When I was 11, I watched a film that inspired me to be a missionary to Africa.
I'm not sure why, since it was about a boxer in apartheid South Africa, but something in my soul swelled with a nobility of justice and purpose. I decided that I would one day bring my faith to Africa, which I later did, in Nigeria and then Kenya.
This past Sunday, for the first time in I'm not sure how long, America–and the world–felt their own souls swell as we all beheld a public revival.
The occasion was the memorial for Charlie Kirk. Over 100 million are said to have watched worldwide.
Nearly every member of the presidential Cabinet professed his or her faith in Jesus Christ and called for the renewal of our Christian lives and values.
Commentators on social media said Marco Rubio's 90-second summary of the Incarnation and the Gospel message rivaled Fr. Mike Schmitz.
The event culminated in an exceptional Christian act of forgiveness by Erika Kirk.
The Brits, once grateful for the mere mention of Jesus in the Queen's Christmas speech, were in awe. The Hungarians ran the event on three channels. Persecuted Christians in Africa have taken Charlie Kirk as a mentor and model.
Charlie's memorial was first and foremost a celebration of the world's greatest love: Jesus. In fact, Christian commentators say Charlie's campus events were tent revivals. He never failed to boldly announce Jesus to his audience and speak of his transformation in Christ. He never failed to defend the truths of Christianity and the political conclusions they led him to. He never failed to have a backbone. And that backbone, in a sea of so much nihilism and ill-defined tolerance, was like an island for college students to finally stand on.
Bishop Robert Barron called Charlie an apostle of civil discourse, and he was, but he was first an evangelist.
He sought the kingdom of heaven and in seeking it gave rise to an animating impulse of political change so transcendent and intoxicating that America might finally be able to put her political house in order. She may learn to put politics where it should be–below our better loves of God and family, and make it something of an outgrowth of our transformation in Christ.
There is something of a chill or a fever running through the American body politic that awakened us on Sunday. We awoke to a memory of an age when we were a Christian nation, when simpler truths were self-evident, like men and women and the right to life and the ability to gather together in prayer.
A simpler time when nuns didn't have to fight to the Supreme Court to see their First Amendment rights respected. When little Caitlyn didn't raise her hand and tell the teacher, "I want to be Johnny today." When football players bent a knee at an injury rather than jump on a downed player to injure. When we didn't need to pre-pay for gas because we knew and did what was right.
We were never perfectly Christian–and daresay we never will be as a whole. But the shocking truth, the one penetrating to the core of every person moved by the profession of faith in Sunday's memorial service is this: just one person can change the course of history.
Indeed, isn't that the way God has always honored our free will?
One "Yes" from Mary, and the world was never the same. One "Yes" from Joan of Arc, and France was saved. One "Yes" from Ignatius Loyola, and the counter-reformation began.
Millions of souls in the balance, waiting on just one "Yes." Just one person to seek first the Kingdom of God and then let the miracles begin to fall in place.
Pope Leo XIV, in a meeting with French politicians on the feast day of St. Thomas More, called politics a form of charity. Yes, charity.
Judging from the life of Charlie Kirk, I couldn't agree more.
Now the question comes to us–will we seek first the Kingdom of God? And if we do, what simpler and more beautiful country could we hand to our children and grandchildren?
Go forward bravely,
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