By Barb Arland-Fye
Editoral
Five years ago, The Catholic Messenger published a story that began:
“Not a cough, whisper, fussy baby or choir could be heard as Bishop Thomas Zinkula, two priests, a deacon and three seminarians entered the sanctuary for the Easter Vigil on April 11 in St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church.” Bishop Zinkula, our bishop at the time, described the live-streamed celebration of Mass in a nearly empty church as sur-real, yet joyful and hopeful.
In his homily, he said, “The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken us up on so many different levels. Perhaps it has even shaken our faith. But the suffering and anguish we are experiencing, some of us more so than others, won’t last forever. We will rise from it. … We are an Easter people. We are a people of resurrection. We are a people of hope.”
We, the faithful, celebrated the Easter Vigil virtually that year just one month into the World Health Organization’s March 11 declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic, following reports of 118,000 cases in 114 countries and 4,291 deaths (https://tinyurl.com/4pbnctw3).
The aggressive, perplexing virus upended life as we knew it and exacerbated some of the festering wounds in our world. Many of us, at times, felt not hope, but despair. In this Jubilee Year of Hope declared by Pope Francis, we ought to reflect on the people we have become since the pandemic and whether we are embracing the Gospel message of hope in our fractious communities and world.
“Hope is born of love and based on the love springing from the pierced heart of Jesus upon the cross,” Pope Francis says in his Bull of Indiction for the Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025. (The) “reason why this hope perseveres in the midst of trials: founded on faith and nurtured by charity, it enables us to press forward in life. As Saint Augustine observes: ‘Whatever our state of life, we cannot live without these three dispositions of the soul, namely, to believe, to hope and to love’” (no. 3).
An examination of conscience is necessary, looking back on our response to the pandemic as individuals and communities and looking forward to spreading hope and love. During the COVID-19 pandemic, “There were some true heroes, who risked their lives to care for us,” said Deacon Frank Agnoli, diocesan director of liturgy and a former physician. “Those individuals who spent countless hours in laboratories and at the bedside, as well as providing essential services in our communities and trying to teach kids over Zoom. Volunteers who spent countless hours cleaning churches and helping parishes move to on-line liturgies. Parents and parishioners who lovingly bore with the hardships of pandemic restrictions. Love of neighbor was on full display. They should never be forgotten.”
What are we doing individually and collectively to demonstrate love for the most vulnerable people in our communities and parishes today? Individuals and families living with physical or mental illness or disabilities? Families struggling to pay their grocery bills and their rent? Individuals on parole or probation and struggling to find jobs? Immigrants willing and able to help our economy thrive but live in fear of Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agents who will deport them? Frail senior citizens at home or in nursing homes who long for visitors?
Our love requires self-sacrifice of time, finances, prayer and advocacy. How have we reached out to our state and federal legislators (congress.gov and legis.iowa.gov) to insist that they support legislation that helps people afford housing, food, childcare, healthcare and jobs that pay a living wage?
The virus “didn’t always bring out the best in people,” now-Archbishop Zinkula said in an interview three years ago, reflecting on his fifth anniversary of his episcopacy. “(So) it was about trying to help people view it through the eyes of faith, in terms of our pro-life perspective and the common good, rather than politics or secular ideologies. How can we find some middle ground, as close to the Kingdom as we can get?” (The Catholic Messenger, 6-30-22).
Pope Francis, now bearing witness in illness to his steadfast hope, calls us this Jubilee Year to embrace “the hope that does not fade; our hope in God. May it help us to recover the confident trust that we require, in the Church and in society, in our interpersonal relationships, in international relations, and in our task of promoting the dignity of all persons and respect for God’s gift of creation. May the witness of believers be for our world a leaven of authentic hope…” (no. 25).
Barb Arland-Fye, Editor
arland-fye@davenportdiocese.org
