by Jason Wilde August 6, 1945: While most Americans living right now will not recognize the importance of this date, it is certainly one of those which the world remembers. Like our own remembrance of the 1906 earthquake, Hurricane Katrina, Malaysian Flight 370, Pearl Harbor, D-Day, and 9/11, these days when so many lives were tragically cut short are solemn memorials that life is fragile and that we can and should work to avoid any such loss of life. A Connected WorldThese days also remind us of our interconnectedness - that a life is so much more than a series of breaths, or a resume, or a bank account statement, or even a well written eulogy. Each of these tragic days instantly brings us back to a time and a place in which we grieved for some of our brothers and sisters, allowing us to feel a physical and spiritual closeness with their shortened lives, even though we never knew or met them before that day. It is this closeness that also allows us to remember the Son of God who died on Good Friday - for if He were not fully human, then we would not be able to grasp the magnitude of the sacrifice of His life for all of humanity. We join our suffering with His on this day and allow ourselves to feel a small fraction of the physical pain that He felt, an act of solidarity that reminds us of His Love for our frail human souls. I believe that if Jesus had not been condemned to die as a sinner and a criminal, then He could not have entered Hell as, with a few exceptions, all of humanity had before Him in order to free those souls which were forgiven in a divine act of mercy. Even more importantly for us, He could not have given us hope in an existence beyond our mortal bodies, a hope that allows us to see past our own sins of self and feel love for even those suffering brothers and sisters that we never meet. Perhaps even more tragically, it is these days that remind us how all sin is connected in such a cruel and twisted way that it impacts all of humanity. Each of our own personal acts of selfishness has a ripple effect, as does each act of kindness and generosity. But in our broken humanity, it is sin which infects with such voracity that we must constantly be on guard against the thought that “‘My life depends solely on me.’—No, it doesn’t. We are part of humanity and humanity is part of us” [1]. I am a sinner in my very nature of being human, and so I contribute to each of these tragic days, now and into the future. But even more tragically as a weak human who does not see the fullness of all existence, I cannot see these connections of sin. As much as I may try, I could never grasp the spiritual realm that connects us all, for better and worse. A Lesson for HumanityJust as with the many falls of the Nation of Israel accounted for in the Old Testament, God never forgets us; He can also allow us to learn from our sins and entrusts us to repent. Worldly tragedy can be a catalyst for this conversion; it can be a teacher and a reminder of our interconnectedness in both life and sin The lives lost on that particular Monday morning of August 6, 1945 are the martyrs in the fight for a better world, free of nuclear arms in particular, but also hoping to be free of all wars and armaments which destroy so many lands and lives. An estimated 70,000-80,000 lives were instantly lost when the first nuclear bomb was dropped on a civilian city, Hiroshima, Japan - lives that are remembered each year as a symbol of world peace. As the worldwide death toll due to the COVID-19 pandemic passes this same mark, it must also serve as a lesson for us. I firmly believe that, while God did not cause this nor any other human tragedy, He can work miracles through it. It is already ominously apparent that, coinciding with the season of Lent in which we are to live in remembrance of the suffering of Jesus Christ for 40 days in the desert, we are called to quarantine - a word which literally means to separate from the world for 40 days - as an act of personal sacrifice for the greater good. Beyond this lexicographic similarity, we also remember that, a year since the burning of the famous Notre Dame Cathedral on Palm Sunday, we are now being asked to separate ourselves from the physical buildings we also call churches and instead be more intentional in visiting with the Church of our family, brothers and sisters in Christ, and with all of humanity which suffers the same as we do today. In a time when sacraments are physical impossibilities for nearly all Christians, we can look to the example of Christians who live now and in the times of the first Christian communities - outcast and excluded from society and religious institutions - and yet they grasp ever so firmly onto the hope and faith in a God who never abandons us. All of these things, the luxuries of the world, an ornate building, or even a sacrament, can become idols when they become the source and goal of our living instead of God who gives these things to us. On this Good Friday, we expect that the death toll in the United States due to COVID-19 will equal the daily death toll due to abortions in our country, and this should be a two-fold reminder for all people that lives should not have differing values - that ALL are children of God, no matter their age, race, or religion, and that sin and death as present in all of us can and will traverse human barriers, laws, and even hearts. “Never have we been called on to become aware of the reciprocity that is at the basis of our life as much as we have during this terrible emergency. Realizing that every life is a life in common, together we make up life, and life comes from ‘the other’” [1]. It is not until we ourselves find God living in the ‘other’ that we will understand how connected all sin is - how our actions affect the ‘other’, and how much we are in need of conversion and salvation.
