By Fr. Glenn Jones
As is often said, crises bring out the best and the worst in people. We’ve seen this in spades over the last few week with the whole world scrambling with the COVID-19 situation—certainly a situation quite unique in most people’s lifetimes, especially in the so-called first-world countries. It certainly makes one appreciate modern medicine all the more and the eradication of so many deadly diseases in many parts of the world … as well as renewing our sympathy for those who continue to struggle with less-than-modern medicine.
In this time, two starkly contrasting personality types have become more evident—those who are willing to sacrifice for others, and those who … aren’t.
To put on a façade of cordiality and charity is easy when no sacrifice—or one’s own profit—is involved, but when the requirement of actual sacrifice is not only present, but likely, that’s when the mask may fall. We’ve certainly seen that over the last several weeks with stories and photos of hoarders buying up all the paper products, cleansers, favored foods, etc., not only to stock for themselves, but—much more despicably—to scalp by profiteering in shortages perhaps exacerbated by the scalpers’ own actions. These are rather repulsive manifestations of the “every man for himself” and “dog eat dog” attitudes antithetical to human civilization, and to humanity itself. After all, if one is not humane, then one is inhumane. If not human, then inhuman. If not honorable, then dishonorable.
But then … there are the lights—all the brighter in these shadowed days.
How can one not admire—and admire greatly—those nurses, doctors and other hospital staff who are on the front lines of our current crisis? While that vast majority of us take every precaution against possible exposure and contact, our medical folks willingly thrust themselves into the midst of the hornets’ nest—day after day, week after week. Weary soldiers on a battlefield against an invisible foe, they pick up weapons of hypodermic, stethoscope and thermometer and advance into the fray … eye ever fixed toward ultimate victory. And not only them, but the ever unheralded—the janitor, the laundry persons, lab techs, the chaplains providing spiritual support, and so many others. We pray for them, one and all … as well as the police, firefighters, EMTs and others who risk themselves for us … essential businesses and their employees who keep us fed.
In this time most of all, Christians would be negligent in not recognizing how such selflessness mirrors that of the most selfless of all: Jesus. The majority of Christianity begin today the holiest week of the year in which we recall the suffering, passion, death and resurrection of Christ.
In the Catholic Church, the week begins with Passion, or Palm, Sunday—“passion” rooted in the Latin “passio”, meaning suffering or submission. That suffering of Jesus was wholly voluntary, a suffering endured for all humanity—each and every person—and the absolute pinnacle of selflessness and self-sacrifice. As Jesus Himself noted: “…the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many,” (Mark 10:45), and “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
We read this year the Passion account of the Gospel of Matthew, beginning with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matthew 21)—the crowd lining the road with branches (thus the “palms” of Palm Sunday) to honor Him. And yet … only days later, a crowd would be calling for His blood. Nonetheless, even with His divinity intact, He acquiesces to torture and death, taking upon Himself the just due for the sins—the evils of hatred and selfishness—that we do against one another. Why? Because the balance of divine—and thus perfect—justice must be restored for justice to truly BE fulfilled, else it is no justice at all. The dual nature of Jesus as both God and man is thus essential—as man able to suffer, and as God to suffer infinitely—balancing the scale, as it were, for all humanity … IF we choose to accept such vicarious justification through individual faith.
The passion story is tragic but beautiful, with inexhaustible depths to be plumbed. In considering just a few, we might consider:
…the corrupting power of wealth in the apostle Judas’ betrayal…
…the corrupting power of power and pride in the Pharisees’ refusal to acknowledge Jesus’ innocence even when Judas admits to deception and treason…
…the apparently unfulfilled prayer in the Garden, ultimately leading to a much greater good…
…the denial of one who would become the leader of Jesus’ apostles…and first leader of His Church…
…the call for Christ’s blood to be upon those clamoring for His death…blood which convicts and yet acquits…
…favoring a murderer over the source of life…
…the surprised passerby, called to one of the greatest services ever to God…
…the prayer of the forsaken, which is actually a psalm of trust…
…the infinitely regal and omnipotent…in humiliation…
…the immortal…suffering death…
…the trembling of creation at the death of its creator…
…the Son’s obedience to the Father’s will…infinite innocence atoning for human guilt…
…the apparent utter failure of crucifixion, becoming ultimate victory on Easter morning.
Every Christian must ask himself at some point: “Will I be brave enough to endure His scoffers and even His enemies? … to offer a drink of faith for which He thirsts to succor my Lord, and thereby aid Him on His mission of salvation? Or … will I flee cowardly into the darkness like His apostles in the Garden? Will I sacrifice for Him as He sacrificed for me? Will I, like Simon of Cyrene, bear at least a little of the cross with Him?”
Remember near the end of the movie “Forrest Gump”? … Forrest describing his adventures at the bedside of his beloved dying Jenny? Jenny says: “I wish I could have been there with you.” And Forrest looks at her tenderly and says: “You were.”
Likewise, when our hearts ache at Jesus’ sufferings … at His loneliness … at His agony … and we moan: “My Jesus … I wish I could have been there with you.” He smiles back at us tenderly and says: “You were.”
May you have a blessed Holy Week and Easter. And to our lights working night and day to turn the tide of the coronavirus … in imitation of the selflessness of Our Lord:
The LORD bless you and keep you:
The LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you:
The LORD lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
(Numbers 6:24-26)
Rev. Glenn Jones is the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and former pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Los Alamos.