By Fr. Jonathan Filkins

Here we go again; or so it seems. With the unvaccinated, as well as a lesser portion of the vaccinated falling under the auspices of our greatly-burdened medical care, we face the potential for a further disruption to what we used to call “normal living.” The Delta variant has brought to us yet another, seemingly diabolical, permutation to an already complicated social and scientific landscape.

We have listened to the voluminous quantities of rhetoric and ink expended over these many months. Perhaps we have expended some ourselves. The individual frustrations are quite palpable, as the messages from the various domestic and international entities seemingly conflict; not only with one another, but within themselves. By most counts, this is round number four; with no surety of a cessation. This has, as we are prone to construe, the futility of our situation and place in it.

Yes, we have endured a plethora of restrictions and limitations. Some have contracted COVID-19, some have been hospitalized and some have died. Families have said their goodbyes over the telephone and attended attendance-limited funerals with closed coffins. Of particular note are our seniors who did not have the comfort of visitors for over a year. Who can point a finger at any one of us for lamenting what we have just gone through and the portent of a continuation?

Watch any news program, and the lead stories will be about this pandemic and the now escalating numbers. It gives us a great deal of uneasiness; this disquietude. Our emotions are elevated and our rationales skewed. Some will loudly argue that the vaccines are unproven, and others will loudly argue that the vaccines are a most necessary priority. Quite naturally, the arguments spill over to masking, social distancing and politics.

All of this is requiring a great degree of pressurized air. It’s a bit like our attempting to speak English to a Spaniard. If we just yell loud enough the message will get through. Absurd? Of course, but we do it anyway. Rather than learn the other person’s language and glean a better knowledge of the issues extant, we increase our efforts and get red-faced. Given our natures, we recede to the opposite corners of the arena and continue our efforts.

Yet, in all of the din, we obfuscate the message of our Creator. God, through Jesus Christ, told us that we are not to be of this world, but to be with Him. It is with Him we find our refuge and it is from our Lord we are to seek deliverance from this earthly disquietude. Too often we allow the cacophony of our daily lives to overshadow our relationship with God and what really matters. It is only in peace, with Him, will we find the true answers.

Many generations have awaited the coming of Jesus Christ. We do not know when that time shall be, for it is not ours to know. What we do know is what we are to do as we await. We are to love one another and, in part, we are to forgive.

This may run counter to our native desires. For, after all, no one can tell us what to do. Yet, in any analysis, sacrificing for the greater good has been a hallmark of what constitutes being American and being a part of the human race. The millions who sacrificed so much during World War II are quite recent stellar examples of the point.

Jesus Christ calls upon each of us to spend time with Him. We are to be in the quietude of His divine presence and stand away from our own secular noise, and stand away from the secular noise of others, while discerning what is the true path with Him.

Let us seek the peace we are so earnestly offered.