CROCUSES IN DECEMBER: Amy Welborn writes that Catholic renewals and reformations spring from the religious orders. (She gives a good explanation of why here.) There’s a lot of gloom around–where have all the nuns gone, etc.–and it’s difficult for some people to imagine a renewal that springs from any religious order. Others ask, Why should the religious get the responsibility and the hope? What about us regular old third-order-of-nothin’ laity?

I don’t take either of these viewpoints. Why? Because I subscribe to the National Catholic Register, the relentless herald of all things springlike in the Church. The issues I read last night were especially impressive: Two reports on reform of the seminaries, profiling the men who are cleaning the Augean stables and the seminarians they lead. A profile of the Sisters of Life, a young (the sisters as well as their order) bunch of nuns who are seeing more and more vocations after 9/11. A parish that raised money to bring Catholic books to Wisconsin libraries that were full of Left Behind but empty of The Rapture Trap. Yes, the Register focuses on the positive whenever possible. That’s its job: to point out what works, so we can study those groups and learn from them. (One constant theme: Whether it’s universities, seminaries, religious orders, or your own family, Eucharistic Adoration brings renewal.)

And the Register highlights the ties between the laity and the religious. There can’t be any dichotomy. Welborn’s posts show this clearly. We need the religious, and everyone needs the laity.

There are signs of hope. There are St. Francises among us. The gates of Hell will not prevail, ever.