Dr. Patterson has been a contributor to St. Anthony Messenger for some years now. In his tenure with us, he has written about welcoming home veterans, self-forgiveness, moral injury, and wounded healers. As a clinical psychologist and trauma therapist, Dr. Patterson is uniquely positioned to tackle these very human issues.

But it’s his voice that rings loudest with me. He doesn’t write with a judgmental pen. Dr. Patterson guides the reader into a shared experience. He recognizes, rightly, that we’re all broken in some measure. We just want healing.

Dr. Patterson’s efforts have not gone unacknowledged. His January 2019 cover story for us, “The Death Penalty and the Myth of Closure,” tackled a thorny subject in a way that was holistic, hopeful, and very Franciscan. For that article, he won an award from the Catholic Press Association.

Thank you, Dr. Patterson, for doing your part to heal a wounded world.

Tension surrounds the issue of gun control. Taking a look at what the Bible says and understanding Jesus’ message of nonviolence can provide guidance.

When I was in the third grade, our teacher was a kindly old nun named Sister Rosemary. One day she suggested to us that it was sinful to have a toy gun.

Even then, for better or worse, I questioned things. As a result, I rejected what sister said, wanting to hold on to my beloved Hopalong Cassidy cap gun. I didn’t have much exposure to guns in the small town where I grew up. Other than Sister Rosemary, guns were not talked about much in religion class or in church. In general, they seemed to be viewed as instruments used in war, by those employed to protect us, or for hunting. I still don’t own a gun and do not have a concealed weapon permit. But I am thinking about it, especially in light of a mass shooting last year in my hometown of El Paso.

First of all, let me be clear that there is nothing in our Catholic teaching that says it is wrong to own a gun or even a semiautomatic weapon. Rather, it’s what we do with guns that becomes the issue. Catholic teaching indicates that we have the right, even the obligation, to defend ourselves and our loved ones, even when killing someone is the result. And Catholicism continues to teach that war can be justifiable.

Having said that, it should also be noted that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has consistently favored a total ban on assault weapons (19 specific military weapons identified by the US Congress in 1994), better control of firearm sales, and limited access to high-capacity weapons and ammunition holders. Further, in a somewhat obscure footnote to a position paper issued in 2000, they noted: “However, we believe that in the long run and with few exceptions—i.e., police officers, military use—handguns should be eliminated from our society.”

Reflecting on the Bible

Some would argue that gun control is a political issue, not a moral one. And indeed politicians are visible these days, arguing either for the rights of gun owners or for the right to be safe. Much of it is rhetoric with no significant change.

Perhaps the morality exists at a larger level. Perhaps the issue isn’t so much about right and wrong as it is about trying to live a life that is as consistent as possible with Jesus’ message.

I believe that, to fully grasp the impact of Jesus’ revolutionary message, we have to read the entire Bible. What one sees working through the Old Testament is violence—lots of it! And much of that violence is not only condoned but caused by God. God is referred to, among other things, as “Lord of Heaven’s Armies.” God intervenes time and again to tilt the scales of battle on behalf of his Jewish nation. God leads the Jews to victory in battle after battle (except when they doubt or reject him). We cheer David’s killing of Goliath. We rejoice when Esther saves her Jewish people from genocide and the bad guy Haman is executed.

But in the Old Testament there are also hints of what is coming. Isaiah calls us to reflect on the days to come when swords will be hammered into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. Ecclesiastes notes that not only is there a time for war but also a time for peace. At several points in the Old Testament, there is the hint of a future new order.

It is only within the context of the violence of the Old Testament that we can fully appreciate the power of Jesus’ message of love and forgiveness. The focus is no longer on payback to our enemies. Jesus suggests something different.

A Path of Peace or Violence?

In the late 1960s, many of my fellow students in college and I were faced with the reality of the Vietnam War and the draft. Several friends of mine chose to go the path of conscientious objection. I opposed the war but was not sure I could be a conscientious objector. I studied the issue—the Church’s teachings on war, Thomas Aquinas‘ analysis of “justifiable war.” And yet I kept coming back to one sad fact about myself: I had a history of being violent.

