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Not a Crisis but an Opportunity (Monday 2nd Week Easter 2020)
John 3
In this pandemic, we often hear the word ‘crisis’. What is a crisis, then? It is an occasion or a period in which we are threatened to lose something important such as work, family, health or life. This pandemic is certainly a crisis in every sense of the word. It is a health care crisis, an economic crisis, an educational crisis, and a national and global crisis.
But as Christians, we should also ask if this is a crisis of faith or a crisis to the Church. Then, the first question we should ask is whether this pandemic can take away our faith. Or whether it can damage the Holy Mother Church.
St Paul (Rom 8) asks who can separate us from the love of Christ - “tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” And he gives an answer: “I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
If someone loses his faith during this pandemic, it is not the pandemic that takes his faith away. Rather, the person will have to admit it is he who gives up his own faith. Surely this pandemic can test our faith but cannot seize it from us. If someone is worried about the finance of the local churches, we answer poverty will purify the churches and uplift their spirits.
For us Christians, this pandemic is not a crisis but an opportunity, because we see the world as Christ sees. When we are born anew by baptism, we no longer belong to the kingdom of this world but to the kingdom of God. We now live this life as Christians first and foremost.
Whatever we do for the love of Christ during this pandemic will strengthen our faith. We will all have different kinds of struggles during this time, but those struggles will help us to mature in faith. This is a time of purification. Let us be alert in spirit. And let us pray so that we may remain in the peace Christ gives by his resurrection.
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By Fr Swann KimJohn 3
In this pandemic, we often hear the word ‘crisis’. What is a crisis, then? It is an occasion or a period in which we are threatened to lose something important such as work, family, health or life. This pandemic is certainly a crisis in every sense of the word. It is a health care crisis, an economic crisis, an educational crisis, and a national and global crisis.
But as Christians, we should also ask if this is a crisis of faith or a crisis to the Church. Then, the first question we should ask is whether this pandemic can take away our faith. Or whether it can damage the Holy Mother Church.
St Paul (Rom 8) asks who can separate us from the love of Christ - “tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” And he gives an answer: “I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
If someone loses his faith during this pandemic, it is not the pandemic that takes his faith away. Rather, the person will have to admit it is he who gives up his own faith. Surely this pandemic can test our faith but cannot seize it from us. If someone is worried about the finance of the local churches, we answer poverty will purify the churches and uplift their spirits.
For us Christians, this pandemic is not a crisis but an opportunity, because we see the world as Christ sees. When we are born anew by baptism, we no longer belong to the kingdom of this world but to the kingdom of God. We now live this life as Christians first and foremost.
Whatever we do for the love of Christ during this pandemic will strengthen our faith. We will all have different kinds of struggles during this time, but those struggles will help us to mature in faith. This is a time of purification. Let us be alert in spirit. And let us pray so that we may remain in the peace Christ gives by his resurrection.