palmsunday

THE BANALITY OF EVIL AND THE EXTRAORDINARINESS OF LOVE

Fr Paolo Consonni, MCCJ After more than a month into the war in Ukraine, we have already gotten used to images of houses destroyed, long lines of refugees, columns of smoke after bombardments, burned-out tanks and, sadly, hundreds of wounded people and dead bodies. We are so overexposed to this kind of news that we risk becoming immune to horror. For young people it is even worse – war is a virtual reality that can be treated like a videogame. The banality of evil causes us to become inured to it. Famous author Hannah Arendt, in a controversial book about the motivations of prominent Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann, responsible for the killing of millions of Jews during the Second World War, used the term “the banality of evil”. She realized that many of those who committed those crimes were neither perverted nor sadistic monsters, but “terrifyingly normal” people, acting out of a sense of duty, to advance their career, make money or even simply to blindly carry out orders as diligent bureaucrats. History shows that an accumulation of small choices made for banal motivations, without thoroughly thinking of their consequences, can provoke tragedies of unimaginable proportions. This Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week, we will listen once again to the narration of the Lord’s Passion (Lk 22:14—23:56). Will we pay attention, or we will hear it as the same sad story of violence and death, similar to many others in the news? Will we view the evil in the events leading to Jesus’ death dispassionately because of their banality? There is nothing demonstrably alarming about Jesus’ Passion. It is a story of jealousy, greed, fear of someone upsetting the status quo, powerful people getting rid of a troublemaker through a corrupted justice system, zealous people trying to defend the purity of their traditions… we see these things happening every day all over the world. Besides, the narration of the Passion in each of the four Gospels is very sober. While Jesus’ sufferings are well described, there is no emphasis on the tortures, blood and all the gore that makes a horror movie or a videogame morbidly exciting. The point of the description of the Passion in the Gospels is not to make the death of Jesus, the Son of God, appear more painful than others (pain cannot be compared!), but to show its significance as the conclusion of Jesus’ extraordinary life. The life of Jesus was one of total self-giving, a gift given to the world by the Father who sent Him. A life in which He “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him” (Acts 10:38). A life in which He carried upon His body all the darkness and tragedy of human experience, especially the ones coming from evil and death, only to return compassion, mercy and forgiveness. A life of unconditional love. We might become indifferent toward evil owing to its banality, but our hearts long to find something, or better still, someone, to save us from the cynical routine in which our lives become stuck. Something – or someone – that can embrace our struggles, our failures and our limitations. Something or someone to whom we can entrust our last breath, saying: “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” In other words, we long for the unconditional love Jesus’ revealed throughout His whole life and death. The early Christians understood that the narration of Christ’s Passion and death was important not only because it was expiation for our sins, but also because they understood that it was worth living and dying like Him. They also realized that only by inserting their own lives and deaths into His life and death, their existence might also become meaningful, worth living, worth the pain. Christ’s death saves us not only from the eschatological Hell, but also from a hellish, dull existence and relational life. Jesus’ disciples of every time and place, no matter whether married or not, all the young people who left everything to follow in the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius of Loyola or Mother Teresa of Calcutta (among many), all made this choice in their ordinary lives with an extraordinary sense of gratitude for having found what matched their hearts’ desire to live a meaningful life. They answered the unconditional love they received from Christ with the gift of their lives. Only this love can overcome the inexorable passing of time, the cruelty of the world, the banality of evil, the weariness caused by sickness and the inevitability of the tomb. Jesus’ Passion and Death is not simply another story of pain and death. It is the only one which can bring light and meaning to all the others, including yours. Listen to it, once again, like the first Christians did, with an overwhelmed and grateful heart. (Original article appeared on https://www.oclarim.com.mo/en/2022/04/08/the-banality-of-evil-and-the-extraordinariness-of-love/)