When I was young, it would take little to provoke me to become aggressive. I won probably as many fights as I lost, but my fists were my typical reaction to confrontation. So I faced that hard truth and thought: How can I claim to be nonviolent given that history? I would be a hypocrite. Instead, I chose the path that took me into the Army for four years.

It was during my preparation for the Army that I fired every weapon available, including bazookas, flamethrowers, and grenade launchers. I also fired semiautomatic weapons, which were beginning to make their appearance. I was definitely not a marksman, and I was always aware that shooting practice was enabling me to kill someone.

It didn’t occur to me until much later that perhaps there was some contradiction between all that violence and Jesus’ message. I also came to see that my understanding of nonviolence had been mistaken.

The Inherent Questions of Nonviolence

What I came to see was that the violence within me was the very reason for me to choose nonviolence. You, I, and most people I know are quite capable of violence. The path of nonviolence means that I make every attempt to reject violence as a solution.

Yet I also know that, if someone were to try to inflict harm on my loved ones, I would respond with aggression. And, yes, I still cheer when Shane shoots and kills Jack Wilson at the end of Shane. I still cheer when Rocky Balboa decks Apollo Creed. And I definitely cheered when Black Panther returned to beat up Erik Killmonger.

Am I a pacifist? I’m afraid not. Pete Seeger’s words in his song “Bring Them Home” resonate with me: “One thing I will confess/I’m not really a pacifist/If some army invaded this land of mine/You’d find me out on the firing line.”

In making my own personal decisions regarding gun ownership, I must first decide to what extent I can embrace the fundamental nonviolence of Jesus’ message. There is no way around the fact that he calls us to love our enemy and turn the other cheek. Furthermore, his Sermon on the Mount is a clear invitation to a peaceful lifestyle based on justice and nonviolence.

What do I as a Catholic do with that message? Ignore it? Water it down? Well, surely he didn’t mean I should love the neo-Nazis or that white supremacist who shot up the El Paso Walmart. What did he mean? Was Jesus nothing more than a naive idealist?

Those who acknowledge Jesus’ message will nonetheless suggest that the message must be weighed against harsh realities. That tension is summed up nowhere better than the decisions being made about allowing church members to attend services armed.

Sadly, some of the most heinous mass shootings in our country have occurred in churches and synagogues. As such, I have had people admit to me that they now attend church services armed. Many Church officials are trying to decide how to respond. Should we forbid weapons at services and, if so, how do we monitor that? Will I need to empty my pockets and pass through a metal detector before being allowed in to attend Mass? Should I carry my weapon, prepared to protect my family and fellow church members if a mass shooter barges in and opens fire?

Weighing Your Fear

As we contemplate our personal decisions regarding gun ownership, we are faced with a parallel spiritual decision: How much power do I give to fear? How many of my decisions (such as purchasing a gun) do I make out of fear?

It is not as simple as saying, “Well, I believe the Lord will protect me.” There were people of deep faith who were killed at the El Paso Walmart that August morning. Faith in God is not some sort of bulletproof vest.

And yet Jesus talked about fear a great deal, saying again and again to his followers (and to us): “Don’t be afraid. I am with you always.” In the face of torture and execution, many of his followers faced their enemies with love.

Our recent history reflects the political power of nonviolent resistance in the works of great leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Were people like Gandhi or King afraid? Did modern saints like Maximilian Kolbe and Dietrich Bonhoeffer have fear as they faced the executioner? Undoubtedly. Yet fear did not make their final decisions.

I was faced with a choice in which fear was a major factor in 2001. I was signed up for the New York City Marathon—then 9/11 happened. It was only a week before when the decision was made to let the marathon take place. We were informed that of some 35,000 registrants, over a third dropped out. I understood why.

In the terrible days after those attacks, we did not know what to expect. Placing thousands of runners on a bridge would seem to be providing an easy target. I considered dropping out myself but concluded that it was a decision I did not want to make out of fear. My fear, after all, would empower others. I went and completed the run, but not without some moments of fear.

