The capitulation of Faith to the coronavirus

Dear Friends, a grave doubt has gripped me intensely in these last few weeks of, may I say, ABSTINENCE... from Jesus.

Perhaps it is the same doubt that tormented Saint Augustine when he said he felt in his soul, in his inner world, an abyss that nothing and no one could fill except that Faith in what we Christians call God!

This, more or less consciously, happens for every man: He alone can fill this abyss and no one else!

Our political leaders, the powerful of this world, those who say they “govern” us for our good, mistakenly think that “SPIRITUAL” things, “RELIGION”, the spiritual world of the person, are not valid tools for life, and therefore they are little inclined to think or take inspiration from the truest reality of man, his interiority.

Today, indeed, attention is directed only to the body and material things.

But can this be so for us?

I am a nun. I work in the field of the “disadvantaged” victims of various addictions that affect our society. I won't hide from you that this “mission” is sometimes very difficult as the inner “dark caverns” (caverns, not holes!) leave strong and obvious traces in the experience of every young person as well as in their body - marked by their fears, uncertainties, illusions, disappointments and defeats.

This is a time in history when science and technology multiply our opportunities at an unthinkable speed; but it is also a time full of extreme fragility, as people have lost faith in God, even though they are constantly searching for new, easy alternative idols.

Dear friends, it is time to give the word, the space to Faith, to Christ, as Don Bosco said: “Live in the grace of God, pray to Our Lady, go to help the sick, and nothing will harm you...”!

Certainly the decisions of the Bishops are to be respected, we understand that they are based on concern for the good of all, but I have to say that we miss the Eucharistic Sacrament, Holy Mass, the Joy of going to church, and listening together to the Word of God, greeting each other, embracing and sharing our experiences with our brothers and sisters!

Please!  Don’t try to tell me that we can do all this via radio, TV, internet, or mobile phone, etc...!

Meeting each other, looking at each other, talking to each other, both with God and with our brothers, is IRREPLACEABLE!!!

It is clear that the whole world today is going through a great multi-faceted crisis originating in distrust in God, in Religion, in Tradition, that consequently feeds itself.

And now, dear friends, I am beset by doubts, grave doubts!

Might it be that we have sold, for a dish of “Political Correctness”, the right to express our Faith?

What social metamorphosis has happened to us?

Is it possible that the “coronavirus” has become, in these weeks, the centre of our life?

INCREDIBLE: we all depend on, live, exist according to whether or not this coronavirus develops!

For the “politicians” (poor things, so powerless) this alarmism for health, prevention, prudence for the community is understandable. Fine.

But it is rather odd to interrupt a relationship with something that for us is Life. The coronavirus is not the centre, God is the centre!!!

Actually, the point is how to live as Christians in these circumstances: praying, comforting, helping those affected, not isolating ourselves in terror and detaching the real Centre from our lives, replacing it with all the updates on the coronavirus!

But how is this dependence of ours on the coronavirus possible when, historically, Christians have, for centuries, led communities for people suffering from all sorts of social illnesses, people suffering from mental disorders, demonic possession, etc.... Throughout the world, monks and nuns, male and female Saints, have healed and enriched the lives of men, at every latitude, in the name of Jesus and with the strength of their Faith, to which they dedicated their lives, healing and curing all those who flocked to them!

Faith is not an ideology; for people who practice it is a way of life, a reality, it is Jesus to whom we cling not only when there is need. For the Christian it is a matter of life or death!

 My goodness, in these weeks I seem to have witnessed - at least this is my atrocious doubt - the capitulation of Faith to the insubstantiality of “Political Correctness”!

Yes, because the potent message that we have been sent with the closure of the churches, the non- celebration of the Eucharist with the faithful, gives the feeling - not to say almost the certainty - that Faith, God, are no longer capable of responding to our needs!

Practically it is as if Faith, consisting of prayers, supplications, penances, with the certainty that He listens to us, belonged to an archaic old world, no longer credible today.

The current needs of an industrialized and super-technological society today are entrusted to modern science, as are all the responsibilities of curing and caring for people!

I have a bad feeling that we are falling, at high speed, into the fake, but modern, god of “Nothing”.

Author Alessandro Manzoni already told us: “When a side door closes, it's to open a main door”. So God allows situations, incomprehensible to us, not to deprive us of the good and the useful, all people loving God, but simply to protect us and thus develop in us not only a healthy common sense, but also an interest in awakening us “from the present torpor” for what is True!

I have many young people in the community, and I assure you that industrial and technical culture, eating and drinking, living in so-called comfort, are not enough for our life or to heal us!

Every day I have the proof before my eyes... it takes More, much More... so we pray that our Pastors will not be timid and insecure in guiding us along the paths of the world, and that each one of us will recover THE TRUE CENTRE OF LIFE: Jesus!

Saint Isaac, the Syrian, was right when he said that in order to live well: “Birds must fly, fish must swim, and people must pray”!

Sending you all a real, not symbolic, embrace…

* Sister, founder of the Shalom-Regina della Pace Community of Palazzolo sull'Oglio