What is your fear?

Roma, August 9, 2020

We have all been shocked and devastated with the massive explosion in Beirut. Ammonium nitrate that had been stocked at the port was ignited and triggered a blast visually comparable to an atomic bomb! Over 150 people killed and 300, 000 left homeless. The port explosion has stretched Lebanese to its limits. Fragmented by religious strife between Christians and Muslims since the outbreak of the civil war in the 1975, southern Lebanon became the base of Hezbollah, Muslim extremists targeting Israel; Lebanon absorbed Palestinian refugees and more recently refugees from Syria. This Middle Eastern democracy is associated more with the Christian west in terms of religious outlook, freedom and tolerance, and is home to the earliest Christian communities. Decades of political instability and regional havoc, compounded with rising inflation have been catastrophic enough. Now a chemical earthquake!
 
Besides Beirut, another tragic event appears on the list of “what’s going on?” News reports more interested in celebrity lawsuits and royal disputes meant few people heard about the Cathedral chapel explosion in Managua, Nicaragua. At the end of July a petrol bomb was thrown into the Cathedral where the Blessed Sacrament was kept with the Blood of Christ Crucifix. The sacred image had been preserved and venerated in the Chapel for four hundred years, an image of popular devotion among Nicaraguans. In the year 2020 hatred for Catholicism manifests itself with a petrol bomb burning up the Chapel. All the sacred objects in the Cathedral chapel were destroyed by the bomb. This is not an isolated incident in Nicaragua but a series of sacrilegious acts showing hatred towards Catholic beliefs and practices.
 
In the month of June, anarchists across the United States vandalised, desecrated, and succeeded in removing Roman Catholic figures: statues of Queen Isabel of Spain and the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, while mindless mobs drummed, “take it down.” Vandals sacked Rome in the 5th century, and once again vandals are taking down statues of Monarchs, Explorers and Saints. St. Junípero Serra who was canonised by Pope Francis had in the 1700s established missions across California to evangelise the indigenous population. Once again vandals hostile to Catholicism desecrated St. Junípero’s statue to the three-word beat, “take it down.” But it does not end here. In July, Jewish, Muslim and Black protestors in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, a city named after St. Louis of France, mobilised themselves to have the statue of St. Louis removed from the city. 

But to kick-off the Spring we had the Coronavirus. As the world sat in front of their screens watching China, the lock down, airport closures, and restrictions; then, in Europe, Catholic Italy saw the suspension of worship and the Sacraments, bodies of the deceased put into trucks sent straight to cemeteries without the ritual Mass. Suddenly, in our own neighbourhoods we hear about hoarders where we go shopping clearing out shelves of sanitizers and toilet paper, wondering what is happening as graphics of statistics of cases and deaths change daily, like ping pong, not knowing what would be the next measures. Lifting restrictions seemed to be followed by outbreaks then measures reinstated. “You can travel… but there are risks. And then back home… to quarantine.”
 
If all this is not the ingredients for anxiety and depression, what is? Yes, ultimately, fear. Am I symptomatic? Or someone at work? Will Masses ever return to normal? Why the hatred manifested for things Catholic? Will the beat continue, “take it down,” until Catholic history is erased? The people in Lebanon are already suffering, why another disaster?
 
Can we hear God in the wind that splits mountains and breaks rocks? Or can we see God in the devastating power of an earthquake? Is God there in the fire? God is in the silence. In 1 Kings 19 this is where Elijah encounters God: in silence. The reckless drama of nature, the grating noise of the world, is not where we encounter God. We need to listen in “sheer silence.” If we don’t listen, we will neither hear God nor see God.
 
And this is precisely what occurs in Matthew 14 on the Sea of Galilee. A boat battered by the waves and wind, disciples are so swept away by fear they cannot see Jesus. And even though Jesus calls Peter, noticing the strong wind, Peter becomes frightened, and he begins to sink. Instead of focussing on Jesus, Peter is terrified by the strong wind. Peter loses sight of Jesus because of fear. And Jesus “immediately reached out his hand and caught him.”
 
Focus on Jesus, trust in Jesus, have faith. Don’t be washed away by your fears. God is in charge. And Jesus will reach out and catch us. We have the assurance of Our Blessed Mother and she loves us.