We Must Be Peacemakers

So it is these days. The fear in El Paso is considerably higher than I’ve ever seen in my 40-plus years living here. We are seeing horrifying public service announcements on television that portray school shootings. And protective legislation is not forthcoming.

I heard last week that El Paso churches are considering locking the doors shortly after Mass starts and limiting access thereafter. What came to me was the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept.” Do I weep with him and pray, hope, and work for a better way, or do I resign myself to harsh realities and say instead, “Lock and load”?

I was talking to a young man who believes Jesus’ message has become watered down. The essence of that message is that we are called to be peacemakers. No exceptions. No qualifiers such as “except when.” That calling needs to inform any decision I make regarding owning a gun.

Foster Nonviolence

The knotted gun Non-Violence was originally created by Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd as a memorial tribute to John Lennon after he was shot and killed in New York City in December 1980. The Non-Violence Project Foundation is a nonprofit organization promoting peace and social change through education. For more information, visit Nonviolence.com.

To make any progress toward a safer environment, we need to address several issues:

• Assault weapons have no place in a citizen’s armory; neither do high-capacity ammunition clips.
• If you decide to carry a weapon to protect yourself and your family, then do so with proper training, and secure your weapons so that children do not have access.
• Continue to demand of lawmakers effective legislation to include thorough background checks.

Actions you can take in your everyday life to reflect Jesus’ message of nonviolence:

• Embrace a nonviolent lifestyle as much as possible. This includes praying for your own enemies—the family next door with their loud Saturday night parties, the driver who not only just cut you off but also flipped you off in the process, the source of a childhood hurt, and the countless others who hurt and offend us. In other words, make your own decision about what Jesus meant when he asked you to love your enemy.
• Identify your fears and try to address them spiritually.
• Speak out against unjust violence—be it war, abuse of migrants, bullying, veteran suicides, or the many other manifestations of tolerance of violence in our society.

Something to know about linen is that it is a somewhat coarse material. Garments woven from linen are earthy, and they contain minor imperfections. In my case, my sweater has a few off-color strands of plant material at various points along the weave.

One of these off-color strands sat about mid-chest, and I saw it whenever I looked down. For a few weeks, I just took it for granted. But then one day, I was sitting in a meeting, and I reached down and gave the strand a little tug. The thread pulled free from the sweater, and voilà, the imperfection was gone. But the strangest thing happened. Just as soon as the strand was free from the sweater, I suddenly realized I missed it.

Yes, I had “improved” the sweater by removing the imperfection, but in the process I had made the sweater a little more like every other sweater in the world. More than this, I quickly realized that there was no way to put the little strand back. My attempt to “fix” the sweater was a one-way ticket that could not be undone. And I had to admit, that made me sad.

More Than Just A Strand

This unexpected turn of emotions has caused me to move a bit more carefully in the world. I used to just go about fixing things in my life because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. Now, instead, I take a moment to imagine before I act. I think about what I might feel like if that little imperfection was suddenly gone from the universe. Will I feel more complete or like something has been lost? It might sound funny, but this little moment with my beloved grey sweater has made me more careful about being a parent.

As you may know, there is a really strong internal voice that grabs hold of you as a parent and pushes you to want to “fix” things in your children. Whether it’s a particular behavior, how your child chews food at the table, or some aspect of the way he or she dresses, it becomes very easy to focus on the little strand in the weave and try to pluck it out.

More than 10 years into being a dad, with the teenage years on the horizon, I am rethinking this strand-pulling strategy. I realize that, to really love my children, I cannot simply love their put-together, well-behaved, cosmetically appealing aspects. I have to love all of them. That means loving them in their moments of failure and their imperfections.

I need to love them as they are, where they are. I know this because, as I learned with that little strand in my sweater, when I am too zealous in rooting out the little imperfections in my kids, I discover—after they have been “fixed”—that I end up feeling worse, not better. I feel as if something that made the world fuller is missing.

