Be Not Afraid

The West, in particular our little corner of it here in the United States, is writhing through what is either the embarrassing throes of a mid-life crisis or the awkward fringes of adolescence.  Depending upon the longevity of Western Civilization’s days, I guess it could be a mixture of both.

Regardless, there is a palpable unease.

Not unlike the sighing moments before becoming sick or the twisting of nerves before birth, we are poised on the edge of an expanse.  We are told that within that black haze there is a malevolence which wills our very erasure but also that no such malevolence can logically exist. We are told by the world that there is no God, no Heaven, and no Hell, but there is certainly a living Hell to which we might be subjected.

Whether it’s global policies, pandemics, or local despots, the news is forever preaching the bad news to us like the best televangelist, eager to work their way through our hearts into our pockets.  I don’t believe we can ever be reminded often enough to be still and know that our God is good, or that His providence reaches into the darkness of our present fears and misgivings.

Though the nations storm, gnash and devour, they too will pass away.

Good Out of Evil

God is strong enough and wise enough to bring greater good out of evil.  We remember this in the beautiful words of the Exulstet each Easter. When the cry goes up, “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer” we are reminded that in the darkness of our marred world, there is a stirring power and beauty which can never be undone, and which can make, as J.R.R. Tolkien said in his epic Silmarillion, “evil … good to have been.”

Jewish and early Christian theologians often used the image of two ways in their teaching. There are two ways a man might go: the way of life and the way of death. The world offers us death, but God in his goodness has carved a way, through the mists and vapors and fearfully loose stones, to life.

Despair- Be Not Afraid

To me, there are two related quotations which offer the truth juxtaposed against the poisons of despair.

The first is the famous exhortation of Pope St. John Paul II to “be not afraid.”

The second is, of course, his inspiration in the words of our Savior found in John 16:33:

I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

John Paul II could only speak his truly encouraging words from experience in the face of despots and in seeing the providential Hand of God making a way where there was none because Christ’s words are true.

They have been true for Christians since he uttered them and will endure, world without end until the threads of time are found complete, and at last, an eternity of beatific joy awaits the friends of God.

Those of us in the Church have been rocked by division and at times by the at least perceived ineptitude of leaders, not only in these latest of the ‘last days’ but from the very start of the Church. Our first pontiff began his consecrated ministry in the agonies of apostasy as he toasted his knuckles at a charcoal fire and waited for the rooster to call him to account.

We have seen many dark days in the history of our Church, but never have we been given sufficient reason to surrender to despair. Instead, Christ in his wisdom has given us his promise that we are to not only expect the agonies of tribulation but to find joy in the midst of them.  We can do this only because, paradoxically, Christ whom the world hated and slew has risen and conquered.  There are none to stand before his glory.

Uncertainty

What, then do we do in times of grief or uncertainty?

I was once given a piece of relevant advice while studying for ordained ministry as a protestant.

I asked how we could stand firm in the face of apostasy, heresy, confusion, and the failings of a formerly beautiful tradition – what is a man to do in such circumstances?

The answer was given to me, that all we can do is to dig a hole to plant the cross and stand there, holding it, until we are driven to another patch of earth where we need to repeat the process until either we are called home to eternity or until the world around us is transformed by the face of Christ crucified.

The Cross

This cruciform ecclesiology is epitomized in the motto of the Carthusians, Stat Crux Dom Volvitur Orbis or “The cross is steady while the world turns.”

The world around us spins like an anxious top, yet the immovable, unshakable reality of Christ and his victorious kingdom provides a sure footing and a constant comfort where all other consolations fade.

The problems facing the world and, quite frankly, the Church are beyond the capacities of a single person to address. We can not even adequately process the complex disarray or confusion at work around us, yet we can be proactive and do our part for the reclamation of the Peace which Christ offers us as surely today as his servant Paul of Tarsus promised the Church in Philippi.

While God is not a vending machine or benign equation which crunches out holy consequences as a result of our faith/work input, he is a God of order and clarity who does not leave us to guess blindly at how we ought to live.

Rejoice Always

Christ’s Church teaches that we should, as Saint Paul reminds us in Philippians 4,

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand.  Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

We are promised, further, a reward for such steadfastness – we are told that “the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  It is only by trusting in the hand of God that we will find the strength and presence of mind to live out our high calling of sanctity.   Obviously, we simply can’t do it on our own – but we aren’t supposed to try.

No matter which of the million reasons to fret about the state of the world or even the current state of the Church, we should not wallow in despair.  There is a powerful hope in the hearts of men placed there with the deposit of Faith and which is actively working out the good our God has promised.  We see signs of failure and decay in society or face scandal and division where our Church promises unity, and our impulse is panic and fear.

The approach of the saints, and therefore God’s hopeful calling for us, is to place those legitimate concerns at his altar, and to then get on with the good work at hand – namely, the work of digging a hole to plant the cross of Christ.

Peace

In the end, it doesn’t matter much which winds blow at the tangled sails of our hearts.  We will all find peace only to the degree we let ourselves sink into the heart of the Father.  Whether we are anxious about news in corridors of the Church or in the tumult of the world around us, we need only to look to the cross to find our stable footing.

Christ’s transforming love has made a way for us to turn even the pain of confusion, the wounds of disappointment, and the agony of war into meaningful participation with the work of God.  The work of God is indeed to serve others; we are called to offer both the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.

Rooted within this service is a theological reality.  An ordering of our lives is called for – remember Saint Augustine and his rightly ordered loves.  There is a difference between loving our neighbors for their good and loving them for our own.  The difference seems obvious at first glance – we may even question if it is really loving to say we love someone for the good that it brings us.

Likewise, there is a great difference between loving someone for their sake, and loving them out of holy love for God.  In practice, the act may look the same, but the effect is greater. Much more could be written about the deeper meaning of and deeper ways to live out the Work of God. It includes of course the signs of living faith and the logical inward change which those signs signify.

Prayer, fasting, almsgiving, for example, are signs and of course inseparable from the Work of God, but in reality, the fullness of that work is the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.  Christ reframed creation, life, and death. In a similar way, when we reframe our suffering -even the tangential part we play in the wider agonies of the world – we can see it as the infinitesimal way in which we participate in the suffering of Christ.

Bring Christ Into Places of Agony

There are millions of things to be heartbroken over, wounded by, or simply stressed over.  When we multiply those global realities to the small local pains we all feel acutely, there is a staggering amount of pain in this world.  If our task is nothing more or less than bringing Christ in his passion, death, and resurrection into those places of agony, we don’t need to obsess over our inability to fix all those ills.

It is enough for us to be present, to find joy in bringing the needs we see to our good God, and to trust in his fatherly love to give us bread instead of stones.  The work of God, that life of ceaseless prayer, is to be little Christs in a world of contradiction and fear.  It is not for us to be dour cesspits of gloom nor to paint over real injustice when we could do something to fix the problem.

Rather, it is our lofty call to rise above the pessimism and disdain of our day and dare to laugh and love.  Planting the cross of Christ in a hostile world does not mean we will dodge fear and sorrow, but that like our Lord will are called to transform it by Grace into joy.

We may indeed have our work cut out for us, but like the boy Jesus, we too must always be about our Father’s business.