The Lenten Season highlights the call from Christ for us to be vigilant in our faith and our discipleship—from the overall theme of Lent which is prayer, almsgiving and fasting to the Sunday readings and gospels which calls us to an active faith or “lived faith.”

From some modern-day believers you often hear that “I am Catholic but I cannot bring my faith into the public arena.” Some even strongly question the Church when she involves herself in public policy discussions. They simply do not see the connection between faith and government, usually misconstruing our Founding Fathers emphasis on the “Separation of Church and State.” They mistakenly believe that this “separation” was meant to bar the influence of faith in the public arena. Nothing— absolutely nothing—could be further from the truth: our Founding Fathers meant to keep the government’s nose out of religion.

At last weekend’s publicly televised funeral Mass for the late United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, his son, Father Paul Scalia in his homily said the following about his father: “God blessed Dad, as is well known, with a love of his country. He knew well what a close-run thing the founding of our nation was. And he saw in that founding, as did the founders themselves, a blessing, a blessing quickly lost when faith is banned from the public square, or when we refuse to bring it there.” (Emphasis added.)

During Lent and beyond, let us take to heart the words of Fr. Paul Scalia and remind ourselves of the noted blessing of which he speaks: and how we are called by Christ not to be silent or uncomfortable with the Truth in which God deemed important to form us, and so now also calls us to form others— our children, family, friends, community, work and nation— formed with His love and charity, so that all souls will benefit eternally.