In the same manner, we also should see how overcoming sin is not just a matter for someone else - it is our own personal sin that connects us to these tragedies. Another coincident social trend with this pandemic is the popularity of ‘Tiger King’, a Netflix series which celebrates the sin of playing god to Creation, of mistreating one of His creatures, and of endangering brothers and sisters in acts of personal selfishness and freedom. The coincidence is that these are the same sins which caused this novel virus to come into contact with such a large population. For nearly a generation now, the first world’s prosperity and luxuries has been borne on the backs of our Asian brothers and sisters, causing rural farmers to use previously virgin lands to produce our raw food and products, forcing native creatures to migrate out of their typical habitats, either into unnatural virgin habitats or into urban centers. Then, as capital and the hunger for more technically advanced products surged, we have witnessed a dramatic and unnatural mass migration of these same rural populations into overpopulated factory centers in order to fulfill orders for mass-produced goods. As we now know that the Coronavirus spread from non-native animals to the Wuhan region, which is a densely populated manufacturing hub for the world’s autos, technology, smart phones, and even fast food products, we cannot rinse our own hands of these sins. Our own personal selfishness, freedom, and consumption bore the wages offered to this virus in its early stages of mutation and rapid intensification in this region of the world. Beyond this initial relation with our own sins, we now see how other sins are related. The way in which the smallest animate object can invade our personal lives unbeknownst to us should be a reminder that sin and death affect each one of us personally in different ways, regardless of nation, race, or religious beliefs. Pride and a sense of ‘it won’t happen to me’ allowed the rapid migration of the virus to other parts of the world unchecked, even weeks after health authorities warned of its danger. Our own unbridled economic systems even propagated and now suffer from the virus, becoming crippled as its workers - many of whom are the slaves who receive the least from that system - are forced to step away from it for a time. We all can see now that not caring for those who have the least even affects how fast the virus spreads due to the lack of healthcare or even a home to sleep in at night. People who are infected suffer from a for-profit healthcare system that is burdened with large financial accounts and yet are inadequately prepared to provide protective equipment for the very doctors and nurses who are so tirelessly putting their lives at the service of the infected. Poverty and abortion rates are skyrocketing as the lack of reasonable social and financial safety nets forces the unemployed and underemployed further into debt without hope of a future, All of these are not causes of sin, they are the effects of a society that embodies each person’s pride, relativism, and selfishness. “Our difficulty in taking up this challenge seriously has much to do with an ethical and cultural decline which has accompanied the deterioration of the environment. Men and women of our postmodern world run the risk of rampant individualism, and many problems of society are connected with today’s self-centred culture of instant gratification. We see this in the crisis of family and social ties and the difficulties of recognizing the other” [LS 162]. A Light of HopeAmong such grim circumstances, this pandemic is also a time for renewal and conversion, if we allow it to be so. If we embrace the connectedness of all humanity as well as the invisible relationship between our own sins with the world’s suffering, we can see what God envisions for us. “Every crisis contains both danger and opportunity: the opportunity to move out from the danger” [2]. One of the first rays of hope was in the very environment that created such disaster. Brother Richard Hendrick, a Capuchin Franciscan, wrote a popularized poem which says that even among fear, isolation, panic buying, sickness, and death,
In cities around the world, we can see a glimpse of what a future without pollution, traffic, and full schedules looks like, in just a few days of lockdown. Overwhelmingly, citizens of such megalopolises are seeing blue skies for the first time, as a reminder that God’s Creation is always there with us and for us, if we allow it in. “Today, I believe we have to slow down our rate of production and consumption and to learn to understand and contemplate the natural world. We need to reconnect with our real surroundings. This is the opportunity for conversion” [2]. An intensely focused return to simplicity has caused many to break the chains of a poverty of time and put aside scheduled recitals, sports events, and school activities in lieu of time together with children, as a family. Fighting politically, socially, and between nations has stopped in many areas, if only due to the threat of a common enemy which does not respond to arsenals of warheads and machines. Grocery store shelves are empty of the things which exploit brothers and sisters in third-world countries - a sign of how connected we truly are with the poor, and a sign of how idolatry of an economy that only places value in profits falls when its workers are not valued. “Yes, I see early signs of an economy that is less liquid, more human” [2]. Our return to lives of simplicity in every way allows us to live in solidarity with those who have not. Many live without knowing they will have food on the table that day, just as we do when we now worry about finding food in the grocery store. Many live without knowing when they’ll see a priest again, just as we wait for the time when we can return to physical communion with our Church. But this should all lead to conversion in our hearts - just as many non-believers are experiencing a sense of deeper longing and importance that has sparked spiritual conversions of Faith in God Almighty outside of the normal realms of evangelism and churches. As we spend this Good Friday in seclusion and true fasting, let it be one of living in solidarity with the suffering of Jesus Christ, our Savior, who experienced so much pain at the hands of His own brothers who rejected His challenging words, just as the ones written here are for most of us. All of this is God’s Hand at work in a time of darkness. But, He does not ask us to just sit and wait for darkness to pass. “Let us not lose our memory once all this is past, let us not file it away and go back to where we were. This is the time to take the decisive step, to move from using and misusing nature to contemplating it. We have lost the contemplative dimension; we have to get it back at this time” [2]. We must be people of constant transformation and reformation. “The pace of consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet’s capacity that our contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes, such as those which even now periodically occur in different areas of the world. The effects of the present imbalance can only be reduced by our decisive action, here and now. We need to reflect on our accountability before those who will have to endure the dire consequences” [LS 161]. Jesus, the Son of God, the Great Alleluia, the Resurrected who walked from the grave, can and will renew our own hearts if we put aside all of these idols of the world and let Him in. “What we are living now is a place of metanoia (conversion), and we have the chance to begin. So let’s not let it slip from us, and let’s move ahead” [2]. Notes: [1]: “GLOBAL PANDEMIC AND UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD Note on the Covid-19 emergency”, Pontifical Academy for Life, Mar 30, 2020. [2]: “‘A Time of Great Uncertainty’: An Interview with Pope Francis”, Austen Ivereigh, Commonweal Magazine, Apr 8, 2020. [LS]: "On care for our common home : the encyclical of Pope Francis on the environment, Laudato Si'", 2016.
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On a MissionTwo passionate parents and their four children are excited to bring His Word to everyone in need while living a life of Gospel poverty as missionaries. They invite you to join them on a journey to encounter our global neighbors that Jesus commands us to love through works of charity and service. Archives
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