Our cities had gone quiet during the initial lockdown and a person could feel the panic in the city despite everyone being at home. Everyone felt so defeated and at a loss for words. I would drive to the supermarket and people were crossing the street at will without even turning their heads. It was so difficult to watch sometimes. Sometimes a person would cough to get through the line at the supermarket faster.
Now that so many of us are vaccinated, it seems the tide has turned, and we want to ditch our masks and socialize normally. We look forward to that day with such anticipation. However, the return to normalcy for me is not about simply throwing my mask away.
A Different Outlook
For me, the experience of being a Christian is different. When the first apostles met Jesus for the first time, their first reaction was, “We have met the Messiah.” It corresponded to their hearts, and it generates something greater in me that I cannot comprehend. It is a mystery that we cannot comprehend. “If you have understood, then what you have understood is not God” (St. Augustine). This is something beyond our comprehension.
When something great happens to me, I realize that it does not come from me, but it must come from Him. No one else is capable. I was off work for a while for health reasons and I could not even do my charity work. However, once I returned to do the charity work, I rode in the car with the others, and I had a cheeky grin from ear to ear. That grin was noticed by everyone. The question posed was – why are you smiling? How could I not hold in my joy? I was able to do what I wanted again. The Christian event is different because it is an encounter with Christ every day. We need to be looking for him because he has already found us.
These events in our lives are experiences that must come from awareness. Are we conscious of what is happening to us? The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything” (Julian of Norwich). It is at this point that I began to think. When churches reopened, I was finally allowed to ‘go home.’ It was such a joy to return to public mass instead of simply going for communion service. Nothing greater will satisfy our need than Christ in the Eucharist.
Our first question once we think we have achieved everything we think we want is then, “Now what?” I need to go deeper into what I have met; however, having government officials give news conferences does NOT soothe the soul. It really does not help. Now, I get to eat on a patio, and I have this panacea of vaccines to save me. Again, it is not the answer. God does provide us with the ability to produce vaccines and study and learn but more importantly, He is at the centre of the mystery. “The mystery of God hugs you in its all-encompassing arms” (Hildegard of Bingen).
Normalcy
I can return to in-person work; I can return to visiting people that I had not done in so long. But this does not solve the problem. Thomas a Kempis said, “Faith is required of thee, and a sincere life, not loftiness of intellect, nor deepness in the mysteries of God.” As a society, we seem to have everything under control. We locked down to survive and then we opened up once we could get vaccinated. I for one do not want to forget who is at the centre of my life.
The Lord moves mysteriously. He moves as he sees fit. In a world where we think we have so much control, we forget that we are not at the helm of this ship.
There is much in Christianity which can be subjected to exact analysis. But the ultimate things are shrouded in the silent mysteries of God (Hans Urs von Balthasar).
The beauty of Christianity is the event that began it all for us. In the early Church, there was such adversity that has not seemed to abate over the centuries. We seem to be living it all over again. But I want to trust God with his infinite wisdom. His wisdom is beyond our recognition. I am still careful as I move around my city with my two jabs of the vaccine. Yet, I realized that it is still not enough for me. I do not want to forget my Lord in the same way Mary Magdelene did not forget Him when she was crying in front of the tomb that Easter morning.
I always enjoy visiting a monastery or convent and now that is something that I can do again. I watch them in their work, their silence, and their hospitality. I sometimes get envious of them and their firm commitment to Christ. It is in that silence that it continues to astound me how God moves.
God has to work in the soul in secret and in darkness because if we fully knew what was happening, and what Mystery, transformation, God and Grace will eventually ask of us, we would either try to take charge or stop the whole process (Saint John of the Cross).
Christ
We lived through a horrendous time. Many people are still suffering. When the lockdown in Rome happened, the churches closed. Pope Francis reversed that decision. The priests of Rome were warned not to forget the faithful or the faithful would forget the Church when the pandemic subsided.
In the epidemic of fear that we are all living due to the coronavirus pandemic, we risk behaving more like wage-earners than as pastors
Father Yoannis Lahzi Gaid said in a letter dated March 13, 2020:
I think of the people who will certainly abandon the Church, when this nightmare is over, because the Church abandoned them when they were in need,” he said, adding, “May it never be said: “I won’t go to a church that didn’t come to me when I was in need”.
Despite the hardships we have faced and are facing and will face, we trust in the infinite mercy and saving power of our God. I enjoy eating on a patio again. I enjoy it more when I recognize who saves me – Christ.