More Than Our Flaws

I still love my sweater, but I was too zealous to make it “perfect” and in the process it lost something that made it mine. God, to me, is a mystery, but in my better moments, I feel fairly sure that God loves us in the way I am trying to love my sweater, and the way I love my kids. That is to say, I think God looks at us and sees the beauty of who we are, and that beauty is not a result of our being perfect. It’s a result of our being a whole, unique mess—the good and the bad together. God delights in our discolored strands. I am learning to do the same.

The voice of Andrea Bocelli lifts up the new movie Fatima. But his talent is well grounded in faith.

For most Catholics, the story of Fatima is a familiar one. Beginning in May 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to three children in Fatima, Portugal. The visions culminated in the “miracle of the sun ” in October of that year. The appearances of the mother of Jesus, under the title of Our Lady of Fatima, were deemed “worthy of belief” in 1930 by the bishop of Leiria-Fatima.

Pope Francis entrusted the world to Mary on March 11 this year at the start of the COVID-19 crisis. Now a new movie, Fatima, is scheduled to open August 28. This film focuses on peace, faith, and Mary’s motherly care for us.

The music for Fatima is by renowned Italian composer Paolo Buonvino, who composed the two original songs for the film, “Gratia Plena” and “Gloria,” and then asked world-famous tenor Andrea Bocelli to sing them. It is Bocelli’s first contribution to the soundtrack of a film.

I had the opportunity to interview Bocelli. His answers reflect a man of deep faith and love for Our Lady, the rosary, and the world.

Gratitude and Good Tidings

You sing two songs for the new film Fatima. What are your thoughts about Mary’s message of prayer and peace for us today?

The three shepherd children and sacred apparitions are surrounded by a powerful message of love. As Mary was for the children, she is for us an essential and constant presence in our daily lives. Her luminous presence is central, as she intercedes for us—this is a profoundly beautiful and distinct feature of Catholicism.

What did it mean to you to sing Paolo Buonvino’s “Gratia Plena” with children who sing in 12 languages?

It was a moving experience. Maestro Buonvino is a composer of great sensitivity. I remember when he composed “Gratia Plena,” he asked me to listen to it. I am grateful for his insistence: This is a deep, inspired song of genuine beauty, a perfect match to the two musical pieces [taken from the album Sì] featured in the film.

The second song, “Gloria,” is filled with human reality, grace, and gratitude. What does this song mean to you, and how can it inspire people?

Gratitude is indeed at the heart of this musical piece. The first part is contemplative, reminding us of the miracle of existence and of what an immense gift life is. The refrain evokes, in a graceful and joyful way, a luminous mantra: The word Gloria represents a celebration, prayer, and festive announcement of good tidings. The verses encourage a reflection on the beauty and preciousness of life itself, including the pain and tears we shed; on our time on earth; and on the eternal time where Mary awaits us like a loving mother.

You were close to St. John Paul II, and you seem to have a special connection to Pope Francis. Can you talk about what Pope Francis and his pastoral agenda mean to you? What hopes for the world do you share?

I greatly admire his desire to reestablish the core, founding values of the Church. I believe Pope Francis is a blessing for all of us, a true giant, eager to dedicate himself to others without any reservations and with immense greatness. He is a man of goodwill, capable of simple and profound words. [He is] a man of God [and a] source of hope and inspiration for us all.

The Universal Language

What inspired you to create the Andrea Bocelli Foundation [ABF]? What do you hope to achieve with the work of the foundation?

The Andrea Bocelli Foundation [AndreaBocelliFoundation.org] was established in 2011 by myself and my family to give back after being inspired by the love and positivity received from fans and other partners from around the world. I am proud that the foundation has since grown into an independent nonprofit led by world-class professionals who oversee the development of projects in Italy and abroad.

The foundation’s primary mission is to empower people and communities in situations of poverty and social exclusion through projects that promote the overcoming of these barriers. Our hope is that our beneficiaries are enabled to express their full potential.

Since its inception, ABF has raised over 30 million euros [about $34 million], resulting in key initiatives such as the construction of eight schools in Italy and Haiti that offer daily access to a world-class education to over 3,000 students.

How important is it for children to sing, to be introduced to music at an early age?

