On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization categorized COVID-19 as a global pandemic, making the virus a singular issue of focus around the world. For over two years, COVID gripped our attention and left us with little capacity to attend to anything else.
Without diminishing the pain and suffering inflicted on us by the virus, it must be said that the pandemic is only part of the story. Christians have deep concerns beyond the latest COVID trends – number of cases, hospitalizations, patients in critical care, and vaccination rates, etc. Other dangerous trends and events are unfolding, and these trends and events are not getting due attention. What makes this more alarming than peculiar, is that the non-COVID trends and events may have more permanent impact on the culture and the Church.
For over two years, COVID gripped our attention and left us with little capacity to attend to anything else. Click To TweetDevil’s Sleight of Hand
A magician uses sleight of hand techniques to manipulate audience attention in order to accomplish his magic. Most tricks are a surprise to onlookers because their eyes were fixed on the distraction while the magician performed his trick undetected.
Satan invented this game. If he can distract people to focus on and obsess over one thing or another, people will not notice the other work he is orchestrating below the surface of our attention.
Long COVID
Certain individuals have suffered “Long COVID” where symptoms persist for months. While I know a couple that have suffered lingering symptoms, and I would not wish that condition on anyone, the entire world has suffered long from COVID.
First, it was the lockdowns; a massive global effort of personal restraint and isolation to flatten the curve.
Then, the government mandates began. In Canada, these mandates and restrictions were enforced at the federal and provincial levels. On March 14, 2020, the government of Canada issued its first travel advisory to avoid all non-essential travel outside of Canada and all travel by cruise ship. Canadians were urged to return home via commercial means when available. Since that first mandate, the federal government has imposed, revised, lifted and re-imposed multiple mandates affecting travel and border crossings that still continue today.
At the Provincial level, on March 18, 2020, BC Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General, Mike Farnworth, declared, for the first time, a provincial “state of emergency” under the Emergency Program Act. The declaration was to be in effect for 14 days but could be extended. The state of emergency has been extended 31 times since the original declaration. A state of emergency allows the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General, to use extraordinary powers under the Emergency Program Act. This temporary authority allows government officials to impose restrictions and mandates on businesses and individuals alike. These mandates certainly impacted us as Catholics as we were unable to receive communion for months and were forced to offer outdoor services.
The Pain of Living in a State of Flux
For a long period of time, there was a race to create a vaccine that would eradicate the disease. The vaccine first approved by the FDA was known as the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, and marketed for the prevention of COVID-19 disease in individuals 16 years of age and older.
However, since the vaccine was rolled out, the world has been living in a state of flux, that is, a global uncertainty about what should be done next. The pain of living in a state of flux and transition is not having a clear end in mind.
After the vaccine rolled out, the world has been living in flux, a global uncertainty about what should be done next. The pain of living in a state of flux is not having a clear end in mind. Click To TweetThe original promise from experts was that vaccinated people would neither contract the virus nor spread it. That turned out to be untrue as vaccinated individuals can both contract and spread the virus. Furthermore, the promise that vaccinated people would endure less severe symptoms held true but only for a season. Now that vaccine-based immunity is wearing off, some vaccinated people do end up in intensive care when they contract the virus. All this contributes to the state of flux – uncertainty about what should be done next.
The vaccine-dream of completely eradicating the world of COVID has not yet died and the new world of living with COVID has not yet begun. Flux.
The vaccine-dream of completely eradicating the world of COVID has not yet died and the new world of living with COVID has not yet begun. Click To TweetUntil the world agrees to live with COVID in the same way everywhere, the state of flux will continue. How long can we endure with no end-in-sight?
Things Are Not As They Appear
While the world stays focused on COVID and remains paralyzed in a state of flux, other issues have been tearing away at the social fabric and driving a wedge between the Church and culture.
As a Christian, I have never looked at the world through a narrow, one-issue lens. Not even during a global pandemic.
I believe too much in the presence of a very real but invisible world. I believe nothing separates the visible world from the invisible world and spiritual realities from temporal realities.
