The last time we had a decade known as the “20s” or the “Twenties,” it didn’t end so well. A.D. 1929 saw a coping with the Wall St. crash, the oncoming Great Depression, and some OGs in Chicago saw to it that the word “massacre” could always go together with “St. Valentine’s Day”.
At the current pace we’re at, I don’t know if I want to know what 2029 will bring.
In a little more than 2.5 years into the new and debatably-improved 20s, what have we seen? A controversial presidential election (1920’s Harding vs. Cox was a tea party by comparison. Oh, where have you gone, Warren G.?), a global pandemic (the 1920s did see one, also, but it was ending near the two-year mark in early 1920 . . . any day now . . . ), and a new international conflict that threatens the utterance of that scary phrase of “World War III” (the world was still reeling from The Great War, so I won’t pretend it was all peace and flowers in the early 1920s).
All that (inside and outside of the parentheses) being said, we’ve had a busier start to these 20s than the last ones.
If the pandemic taught us anything, we learned to stop asking . . .
What next?
With great strife and challenge can come great hope.
With everything we all have to deal with at once, there is a great opportunity to focus on and turn toward what is important.
There is an opportunity to take it even further and turn toward God.
Why does it always take something bad to happen before we finally focus on ourselves and realign ourselves with God? Better than never doing it at all, right?
There is no better example of this than Pope Francis and bishops around the world partaking in a consecration of Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary (of course I don’t have to emphasize to everyone that what transpired on March 25 was a sort of “re-consecration” since said consecration that Our Lady requested at Fatima was fulfilled by St. John Paul II in 1984 according to Sister Lúcia . . . ).
By the time you read this, March 25 will have come and gone, and maybe we have already entered into a new time of peace and joy.
Or, maybe noticeable worldly changes may not be visible yet.
Either way, worldwide prayer is a good thing.
Maybe we’ll have even more trials and challenges as this decade goes on, but if we can get in the habit of turning to God and turning to prayer as soon as possible, only good can come from that . . .
According to His will and plans
No matter what you’re despairing over, be it the pandemic, the election, international conflicts, what decision the U.S. Supreme Court will make in the Dobbs case concerning abortion, or gas prices, God’s got this.
He hasn’t abandoned us and He has a plan . . . although we wouldn’t mind a small spoiler alert at this time.
We can be a new Greatest Generation now before things get to a point of depression and war. Imagine how 1929-1945 would have been for humanity as a time of peace.
Perhaps there would have been less of the cynicism, atheism, and greed-ism that followed.
Looking at the way this decade started off, things could still get worse, but they don’t have to.
It starts with you and me.
It’s Lent, a perfect time to make everything better, inside and out.
Pray more, fast more, give alms more. Be an example for others and encourage others to do the same.
Maybe the 2020s won’t have as good of music, movies, or sports icons as the 1920s had, but maybe, just maybe, a way better 30s is ahead of us than the last one.
The time is now. We’ve been given a chance and a wake-up call. Are you up for it?
So, let’s make this a new “roar”ing 20s with a better ending than the last one had.
Thank you for reading.
I’m praying for you.