When rooted in the core principles of respecting others and transmitting positive values, education through music and song is an incredibly effective answer. It can be the seed for a journey leading toward a powerful path of self-awareness, transforming both ourselves and our community. This is exactly why many of ABF’s projects are focused on using music education as a tool for empowerment.

The foundation has, in fact, developed innovative music education methodologies, which have been proven to be very effective in the development of the young [people] we work with. This programming is currently being advanced even further, thanks to the second phase of ABF’s COVID-19 fundraiser, which aims to create innovative distance-learning platforms to help youth everywhere gain access to quality education.

How would you explain what music does for the human heart and soul?

Music is like a dear friend, one that never leaves your side. It is a universal language with the strength and ability to affect our conscience, helping us to be better. Music is also a source of spiritual enrichment, which is why knowing its language can be useful for everyone, not just for those wanting to make it a profession.

When music embraces beauty, it soothes us, makes us grow, heals us by directing us toward rectitude. It can also lead us toward a fuller mystical experience.

There are three children in the film, and you have three children. What do you think the role of faith is in raising healthy, well-adjusted children who care about God and others?

Faith is what my life revolves around, a gift that I try to cherish and nurture, a daily source of support. Transmitting it to my children has always been a priority, inspiring them by example. I believe faith should be a crucial aspect in everyone’s life, and I am happy to inspire others each time the opportunity arises. I am deeply thankful to my parents—and to the community I have been a part of for many years—who taught me honesty, sacrifice, beauty, optimism. From them, I also learned the importance of respecting others and nature. Their teachings guided me throughout life like a beacon. I am now responsible for passing those same Christian values on to my children.

Signs of Faith and Hope

Do you have a special prayer that you pray every day?

I have an intense and daily relationship with prayer. I believe it represents a powerful, continuous renewal of our life. Faith is not something we can take for granted: Like any other discipline, it requires commitment, perseverance, sacrifice. To grow and nurture our faith, we need to comply with very simple practices. We need to “bend” toward praying, quite literally.

What is the role of the Madonna in your spiritual life? Does the rosary have a special meaning for you?

Reciting the holy rosary is one of the most intense moments of the day. This devotional practice opens up a path full of discoveries, both personal and extraordinary. As I mentioned, I believe prayer is a fundamental aspect of a path of faith, representing a source of constant renewal in the life of those who practice it. I am devoted to Our Lady and dedicate part of my prayers to her. I visited Lourdes as a child and recently went on pilgrimages to Medjugorje. The Virgin Mary is a constant and solar presence in my family’s life and mine.

What role does God play in your artistic life? Your daily life?

All human talents are gifts from God. I do not hold any personal merit for having a voice with a pleasant and recognizable timbre. . . . Heavenly gifts are meant to bring beauty and joy to the world. That is, unless humans decide to make an improper or incorrect use of such gifts, out of their own free will, which is the first and most precious gift of all. I have always trusted the divine will, committing myself with total confidence in his plans.

Your “Music for Hope” concert at Easter, sung live from the Duomo in Milan, included “Amazing Grace.” Why did you choose this song?

Although this song is not tied to Catholicism, I am very attached to it. I liked the idea of sharing this 18th-century Christian thanksgiving hymn (inspired by the conversion of its author). It is a classic, and its powerful melody can move us deeply.

What do you hope the audience will take away from the film [Fatima]?

I believe this is a foundational and universal story, even for those who don’t share the gift of faith. The message of love surrounding the three shepherd children, the sacred apparitions, and the Sanctuary of Fatima is accessible to ev-eryone: Love and beauty are inherent in all of what is good. I hope the film will inspire those who have faith toward embracing their relationship with God more fully and unconditionally. This will keep them away from the trap of indifference, a problem that, at least where I come from, needs attention. The holy Scriptures have strong things to say about firmly condemning those who are tepid and half-hearted in their faith.

If you have one wish, one prayer, for the world right now, what would it be?

