Healing The Body, Saving The Soul

01
May
sunrise-behind-cross

Healing The Body, Saving The Soul

“Have no fear for what tomorrow may bring. The same loving God who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and everyday. God will either shield you from suffering or give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, then, and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations.”

St. Francis de Sales

A worthwhile christian debate is taking place about whether the COVID-19 virus is ‘chastisement’ from God casted down on a world in steep moral decline or a normal natural event devoid of any spiritual meaning.

Whether God sent a plague or let one happen through His permissive will, He always seeks a greater good for mankind from even the most horrible of events. This Pandemic is no exception.

Knights prepare breakfast tacos for EMTs
Knights wearing masks prepare breakfast tacos for EMTs.

Only a few times in history has a major disease morphed into an economic catastrophe (the Black Plague, the Spanish flu, etc.). This merging of crises has created instabilities that has shaken the complex systems of daily life as we know it:

  • The way we pray and worship
  • The way we eat and produce food
  • The way we travel
  • The way we work and spend money

And there are others: the functioning of government, health care, education and more. But the speed with which these changes have taken place coupled with the paranoia whipped up by the media and the divisions in our political culture lead many to believe they are in some way being manipulated. In other words: if you wanted to destabilize a country wouldn’t this be a good time to do it?

Economic instability has flowed from medical instability; is political instability next?

All we are told to think about is Pandemic graphs, empty store shelves, school closures, postponed and cancelled events, medical treatments and Vaccines.

But man does not live by bread alone.

Duet 8:3

“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me you will have peace. In the world you will have tribulations: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33

While the flesh is weary from suffering and asks for mercy, the spirit can be strong and joyful even through suffering. The soul that is focused on God is stronger than body and is most strong when is joined to God by prayer and works of charity; the most important principle of the Knights of Columbus.

Unfortunately, the so-called “scientific” viewpoints of today’s modernist deny the supernatural and insist that the spirit world is just a projection of man! They assert that the unseen world (both good and evil) are only a psychological illusion born out of ignorance handed down through the generations; a medieval superstition. Indeed?

Our faith, based on scripture and tradition tells us that there are diseases of the flesh and diseases of the spirit. The former, if left untreated, leads to the death of the body, the latter, if not fortified by prayer, repentance and grace leads to the death of the soul.

catholics-praying-in-church

Man is spirit as well as matter. Our religion tells us we have a natural life and a spiritual life. Faith unifies all aspects of the human person, body, mind and spirit. This faith of ours nullifies the disruptive effects of the satanic world which is partly to blame for the psychic and neurotic difficulties of our modern age. If mankind spent as much time in uprooting sin and vice as it does fighting the leprosies of the flesh, we would not see so much evil and scandal in the world, or so many idol-shepards and modern-day Pharisees in our religious institutions.

No matter how hard we wash our hands during this epidemic (and we should) we cannot wash away sin and moral dirt with disinfectants.

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, or angels, nor principalities, nor nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8:38,39

SK Wendell JeanPierre, Lecturer