On fighting the Good Fight

From one of Michael O'Brien's latest collections entitled, "Waiting: Stories for Advent," Justin Press, 2010, p. 56:

"It is difficult for many people to see the present condition of the Western world for what it is. If we are constantly rewarded for compromising with its agendas, or for simply not resisting, and if the love of truth is weak or asleep in us, then we can easily lose our ability to recognize those moments of testing when we must choose truth or untruth. If we do not recognize them, then we invariably choose the least line of resistance. But how do we awake? How do we all awake, for practically everyone has been anesthetized to some degree."

The answer is, "silence." We must silence the competing voices of the world, of our desires, of everything that drowns out the Voice of God calling us in the silence of prayer, which is essential to heed in order to save our souls.