Personal Sacrifice During Pandemic

It’s encouraging to hear of the many, many examples of people reaching out to others during the pandemic lockdown.

Today's pandemic and subsequent lockdown provide ample arena for practicing the Corporal Works of Mercy, the criteria by which we will be judged worthy or unworthy of entry into the Kingdom of Heaven  (cf Mt 25:31-46).


Instead of expecting the government to respond to every need, our fellow citizens are finding ways of providing food, offering support, and mitigating loneliness and isolation for family, neighbors and even strangers.


The stories of taking on personal responsibility to assist others remind me of one of Peter Maurin’s “easy essays.”


Maurin was the French peasant with social action concerns who teamed up with Dorothy Day to begin the Catholic Worker movement.


Maurin wrote brief essays, in a poetic form, for The Catholic Worker newspaper. Though he died in 1949 his vision, critique and advice are still au currant for our day.


The essay which strikes an obvious chord today was titled “At A Sacrifice.”

In the first centuries

of Christianity

the hungry were fed

at a personal sacrifice,

the naked were clothed

at a personal sacrifice,

the homeless were sheltered

at personal sacrifice.

And because the poor

were fed, clothes and sheltered

at a personal sacrifice,

the pagans used to say

about the Christians

“See how they love each other.”

In our own day

the poor are no longer

fed, clothed and sheltered

at a personal sacrifice,

but at the expense

of the taxpayers.

And because the poor

are no longer fed, clothed and sheltered

at a personal sacrifice

the pagans say about the Christians

“See how they pass the buck.”

Fighting With God During Lockdown

I’ve come to think of the Coronavirus lockdown as an opportunity to enter the desert like the early Christian hermits.

They thought their withdrawal from society was a way of getting closer to Christ.

I thought I would find peace of mind and spiritual comfort from “time away.”  Instead I’ve been fighting  with God.

Fighting with God is part of my religious heritage; our ancestors were known as Israelites, which can be translated “God-fighters.” And certainly Abraham, Moses, St Peter and a litany of saints had disagreements with the Lord.

Fighting may be an exaggeration. Maybe questioning, arguing, or expressing disappointment may be closer to the reality. Whatever the appropriate description the experience is a challenge and a struggle.

In the middle of one of my encounters with God, as I broached the subject of why Church leaders are hesitant to ordain women as deacons or married men as priests, I read a warning from the late, great theologian Yves Congar.

He explained that change and reform in the Church are good and necessary, but he cautioned,

In order that reform be realized in the Church, it is necessary that it be accompanied by patience… I mean a certain disposition of soul and spirit mindful of necessary delays, a certain humility and pliancy of spirit, the awareness of imperfections, even of inevitable ones.

I know what he means; I just didn’t like hearing it. He went on,

The reformer is always tempted not only to begin development, but to hurry it; not only to clear the field but want it free from all weeds. But the Gospel parable teaches us to respect the delays in the growth of the seed and the harvest, and not to encroach upon this by an impatient search for purity, “for fear that with the weeds one also will tear out the wheat” (Matt. 13:29).

Congar (and God) hit a nerve. I want it and I want it now! But Congar noted,

The whole work of life, at least here on earth, presupposes delays… If certain decisions or changes are to be taken, it is essential that time reveal what meaning certain events concealed, what was to become of certain possibilities, whose mysterious character –often very disturbing—it may have been impossible to guess.

I heard it said in my youth, “Patience is a virtue/ Possess it if you can / Seldom found in a woman / Never found in a man.”

This pandemic could be God’s way of saying, “Slow down! There’s more to life than you think. If you’re too busy to pray you’re too busy. Learn a lesson from the way the wild flowers grow; they do not work or spin, but I tell you not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. Come aside and rest awhile.”

I know he’s right; I just don’t want to hear it! I lack patience.

The fight then is not with God; it’s with me.