12 April 2020
Like many of you I have been taken by all the news reports about the Corona Virus.
Each day I listen to Andrew Cuomo—the governor of New York.
He provides a daily briefing. A Catholic, Cuomo tends to end each briefing with a sermon.
He knows that this virus doesn’t just affect our bodies. It affects our souls.
Governor Cuomo said in one of his briefings that this virus was transformative—
That it is not just changing us, it is transforming us.
Into what he doesn’t know but we are all being transformed.
The question is whether we will be transformed into better human beings, or worse.
Part of that is our choice, he says, but part of it is beyond our control—
It is the evil and grace of this moment in our lives.
What we need he said is courage. And then he quotes FDR:
Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the assessment that there is something more
Important than fear.
For all of us who would be disciples of Jesus who faced his death we must come to the same
Assessment as Jesus—that there was something more important than fear, than death.
Finally, on this Easter I want to share part of a poem by an Anglican priest Malcolm Guite.
My good friend Fr. Mike Joncas found this poem and I think it adequately describes this moment in our lives. It is about the moment Jesus is nailed to the cross.
See, as they strip the robe from off his back
And spread his arms and nail them to the cross,
The dark nails pierce him and the sky turns black,
And love is firmly fastened onto loss.
But here a pure change happens. On this tree
Loss becomes gain, death opens into birth.
Here wounding heals and fastening makes free
Earth breathes in heaven, heaven roots in earth.
And here we see the length, the breadth, the height
Where love and hatred meet and love stays true
Where sin meets grace and darkness turns to light
We see what love can bear and be and do,
And here our savior calls us to his side
His love is free, his arms are open wide.