If Jesus Came in the Days of Covid-19....

N.B.: The following passages represent re-imagined moments from Scripture to speak to our present situation living with the repercussions of covid-19 and are meant primarily for the sake of humor.  No irreverence is intended.  The same cannot be said, however, for satire.

Jesus healed a woman who had been infirm for eighteen years and was criticized for it by the authorities who were afraid because He challenged the authority of their medical practice.  He then said to them:

"To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?  It is like to a coronavirus, which men took and released into the world, and it grew and spread through all the world and none could wipe it out, and wherever people went there were remembrances of it and it was the thought on everyone's mind and the first topic of every conversation." (cf. Luke 13:18-19)

Another time, Jesus was speaking to His disciples, instructing them that they must be prepared for scandals to come, but urging them not to scandalize anyone and to forgive everyone even should someone repeat the same sin seven times a day against them.  The disciples, not liking the hard work of virtue this would require, pretended to accept its reality and said to Him:

"Increase our faith."

He, however, recognizing how His words would lead to an explosion of virtue signaling as all began to speak of how they would forgive anyone without touching the forgiveness they indeed needed to offer, spoke again to bring their minds back to the true realities:

"If you had faith the size of a coronavirus, you might say to this skyscraper: 'Be lifted up and be transported into the desert,' and so it would happen." (cf. Luke 17:6)

Then as Jesus gathered for His last party with His disciples before He would suffer and be put to death and after giving them His body and blood under the form of bread and wine, He gave them instructions on how to live so they would not need to turn to self-help manuals.  He urged them not to seek positions of power and elected offices, but rather to be of no more regard than the homeless on the street, serving others and not thinking of themselves.

Seeing Simon Peter bursting with ideas for social reform and protests in favor of justice, Jesus said to him:

"Simon, Simon, behold Satan desires to have you that he may sift you all as with the testing for covid-19.  But I have prayed for you that your faith should not turn to fear of what may happen in this world and you, when you have been converted, must turn and strengthen your brethren." (Luke 22: 31-32)

Why I Like Dr. Jordan Peterson

 "Why do people like Jordan Peterson?"

I did not have a ready answer in response to that question, but it led me to ponder more deeply why I like him so I could at least respond in that way.  Of course it is nearly impossible to answer why we like things, for our preferences seem to arise without any conscious effort, grounded in who we are and what we have experienced.  Still, however, it is possible to speak somewhat to our conscious appreciation.

So let me try to say why I like Dr. Jordan Peterson.  Perhaps I can best put it this way: he has given me hope.

I have always found it so easy to grow discouraged when I fail to see the results I want.  I have looked about me and seen others apparently more confident and skilled than I am and felt insignificant and inferior.  I have felt like people only wanted to spend time with me if no one more interesting was available.  I have felt like a burden.  I could go on about all the ways I have felt like I did not belong and did not matter and so on.  Add to that the fruitlessness of my efforts to answer the needs of the world or even just the needs of those about me and you have an excellent recipe for hopelessness.  In short, sometimes it has felt as if life is not worth the suffering.

Enter Dr. Jordan Peterson.  There is one video in particular I listened to many times when I was in a dark place and it never failed to remind me of important truths.  If I bluntly summarized those words I would put it this way: of course you're a wreck and the world is a catastrophe and you're going to be terrible at anything you attempt to do and you're going to suffer, but that is the very groundwork of humility that is the rock foundation for becoming a hero and making yourself and the world a better place.

Here is that video, titled, fittingly, "Stumble Toward the Light":

So I guess in the end what I am saying is that what I like about Peterson is that he is a prophet: speaking the word of God to me.  I like him for a similar reason to why I like Catholicism.  For both remind me that the fact that I am a sinner is not a matter for condemnation, but rather the ashes from which the phoenix rises, to speak metaphorically.

"O happy fault!"  "O necessary sin of Adam!"

It is so easy for a perfectionist like myself to condemn myself for failures or to look for things to blame for my brokenness or to otherwise try to escape the human condition.  It is so easy to feel guilty if I do not act perfectly.  Yet what I need to do is to quit fleeing from myself and to accept that I am my own cross to carry and that through being crucified to myself in love, Christ will bring me to resurrection.  I am called not to look at myself and my sins so much as to look at the Light, to stumble toward that Light, letting myself be transformed in Love.

Dr. Peterson has spoken those words to my heart.  For that I am grateful.

There are others, too, of course who have done so and have helped the seeds of hope to burst up and bloom within me so that now I also can speak words of hope to others.  Because I have received these words that have helped me to accept myself as I am, I can help others learn to accept themselves as they are and to let themselves receive love that they may also give it.

How to Be with People in Their Suffering

Sometimes it seems that what we fear most is suffering and that we will go to any lengths to avoid it.  That reality applies not just to our own suffering, but also to that of others.  It is incredibly difficult to be with people in their suffering because it means entering into their suffering with them.  That is what the word compassion means: its linguistic roots literally mean to suffer with.

