Thoughts on Lent and Quarantine

It seems apropos that we are on quarantine during lent.  Quarantine, after all, comes from the Italian words "quaranta giorni", meaning 40 days.    Back in the 14th century, ships arriving in Venice from other infected ports had to sit at anchor for 40 days before landing, to prevent the spread of disease.  Lent is our 40 days of waiting, preparing.  We are quarantined in more ways than one.

Of specific hardship during this time of isolation is the suspension of the sacraments in many parts of the world right now.  Catholicism is not merely a spiritual practice.  Catholicism by nature is concrete, a melding of the spiritual and physical, because it is founded by Christ, who was both divine and human.  The sacraments are a physical sign of an invisible grace.  And right now, the Church Militant is being denied the grace we so desperately need, because we are not allowed to participate physically in the mass and sacraments.  This feels like a blow by the evil one, a siege of sorts - a starvation of the soldiers of Christ, in the heat of battle.  Of course we can watch mass online.  We can pray.  We can read and meditate on the scriptures, and participate in any number of private devotionals.  God has not abandoned us, He will never abandon us.  He has promised us that. But this time without access to the sacraments feels like a spiritual deprivation.  We have grown used to having ready access to the Eucharist - daily if we want!  We have had access to confession whenever we have needed to unburden ourselves of guilt and sin.  We have been able to baptize our children, sacramentally marry our spouses, and receive anointing with every serious illness.  More than any other time in history, the sacraments and the grace they provide have been available to us, and maybe... maybe it was all too easy.  Maybe we took them for granted because they were so readily accessible.  Maybe we forgot their importance, did not appreciate the strength they instilled in us, because they were always right there  if needed. And now that they're gone, for the time being at least, we feel their absence painfully.  The strongest spiritual weapon available to us has been taken away, worldwide, by an invisible foe.

Personally, I'm comforted by the fact that the mass is being said daily, all over the world, whether we lay people can participate or not.  Privately, in churches and rectories the world over, our priests continue to offer the sacrifice of the mass.  It cannot be stopped, no matter how this pandemic tries, and we need to trust and rely on our good priests for the moment in that regard.  They are continuing the battle for us right now.  And I remember the story of the Christians in Japan, who were converted through the efforts of St. Francis Xavier and the Jesuit missions in the 1500's, only to be thrown out of the country soon after, with Christianity severely repressed.  When Japan reopened to foreigners again 250 years later, missionaries found that the church had survived intact, all that time.  Without priests, without the sacraments save marriage and baptism, under constant persecution... but intact nonetheless.  For two hundred and fifty years.   Generations upon generations.  God does not abandon His children.  We are never alone.

So we live through this Holy Saturday, this time when the Church seems still and silent, with doors locked.  It feels for all the world as if Christ is in the tomb.  He is not.  He continues His resurrection daily with every private mass.  Easter is here, still. 

This too shall pass. 

Meditation for the Day: What God sees, that we are

"Set free from human judgment, we should count as true only what God sees in us, what he knows, and what he judges. 

God does not judge as man does. Man sees only the countenance, only the exterior. God penetrates to the depths of our hearts. 

God does not change as man does. His judgment is in no way inconstant. He is the only one upon whom we should rely.

How happy we are then, and how peaceful! We are no longer dazzled by appearances, or stirred up by opinions; we are united to the truth and depend upon it alone.

I am praised, blamed, treated with indifference, disdained, ignored, or forgotten; none of this can touch me. I will be no less than I am. 

Men and women want to play at being a creator. They want to give me existence in their opinion, but this existence that they want to give me is nothingness. It is an illusion, a shadow, an appearance, that is, at bottom, nothingness. 

What is this shadow, always following me, behind me, at my side? Is it me, or something that belongs to me? No. Yet does not this shadow seem to move with me? No matter: it is not me. 

So it is with the judgements of men: they would follow me everywhere, paint me, sketch me, make me move according to their whim, and, in the end, give me some sort of existence ... but I am disabused of this error.

I am content with a hidden life. How peaceful it is! Whether I truly live this Christian life of which St. Paul speaks, I do not know, nor can I know with certainty. But I hope that I do, and I trust in God's goodness to help me."

— Bishop Jacques-Benigne Bossuet

Thought for The Day

"Keep the joy of loving God in your heart and share this joy with all you meet, especially your family. Be holy."

— St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta 

Putting Sola Fide to rest...

"For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified."

Romans 2:13

Not sanctified (made holy) by actions, but justified (saved).  But how is this?  Does faith have no part?  Are we merely to "do the stuff" to be saved?

"For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with love. For if these things are yours and are increasing among you, they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."

2 Peter 1:5-8

Peter and Paul, those two stalwart pillars of the Church, show us the way.  Faith is the base, the root of everything, and grows with the support of goodness and knowledge, into action, which is LOVE.  Love is a verb and a noun.  In truth, the noun and verb cannot be separated, because love by it's very nature is a movement, an action.   Works are love, rooted in faith, or they are nothing.  Faith alone is as those who merely hear the law.  It's not enough.  TRUE faith is action, it's being God's hands in the world.  Joan of Arc showed me this.  In her trial, she was asked if God sent her to raise the seige of Orleans, and she said yes.  The inquisitor asked if God wasn't powerful enough to raise the seize on His own.  She responded  "In the name of God! The soldiers will fight and God will give the victory!"

God worked through her, as He desire to work through each of us - our job is to cooperate and be willing vessels.