When we tell ourselves “I can never change,” or “That will never happen,” we presume too much and believe too little.
In Jesus Christ, God renders all of our final conclusions premature and all of our talk of determinism as simply bad faith.
Through the Risen Jesus, God opens closed doors, brings about Resurrection, reveals possibilities, reclaims the lost, liberates the cursed and possessed, and changes the unchangeable.
On Good Friday Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household, preached a sermon to Pope Francis and to the rest of the world:
“The pandemic of Coronavirus has abruptly roused us from the greatest danger individuals and humanity have always been susceptible to: the delusion of omnipotence.
“It took merely the smallest and most formless element of nature, a virus, to remind us that we are mortal, that military power and technology are not sufficient to save us.
“God at times disrupts our projects and our calm to save us from the abyss we don’t see.
“The virus knows no borders. In an instant it has broken down all the barriers and distinctions of race, nation, religion, wealth, and power. We should not revert to that prior time when this moment has passed.
“As Pope Francis has exhorted us, we should not waste this opportunity. Let us not allow so much pain, so many deaths, and so much heroic engagement on the part of health workers to have been in vain. Returning to the way things were is the ‘recession’ of which we should have the most fear.
“Let us leave to the next generation a world poorer in goods and money, if need be, but richer in its humanity.”
How are YOU becoming a Resurrection person in your daily life as a result of COVID-19 – opening closed doors, revealing possibilities, reclaiming those who are lost, liberating those our society has cursed and changing what seemed unchangeable up until now?
