refuse to accept the false peace of silence. We must reclaim the courage to name the very things we have been conditioned not to notice.
Because every time we say, “That’s just the ways things are now,” every time we excuse confusion because it comes from someone in authority, every time we soften the Gospel so that it offends no one, our senses grow a little more dull, a little more blind, a little more numb.
But the moment we name the lie, the moment we call out the distortion, the moment we refuse to pretend – spiritual numbness begins to break. Truth always brings sensation back to the soul. It awakens. It sharpens. It cuts through the haze.
This is how a watchman sees again. This is how a heart feels again. This is how the Church becomes the Church renewed.
My friends, as we come to the end of this message, I want to speak to your heart with the same urgency that Christ spoke to the disciples in Gethsemane. He did not say, “Try your best.” He said, “Watch.” He said, “Stay awake.” Because the danger was real, and the darkness was thick, and the betrayal was already unfolding. We stand in that same hour now.
The serpent does not hide anymore. He walks openly, boldly, even proudly. He speaks through institutions, through leaders, through media, through false compassion, through distorted doctrine, through silence when there should be warning, and through noise when there should be truth.
And yet – despite all of this – the Lord has preserved a people who can still see.
If you are listening to me, I truly believe you are among them. Not because you are better than others, but because God Himself has placed a restlessness inside you – a refusal to sleep, a refusal to pretend, a refusal to be numbed into spiritual death.
You feel the tremor in the air. You notice what others ignore. You grieve at what others laugh at. You recognize the serpent even when he comes dressed as an angel of light.
That is not paranoia. That is not negativity. That is not extremism. That is the Holy Spirit keeping you awake. But now comes the call – the call to rise, the call to stand, the call to become a true watchman in an age of sleeping disciples.
A watchman does not wait for permission to speak. A watchman does not soften the alarm to avoid upsetting the village. A watchman does not let the serpent pass quietly in the night.
A watchman lights the lamp. A watchman warns the city. A watchman stays awake because others cannot. This is the vocation God is placing upon your soul right now. And it does not matter whether you are young or old, whether you feel strong or weary, whether you stand in the pulpit or in the pew. What matters is that you do not let the numbness of this generation swallow your God-given clarity.
Christ is calling His people back to alertness. Back to holiness. Back to courage. Back to discernment. Back to the fire that once made the Church radiant in the world.
He is raising up men and women who can say with St Paul, “We are not ignorant of His devices.” He is raising up souls who reject the fake peace of silence and embrace the real peace that comes only from Jesus Christ who is Truth Incarnate.
My friends, the serpent may walk boldly – but the children of God must walk brighter. The darkness may thicken – but the lamp must burn hotter. The numb generation may accept anything – but the watchmenmust accept only Christ.
So tonight, under the glow of The Watchman’s Lamp, I ask you to make one resolution before God:
Lord, awaken me.
Keep me sharp.
Keep me faithful.
Let me see what You see.
Let me feel what You feel.
Let me never grow numb to Your truth again.
Because the Church does not need one more program, one more committee, one more survey, or one more strategy. The Church needs watchmen – awake, discerning, courageous, and faithful to Christ no matter the cost.
And may the Lord make you one of them.
Until next time, my dear brothers and sisters ….
Keep the lamp burning.
And may Almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Bishop Joseph E. Strickland
Bishop Emeritus
