2 Timothy 1:11-12
For this gospel I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, and therefore I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me.
One temptation we constantly face in a world hostile to the Faith is the temptation to protect God as though he is helpless. Faced with the latest ugly lie flung at our faith by the TV or movies, we Catholics can fall prey, not merely to holy anger fueled by the love of God (such as Jesus felt when he cleared the Temple) but to an unholy anger fueled (if we really admit it) by a fear of the world’s assaults and a sort of pride in ourselves. The pride is a subtle thing, but it is the undercurrent of that sort of anger because such anger really means, “How can the Church survive if I don’t blaze away in defense of it and blast those nasty people who control the media and have so much power?” The answer of today’s verse to such fear and pride is “The Church can survive without me quite nicely because it is God who guards it, not me. And he has far more power than Ted Turner or some art museum in Brooklyn.” This does not, of course, mean that we can simply ignore our duty to defend the Faith from attack. But it does mean that we must always speak out on behalf of Jesus and his Church, not in the fear that it will never make it without us, but in the confidence that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.