Features, General, Soul Food

A Lesson in Patient Suffering: Palm Sunday and Covid-19

April 3, 2020

A reflection on the readings of Palm Sunday 2020 by Sr. Cecille Tuble, rc. Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion came early for all of us. Too early, and now too long. We live it now in the midst of this pandemic. The whole world is brought on its knees: this plague has struck and affected everyone and cut across all boundaries of culture, race, religion, age, gender, socio-economic and political status. According to the latest statistics, Covid-19 has affected 204 out of 235 countries and territories. Truly, it is a global horror that is made more frightening in the fact that it is still happening, right now. How do we make sense of this ongoing tragedy? How do we keep faith in these appalling times? The readings of Palm Sunday offer us rich insights and deep consolation, as they unfold before us the story of our Lord’s passion. They call us, as the Opening Prayer or Collect tells us, to follow Christ’s example of humility, and to “heed his lesson of patient suffering,” for therein shall we share in his Resurrection too. The first and second readings give us an overview of who Jesus is, the One who did not shield his face from buffets and spitting, but looked upon God as his help. “He emptied himself…. becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” This is not the end of his story, of course: God “greatly exalted him,” so that every tongue will henceforth proclaim him Lord. The Gospel from Matthew recounts several stories in the Passion narrative: the betrayal of Judas, the Last Supper, Gethsemane, the trials before the Sanhedrin and Pilate, the betrayal of Peter, his torture, crucifixion, death and burial. It is a familiar story that, year in and year out, still makes our hearts tremble, for it is the story of our redemption by a God who became one of us, and gave his life in order to save us. He died so that we may live. And yet this year it takes on an even more luminous significance. Death is around us. We see its long shadow in the familiar contours of our homes which have become our confinement. We feel its cold fingers grasp our hearts as every day we hear the statistics rising, as we read of more deaths and infected, of lack of resources to cope with this horrendous suffering, of our doctors and nurses and medical workers falling ill themselves and dying, of the homeless and the poor whose dire circumstances are further exacerbated by this crisis. Yes, death is in our midst, but so is the Lord. Perhaps the deepest invitation for us is to suffer all of this with the Lord, and in the Lord. By doing so, we live out this lesson in patient suffering. However, patient suffering is not despairing passivity, or abject resignation. We are called to be brave, generous, responsible and compassionate. We are called to be resilient in our loving. We are called not to run away from this harsh reality, but to live it in faith. Our confined spaces at home is our Gethsemane, where we are invited to enter into the profound anguish but trusting surrender of Jesus, and to pray: “My Father, if it is possible that this cup of suffering pass SOON, but your will be done.” When we unite ourselves with the courageous labors of our medical workers and front-liners, when we do all that we can to support and help them and the most vulnerable of our people, we walk with Jesus on his lonely, arduous road to Calvary. When we pray for all those who have died, when we face our own specter of death with faith and humility in the fidelity of a loving Father, we follow Jesus in his obedience, all the way to his self-emptying on the cross. When we resist all temptations to despair, when we practice prudence and discernment in spreading news and videos, when we give love, hope and encouragement instead of fear and panic, when we do our own small share in containing this virus, we touch the fabric of his garments, until they are stripped on the hill. But perhaps the greatest act of patient suffering for us is to see all this in faith, and therefore in gratitude. To see God actively working, tirelessly laboring with us and for us to bring an end to this pandemic is a daily act of gratitude. For it is easy to get drowned by the bad news. We must beg for the grace to truly see, to be healed of our jaded, faithless blindness, that there is much to be grateful for. It is in gratitude that we begin to see glimpses of Easter hope: doctors, nurses and medical staff who transcend their own fears and personal interests to give their lives to their patients. Government officials who are dedicated, hardworking and creative, truly beacons of leadership in this darkness. Business corporations and owners, private organizations who do their share to help. Ordinary citizens who volunteer, risking health and lives, to ease the suffering of others. The unpretentious but heroic efforts of ordinary people to contribute and do their share in fighting this pandemic. All this is God’s grace, working in mysterious, hidden but all-powerful ways. Some acts may well be spectacular, attention-getting. But most will be invisible, except to those who look for them, who desire to be grateful, who desire to thank God for his untiring loving, especially in this darkness. God has never left us to suffer alone. In God’s vast providential love, there is no small grace. True, death is around us, but death will not have the last word. And just as in Jesus, we know that our story, this story of Covid-19, will end with Easter, and we will be resurrected in God’s love.