Life was never simple; it was never easy. Our parents, grandparents, and great parents endured generational struggles. The American revolution, the Civil War, the Great Depression, two global conflicts, social unrest, they endured it all. We live in dark times, but darkness and evil are two threads that have run through human history.

What’s different now, what makes this period so dangerous, is that we’re trying to white-knuckle our way through it without God. When brother fought against brother, public leaders regularly appealed to Heaven for help. When our grandfathers stormed the beaches of Normandy and raised the flag over Iwo Jima, they did so with a gun, rations, and a rosary in their kit. When John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were gunned down, it happened in a nation that disagreed profoundly, but shared a common understanding of the divine.

Today, we don’t have that. The rectangles on our walls, in our rooms, on our desks, and in our pockets can connect us to the worst people, the worst ideas, and the deepest darkness. Without God, without prayer, without grace, how can we ever hope to overcome as our forefathers did?

At Mass this weekend, I looked around the pews. There were the elderly, parents with adult children, young families, and a shocking number of single adults. I normally sit towards the front with my children, so they are perhaps always there, just unseen behind me. What inspires is that these single adults live in a world that proclaims the uselessness of religion, and they chose different. Their parents didn’t tell them to go to Mass, their friends likely didn’t, they decided to be there.

We just celebrated the canonization of Pier Giorgio and Carlo Acutis, two saints who remind us that life is never to be taken for granted. We are not promised anything more than here and now, and we can choose sainthood.

Attack upon attack, violence upon violence, the cadence is increasing with frightening speed. But we do not have to go into this world without help or protection. God’s got our back, He already won and promised us a place in His victory. Never cower in fear; choose to be inspired.