Pilgrimage During the Pandemic

Many people have been criticizing our leaders in the Church for cancelling all public Masses while we quarantine for the pandemic and many complain of not being able to receive the Sacraments.  I must admit hearing those things does trouble me.  It makes me wonder what the Church should do.  Is She merely pandering to the government decisions to avoid outright conflict?  Is She thus abandoning Her mission to nourish our faith by treating the physical health and well-being of the most vulnerable as more important than our spiritual health?

Perhaps She might be rather calling us to enter more deeply into the mystical reality.  I have written already of our being called to receive the Sacrament of the Present Moment.  Now, however, I mean far more than that: I mean the eternal reality.

For the Church as we know Her will not endure.  The Sacraments will pass away.  The Eucharist, as precious a gift as It is, will no longer be needed.

When we come to the Eternal City, we shall be face to face with the living God, with I-Am-Who-Am.  We shall no longer need to receive through Sacraments, which make visible the invisible, providing grace to sustain us in our exile here in this valley of tears, for we shall then be in intimate union with Him.

All the grace we receive is meant to prepare us for that.  Reception of the Eucharist in particularly brings us into intimate relationship with Christ, our crucified Lord.

Does it?

"I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.  Thou shalt not have strange gods before me."

Exodus 20:2-3

Despite this commandment, we often allow our minds and hearts to turn to idols without realizing it.  Even our spiritual practices may become idols.  It is far easier to cling to devotions and the practice of the spiritual life than to come into a deep and intimate relationship with the Unknown God—the God we can never fully understand because He is infinite and we mere finite creatures.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord.  For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts."

Isaiah 55:8-9

The moment we believe we have understood the mind of God is the moment we have created God in our own image.  If that's not an idol, I don't know what is.

Perhaps that may sound extreme to you.  Perhaps you may wonder why I mention this possibility.

I will tell you: it is because I am trying to take seriously the call to conversion in this time.  I don't want to fall into criticizing our leaders in the Church or in our government, placing myself on the high pedestal of godhood in dictating what ought to happen in these present circumstances.  I don't want to fall into that trap even in the hidden corners of my heart.

Rather, I want this time of quarantine to bear the same fruit that grew from that of the Desert Fathers who chose isolation as a way to encounter God.  I want to see the harvest like unto that of those who seek a life of contemplation in the cloister.  I want my heart and mind to be converted.  In short, I seek and pray for that true metanoia that is to be transformed by Him who is leading us from glory to glory (see 2 Corinthians 3:18) that I may be purified of all attachment to sin or self-seeking, ready to see Him face to face.

I don't want to fall into desolation or despondency or frustration at being deprived of what I deem necessary.  I don't want to believe I am merely in a state of suspended animation, waiting for the virus to end.

Rather, I want to see these days in the desert as communion with the Father.  I want to see them as time to give Him my fiat as our Lady did when the Angel Gabriel appeared to her and told her that she would be the Mother of the Messiah and as Christ did in the Garden of Gethsemane when He asked that the cup of suffering should pass Him by:

"Nevertheless not what I will,
but what Thou wilt."

Luke 22:42

Pray for that for me.

I will pray the same for you.

Holy Saturday

Continuing with our meditations from said character, here is the one for today:

In silence, our Lady waited, perhaps in grief at the death of her Son and yet with great trust, for she who was conceived with no sin and remained without sin could not doubt the Lord's will. Surely she could not have known, nor understood, that He would rise from the dead any more than the apostles. Yet she trusted, waiting in the darkness of pure faith. What then did she expect? Did she wonder about the future, about what would happen? Her place was merely to accept and embrace all as the will of God, finding therein such intimate union that she needed nothing else. It was not for her to sit and grieve at her loss, at the dashing of all her hopes as some must have done, the apostles no less than the others, but rather she moved among them all with the same peace that had always graced her life, the same smile to encourage those who cowered in fear. Perhaps she spoke words to them of her trust in the Lord, but her presence spoke more than any words, and it was her presence that drew all she touched nearer to Him even without her knowing it.

Even then she must have been praying, pleading for those around her, especially those who seemed to be losing hope. As a mother it was her part to seek first the care of her Son, and so she did, even now in His death, for she served each person she met as if he had been her Son, as if he were indeed God Himself.

So it was that she found Him where no other could see Him, her heart ever the resting place of the Living God. So it was that she guided the Church in the pangs of its birth, when all seemed lost.

It was easy for others to forget her presence, to take for granted the peace she radiated. Few could have known the tremendous part she played in the salvation of the world; for her it was not enough to be the Mother of God: she had also to give her life for others in union with her Son, becoming the servant of all, and suffering all for love of Him, heeding only His will at each and every moment and never displeased that it was not her way, answering each temptation with the simple “fiat” that was her path to the heavens, leading across the sea to the glory of the risen Son.