When we refuse to accept the suffering of others, we are unable to be compassionate.  Instead of entering into their suffering with them and showing them that they are loved, thereby giving them hope in their suffering, we too often side with the voice of condemnation.  We become like Job's friends.  We try to fix the problem or point out the errors rather than loving others.

Job's friends looked at his suffering and assumed that he must have done something wrong to deserve such evil to fall upon him.  His friends rebuked him for being weak in the face of his suffering and for questioning the ways of God.  They told him he must have sinned against God to be thus condemned to suffer.  With each monologue, they became more and more severe in their words against him.

Why?

Is it because they wanted it to be Job's fault so that they could believe that such evil would never befall them so long as they persist in what they believe to be a just way of life?

If we believe that others suffer as a result of their sins and failings, it allows us to exalt ourselves and to give ourselves the security that such suffering would never happen to us.  We are not humble enough to accept that we also could suffer at any time.  We are not humble enough simply to enter in to their suffering.

Think then of Christ on His journey to Calvary.  He deserved compassion even more than Job.  Who offered it to Him?

Simon was forced to help Him carry the Cross and rendered him that service with great reluctance.  Veronica rushed out of the crowd to wipe His eyes with her veil, a tiny offering in the face of such great suffering.  The women of Jerusalem wept for Him, showing they were willing to enter into His suffering with Him.  Yet it was His Mother who did most for Him on that journey.

Our Lady did nothing if you think in terms of worldly actions.  She did not help Him carry His cross, she did not wipe His eyes, perhaps she did not even weep for Him.  What then did she do?

She offered herself to Him.  She gave Him the gift of her presence, full and entire, holding nothing back.  She was not afraid to look at Him in His suffering.  She was not afraid to accept His suffering as the will of the Father, joining herself to that sacrifice of love to the Father.

We likewise can offer ourselves, giving the gift of our presence—and of Christ's presence within us—to those who suffer.  We can see them in their suffering, giving them hope to carry on.  When we cannot take away their suffering, we can lighten it by our love, accepting it with them as the will of the Father that will bring them to their own resurrection.

Feel Guilty? Do Penance.

Recently a priest I know preached on guilt, which sent me pondering that subject in light of my psychological studies.  His bringing up the widespread idea of Catholic guilt which he said he had not experienced (nor have I) reminded me of the distinction between true guilt (when one feels bad for doing something wrong) versus false guilt (feeling bad for something one has not done or simply for existing or any other irrational reason).

Now his proposed answer to guilt was simple and direct: do penance.

I have never heard it put in quite the way he expressed it: that guilt is one's conscience saying that justice has not been satisfied and therefore one ought to do penance until the guilt is gone, which means that justice has been satisfied.

Naturally that makes sense for true guilt.  If one has committed a wrong against another then doing penance to satisfy justice and make reparation for the harm done seems the best response.

What about for false guilt, however?  Often false guilt is taking on another person's guilt, so perhaps doing penance in response to false guilt might also be a way to satisfy justice.  Perhaps penance could be as satisfactory a way to remove that false guilt as unveiling the irrational beliefs that lead one to feel guilty without deserving those feelings of guilt.

I have no specific convictions here, but am merely pondering.  Here I must make one important caveat, however: this theory would hold true only so long as said penance was indeed penance and not self-punishment.  It is far too easy for one not in a healthy psychological frame of mind to undertake penance as a way to punish the self for not being good enough and consequently to view penance as making the self suffer, which is not at all the essence of penance.

What is penance then?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says the following:

1434 The interior penance of the Christian can be expressed in many and various ways. Scripture and the Fathers insist above all on three forms, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, which express conversion in relation to oneself, to God, and to others. Alongside the radical purification brought about by Baptism or martyrdom they cite as means of obtaining forgiveness of sins: effort at reconciliation with one's neighbor, tears of repentance, concern for the salvation of one's neighbor, the intercession of the saints, and the practice of charity "which covers a multitude of sins."

1435 Conversion is accomplished in daily life by gestures of reconciliation, concern for the poor, the exercise and defense of justice and right, by the admission of faults to one's brethren, fraternal correction, revision of life, examination of conscience, spiritual direction, acceptance of suffering, endurance of persecution for the sake of righteousness. Taking up one's cross each day and following Jesus is the surest way of penance.

Charity and the Cross.  Those are the surest signs of true penance and two expressions of the same reality: following the example of Christ.

Anything therefore could be penance.  Saint Therese could pick up a pin for love of God, which is the essence of penance.  Even eating chocolate might be a form of penance.  Now that may seem strange, but some people have so many wounds from their childhood that they cannot love themselves and sometimes in order to believe that they are worthy of receiving good things and being loved by God they need to give themselves good things, such as chocolate.

Is it not beautiful how many opportunities we have to show God that we love Him—which is in the end what penance truly is?  There is nothing except sin that we cannot make a penance—an act of love for God who has loved us first.  That love then will cover a multitude of sins.