By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
The coronavirus has had a big impact on religious practice and has led to churches being shut in many parts of the world, thus leaving ordinary Catholics feeling somewhat disoriented. We have no way of telling how long this will go on for, since even if the lockdowns now taking place in many countries are lifted quickly — and some countries are already taking this step — there is always a possibility of a resurgence of the coronavirus, which could lead to a new round of church closures.
It is certainly an unprecedented situation for the Church and for faithful Catholics to find themselves in, since in the past, in times of plague, if anything, there was a call for more prayers and for people to come to church to implore God’s mercy on a sinful world. But in those days, plagues and indeed pandemics were much more common, and there was little that could be done to prevent them medically, and so people naturally had recourse to God.
Now, though, in the modern era, we assumed that science would be able to deal with such a threat, and it is something of a shock to discover that a vaccine for the coronavirus is many months if not years away — although the severity of this crisis may well lead to one being developed more quickly — and that the main defense being proposed is for people to isolate themselves from possible infection, which is almost a return to what happened in medieval times.
Some Catholics have complained about the closure of churches and lack of access to the sacraments saying, for example, that if people can go into shops, where of necessity they have to go within a few feet of the cashier, then it should have been possible to make arrangements involving social distancing in churches so that the faithful could continue to receive the sacraments.
While this is probably true, as the author Joseph Pearce has pointed out in a recent article for Crisis Magazine, “If our attendance at Mass had been allowed to continue by the bishops, Catholics would be held responsible for the spread of the pestilence. It would be our fault and we would become the scapegoat for a Godless society looking for someone to blame.”
So from that perspective there is little can that be done, and Catholics will have to accept being shut out of their churches and having to suffer sacramental deprivation for the time being.
How then do we cope with this situation? If we look at some examples from the lives of the saints and holy people, and from Church history, then we can see how in times past they have dealt with situations where they have been unable to go to church in the normal way or receive the sacraments, and perhaps learn from their experiences.
A famous example of a priest unable to say Mass is that of St. John of the Cross, who, in 1577, was imprisoned by Carmelites opposed to his ideas on reform for the Order. This imprisonment was very harsh and included being publicly lashed every week, and a bread and water diet, while being held in a small cell with no heating. He was forbidden to say Mass, but paradoxically, during his time of imprisonment, which lasted nearly eight months, he composed one of his most famous poems, the Spiritual Canticle.
So even in adverse conditions and deprived of the most essential functions of the priesthood, and the comfort of the sacraments, he was able to rise above the situation and produce a spiritual masterpiece.
In the past, too, some Catholics have actually chosen to be “imprisoned” as a means of pursuing a life of perfection. These were the anchorites and anchoresses, who during the medieval period in particular, voluntarily withdrew from society and were enclosed in cells usually attached to churches. They even went through a religious ceremony somewhat like a funeral rite, and thus were considered to be quite literally to be “dead to the world.”
Usually, there would only be two openings to their cells, one to speak with visitors and hear prayer requests, and also through which they would obtain food, and the other so they could see into the church and participate in Mass and other services.
In other words, they chose to endure or accept a lifelong “lockdown” involving self-isolation until death, albeit with a full sacramental life. From that perspective, what some people are now going through doesn’t seem so bad, since we know that sooner or later it will end, and on a timescale of months rather than years probably.
Going back further in time, to the ancient world, we have the stylites, the pillar saints, the most famous of which was the Syriac St. Simeon the Stylite the Elder, who flourished in the fifth century. The term stylite comes from the Greek for pillar, and the stylites were individuals who lived lives of prayer, fasting, and often preaching, while perched atop a pillar.
Simeon the Stylite lived on his pillar from AD 423 until his death in 459, a period of nearly forty years, exposed to all the harshness of the weather, summer and winter, and never sitting or lying down — he always remained standing. Such a marvelous, indeed miraculous, life attracted crowds of pilgrims and Simeon instructed them in sermons from his pillar.
Here, then is an example of an extreme form of self-isolation, but one which was very fruitful, since his fame spread far and wide and he did much good, including leading many to copy his way of life and become holy.
Coming back to a more recent era, we have the example of the Venerable Marthe Robin (1902-1981), a French woman who became progressively paralyzed and ending up living in a small cot-like bed in a darkened room, ultimately existing entirely on the Eucharist received once a week for the last fifty years of her life.
She experienced the pain of Christ’s Passion each week, and never slept or left her bed. And yet, even in this extreme deprivation her life was to prove extremely worthwhile in that it led to the foundation of the Foyer of Charity retreat houses of which there are now more than seventy around the world.
A Sense Of Silence
So we have examples from history of Christians who have either voluntarily or through adverse circumstances either deprived themselves, or were deprived of, their freedom, and sometimes of the sacraments, and yet were able to live extremely fruitful lives. In the same way, we are called to make the best of the present bad situation, and find ways to live productively in this period of, for many, enforced isolation.
Yes, we are being deprived of the support and consolation of Mass and the sacraments, but we should also perhaps remember our fellow Catholics in many parts of the developing world, who can maybe only go to Mass perhaps once a month, or even once every six months. Compared to them, despite everything, we are very fortunate.
So we can use this time to deepen our spiritual lives through deeper prayer, a greater sense of silence, through the reading of good spiritual books, or online resources, and also through the many livestream and recorded Masses which are now so freely available on the Internet. Every cloud has a silver lining, and it is up to us to find it in our present predicament.
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(Donal Anthony Foley is the author of a number of books on Marian Apparitions, and maintains a related web site at www.theotokos.org.uk. He has also written two time-travel/adventure books for young people, and the third in the series is due to be published next year — details can be seen at: http://glaston-chronicles.co.uk.)
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