Where is our faith?

So the arguing with the bishops continues, as a minority of Catholics insist that it is holier to go to Mass and die of contagion than to stay away (out of obedience!) and contribute in some small part to one's own health as well as that of one's more vulnerable neighbor. This, I am hearing, is what the saints did and would do.

This how we are to imitate the saints? By looking at actions reported in hagiographies and then transporting those actions intact into our own day?

Is this faith?

What I think may be happening is that people remember certain saints who took heroic risks to their own health in serving the sick, especially during times of plague in eras when there was no health care in society at all. But these charitable actions of the saints are being transposed from the care for the sick to a new situation of personal devotion (attending Mass against the explicit provisions of the local bishop) under conditions which actually put the elderly and medically vulnerable at high risk. This is the opposite of what the saints did!


I think it seriously mistaken as well as damaging to the cause of the Gospel to imitate the external actions of the saints (especially saints from different cultures and eras) when that action of ours does not spring from the same source as the saints': an incredible faith, the kind that often also worked miracles. Merely exterior imitation seems to me a form of presumption, and in the present crisis it can also be tempting God. Remember the suggestion the enemy of mankind made to Christ himself: "Throw yourself down" from the parapet of the Temple, "for Scripture says, 'he has given his angels charge over you'..."

Yes, we are called to heroic faith, even to giving our life for our neighbor. But we are called to the heroic faith our own times need. Not to imitate the actions of the saints, which were expressions of their heroic faith (and hope and charity, all in one), but inspired by those saints and their faith, to let our own faith in God express itself in new ways that are perfectly fit for our times?

In other words, I think we are being challenged at this moment to faith and patience. To keep renewing our faith that God is in charge, no matter how crazy things get; to hold fast to our firm hope in Divine Providence that makes all things work together for the ultimate and lasting good of those who love him; to believe in the love of God that will let nothing separate us from Christ, neither death, nor life, nor angels... and to let that faith-hope-love carry us through. Not to keep looking back over our shoulder for step by step guidance from the saints about what actions to perform, but to look to them for encouragement and intercession, and to set out in faith in the new situation the Holy Spirit has willed for us to face with his grace.