This day brings a threefold reminder of death for me. On April 10, 1963, my father lost his life with the loss of the nuclear submarine USS Thresher. This year, in the year of our Lord 2020, the date coincides with Good Friday. And thirdly, with no reminder needed, there is the news. We know that Saint Benedict directs us to “Keep death daily before your eyes.” This day, of all days, death falls front and center. We continue to climb the statistical ascent of data charts showing COVID-related deaths, while our spiritual world this day is saturated with the death of our Lord. It is a day difficult to regroup and to put it all in perspective. It is a day where many things become more difficult. But – do I see the faint outline of grace here: it is a day, it seems to me, where inauthentic prayer is also difficult. There is indeed much grace in that. There is the grace, as Saint Benedict repeatedly emphasizes, of tears. There is the grace of repentance, the grace of being rebuked by a righteous man, the grace of having a clearer picture of who and what I really am. And we believe in the supreme grace that He shares our sufferings, “carries our burdens.” Pascal famously wrote: “Jesus will be in agony even to the end of the world. We must not sleep during that time.” And yet, the greatest grace, if we read just a little further in his Pensées: “Jesus, while His disciples slept, wrought their salvation.”
 
Pax
Blake Billings
April 10, 2020

Cross of San Marcello, which has been brought to St. Peter's during the pandemic. (image: Aletaia))

“Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away, and that the Lord may grant you times of refreshment.” (Acts 3:19-20)
 
This verse from Thursday’s scripture touched me, in its reference to “times of refreshment” – so sorely needed in our day. Such refreshment was in fact one of the motives inspiring the piece appearing in this month’s Wisdom section, “The Wisdom of Chant.” In our School’s “distance learning” mode, the student Schola has been given primarily listening assignments, in hopes that absorbing some religious music they might yet discover the spiritually sustaining power of the songs they cannot presently sing together. The links to chant provided in “The Wisdom of Chant” have a similar intention.
 
But a closer study of the verse deepened its impact on me. The Greek for “refreshment” (anapsuxis) actually means “to recover breath.” This moved me doubly. First, I considered my own struggles with “spiritual communion,” and the desire to fully return to the practice and vitality of my faith, which now feels so stifled. My prayer life – dominated by video screens and distance – feels a need to be able to open its lungs more fully, and be refreshed by Christ Himself. But secondly, and more painfully, it led me to consider those thousands struggling so mightily with the disease of our pandemic, on ventilators or otherwise finding the very act of breathing so difficult. How we pray that God might grant them “anapsuxis,” that they might regain their own vitality.
 
Turning to God, transforming our minds, choosing the good: this is the path Peter directs us to in this scripture verse. This opens up our means of profound and eternal refreshment. “Even now, turn to Him…” (Joel 2:12). May God, in the Divine Mercy we remember this Sunday, help us to do so.
 
 
Pax
Blake Billings
April 18, 2020