Comfort for My People

As we continue to deal with the challenges of the Coronavirus pandemic, we do so during this unfolding season of Easter. The Easter season stretches from Easter Sunday until Pentecost Sunday, and invites us to truly become, in all circumstance, Easter people. To become Easter people all we have to do is to more deeply embrace Jesus’ call to faith, hope and love.

As we stand before the reality of the Coronavirus challenges, perhaps we find our faith, hope and our ability to love challenged. In response to these temptations during this pandemic, let us together consider how we might strengthen within us the theological virtues of faith, hope and love.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls faith a divine gift and the human act by which the believer gives personal adherence to God who invites a personal response and free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed. Faith is a truly human act as much as it is a divine gift. By it we make our own and accept as true what has been passed on to us. By faith the stories that were shared with us as children are integrated and begin to impact our lives. Faith is not the suspension on my human reason. Instead faith is the completion of our process of knowing. We first learn or experience something new, but at some point, each of us has to, with our own free will, surrender to the truth of faith. At the human level, all learning requires some amount of faith in which we trust based on the reliability of the one revealing the new reality. In theological context, faith is a trust in the content of religion handed down over the centuries about a living God. If the faith is to be believed it should also be accompanied by the movement of the Holy Spirit which re-proposes the ancient teaching afresh in the heart of each Christian.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls hope the theological virtue by which we desire and expect from God both eternal life and the grace we need to attain it. Hope is so much more than the bland expectation that tomorrow will be better than today. Hope in the theological sense is aimed at something humanity could not aspire to on its own. It hopes for eternal life even when all of our sense experience tells us that death is the end of life. Further, God’s gift of faith gives us a special strength to believe that God will be faithful with us through our darkest experiences. The prospect of life with God forever is a life altering proposition. Suddenly even the most mundane decision here on Earth gains somewhat eternal consequences. The difficult challenges of the Gospel, without being cheapened, are made much more bearable knowing that it will only be for a time. Jesus’ encouragement to take up our cross daily and his many warnings about how those who follow him will be mistreated only apply to this earthly life. The life of heaven in paradise will not be marred with many of the painful difficulties that are present in earthly life.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls love charity. It is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as our self for the love of God. Love is the act of both wanting the good of the other and acting upon it. When directed at God, we want what God wants, which in our case is to know him and to love others. When directed toward others, this love becomes a driving force in which we help them achieve what is their good. Here is a strong connection between the theological virtue of charity and the common use of the word. Works of charity in which people receive assistance mirror and systematize the love that we are all called to. These systemic acts of charity help others to flourish. In our own lives, we are given a multitude of opportunities to support the flourishing of others. St. Paul teaches us that of the three great virtues, the greatest is love. The need for faith and hope will be supplanted by knowledge and fulfilment in heaven. Love remains. As we truly experience God, we will love God more as he is over what he can do for us.

In these challenging days as we continue to deal with this pandemic, may the risen Lord help us to strengthen our faith, hope and love so that we can truly be Easter people, and alleluia can be our song! May all the joy of the Easter season strengthen you in these days and always!!!