I believe the devil has been using a sleight of hand technique for the past two years. I am not saying COVID was improperly categorized as a pandemic. I am not minimizing the global pain and suffering. But I do believe that Satan’s work during the pandemic needs to be identified as much as the pain and suffering caused by the pandemic.
I believe in the presence of a very real but invisible world. Nothing separates the visible world from the invisible world and spiritual realities from temporal realities. Click To TweetA Liar From the Beginning
Satan’s primary strategy is to deceive, that is, to persuade as true something that is false. While our attention was fixated on the pandemic, we had little emotional reserves to discern other emerging trends and narratives. We accepted as fact; several untruths sown in society through various seasons of media frenzy.
Where have we been deceived during the past two years? Where we have been persuaded as true something that is false.
- In biology – that biological men can become women and biological women can become men.
- In residential schools – that the Church operated factories of systemic sexual, physical and emotional abuse, that none of the religious sisters and priests serving in those schools did any good at all and disposed of hundreds of children in mass graves.
- That the pursuit of legalizing prostitution in Canada is a noble way to uphold the dignity of women, protect them and their ‘johns’ under civil law and help them overcome poverty in a regulated sex industry.
- That Canadian law should no longer require a person’s natural death to be reasonably foreseeable as an eligibility criterion for Medical Assistance in Dying and that people suffering from mental illness should be able to request “termination” at any time.
- Deconstructionism, we have been duped to believe that anything historical and traditional has lost its value in our post-modern world, including the religious roots of the West, decades-old institution of police services, and many democratic processes.
A Church in Crisis
Attacks on the Church and corruption within it, has created a significant decline of institutional trust toward the Church. There is a profound level of uncertainty right now. Contributing issues include but are not limited to:
- The clergy sexual abuse crisis and new cases coming forward.
- Allegations and evidence of financial corruption.
- Bishops publicly opposing each other, Cardinals too, which sends a message of in-fighting and lack of collegiality.
- The synod process may or may not create unity within the universal Church.
- Decreasing faith practice in the West and continual downward trends in almost every category measured.
- Increasing moral and theological confusion.
- The decline in the Catholic identify of our decade-old institutions in healthcare and education.
- And the full impact of COVID is not yet known.
As we confront the most brutal facts of current reality, will we be animated by an unwavering faith to paint a picture of a preferred future? Will we have enough courage to probe the depths of issues that COVID revealed as deeper and more systemic than first imagined?
What does not work in times of crisis is shallow optimism that minimizes problems. What does not work in times of crisis is ordinary dreams that are incapable of moving human hearts.
What does not work in times of crisis is shallow optimism that minimizes problems or status quo thinking that is incapable of moving human hearts. Click To TweetYes, we may claim the promise that “the gates of hell will never prevail,” but if spoken with entitlement or indifference, that is, without confronting current reality with brutal honesty, Jesus may say of us what He said of the religious leaders of His day, “They honour me with their lips but their hearts are far from me.” Lord, gives us pure hearts full of love for you and zeal for souls.
A Church of Hope and Courage
We need hope and courage to move forward as a Church. Without hope, we will lack vision to paint a picture of the preferred future and without courage, we lack the tenacity necessary to interrogate current reality. Both are necessary.
Hope and courage are the same magnanimous virtues that filled Jesus during his public ministry on earth. Everything Jesus did and said during his public ministry, the Church is called to continue as His mystical body.
Everything Jesus did and said during his public ministry, the Church is called continue as His mystical body. Click To TweetOn our own we cannot do this, we need to be animated with the Spirit of Jesus. Each and every baptized member of the Church is called to holiness and mission. Each of us, baptized into the faith, share in the priestly, prophetic and kingly ministry of Jesus.
Magnanimity means going through life with one ear continually pressed into the heart of Jesus so that we can track the movements of His sacred heart: to be tender when Jesus would be tender and fierce when Jesus is calling us to be fierce. To be prophetic when Jesus would be prophetic and strategic when Jesus is calling us to be strategic. To be humble when Jesus would be humble and bold when Jesus is calling us to be bold.
It is His Church. What would Jesus do in times we are living? Let us do that.
Avengers? Assemble.