We are all invited to contribute, making the world we inhabit a better place. Everyone can do their part, using the tools they have and the talents they received from God. I believe the vast majority of people want peace, believe in nonviolence, and should be allowed to live with dignity, reaching their full potential. Tangible actions are crucial to translate hope into actual change. I trust we can all make a difference by offering our small—yet irreplaceable—contribution, allowing beauty and goodness to triumph.

My wish and main prayer for the world is that of peace and global repudiation of war. Peace is the most simple and immediate thing humans should strive for. However, it is often undermined by the mystery hiding behind conflicts and disputes. This is a mystery because conflict is clearly an intellectual error that unfortunately people can’t seem to understand. No matter how intelligent, people are not able to overcome this obstacle. I am optimistic, though, and I hope it will happen soon.

Fatima: The Movie

The story opens in the late 1980s with an American author, Professor Nichols (Harvey Keitel), arriving at the cloistered Carmelite convent in Coimbra where Sister Lucia lives. He knows about the apparitions at Fatima and wants to talk with her about his doubts and her faith regarding them. To his questions, she finally responds with spirit, “I can only give you my testimony; I don’t have answers for everything.” Sonia Braga plays the role of the aging nun.

The story of the 1917 apparitions is then told through flashbacks. A “lady more brilliant than the sun” with a rosary in her hand appears to Lucia dos Santos (Stephanie Gil) and her younger cousins Francisco (Jorge Lamelas) and Jacinta Marto (Alejandra Howard). The children must overcome many challenges and obstacles to keep their promise to the Lady to pray the rosary and meet her every month.

There is a subtle rivalry between two mothers, the Virgin Mary (Joana Ribeiro) and Lucia’s mother, Maria Rosa dos Santos (Lucia Moniz). Lucia is caught between them. The children had promised one another that they would keep the Lady’s appearance a secret, but Jacinta lets it out and it gets back to Maria Rosa. She is a strong and proud woman but very anxious because of the war. She insists that Lucia stop this nonsense that is sure to draw the attention of neighbors and maybe the antireligious civil authorities. Over the course of the film, Lucia finds a way to obey these two compelling women in her life.

Another conflict occurs between the aggressive, atheistic authorities ruling Portugal at the time and the faith of the crowds that grew to 70,000 to witness what would become known as “the miracle of the sun.” Artur Santos (Goran Visnjic), the mayor and provincial administrator, is an atheist caught between his wife’s faith and maintaining his authority in front of his superiors. The film’s color cinematography gives it a historical look, using some sepia tinting at the beginning. It was shot mostly in Portugal, and the terrain resembles the hardscrabble rural landscape of the time.

Marco Pontecorvo directs Fatima. He also cowrote it along with Valerio D’Annunzio and Barbara Nicolosi. Nicolosi says: “I asked myself, Why did Mary come? The only answer is because this is what a mother would do.

“When I first started writing,” she continues, “I told the producers, ‘Let’s make this about motherhood.’ There is this little girl (Lucia), with a mother distracted by war, and Lucia realizes she will become a mother too. When she’s looking out over the crowd on that day of the miracle of the sun, she has become the mother of the world, called to take on a pastoral motherhood.”

For more about the film, visit FatimatheMovie.com.

Two years ago, while I was working in Washington, DC, my wife received a phone call from the Savannah, Georgia, police telling us that our son had been shot and was in critical condition in a hospital. Thankfully, my son survived, but our lives were changed. How we react to these life-changing events defines who we are. This is true not only for us as individuals but also for society as a whole.

As a result of the COVID-19 crisis, our world has been turned upside down. Everything has changed. We now use terms like “shelter in place,” and we practice social distancing. Stores ration hard-to-find items. Parents have learned how to be teachers. Children have virtual birthday parties, weddings are canceled, and we are forced to remotely mourn our loved ones who have passed. Previously, I traveled across the country on a bus going from state to state as part of Vote Common Good. Now we organize online events. Our lives have indeed turned on a dime.

What Is Normal?

As we spend more time socially distanced, we hear people say they cannot wait for things to get back to normal. But what exactly is normal? For many of us, it is working, having friends over, maybe going out for dinner or a movie. We might regularly attend church or volunteer at a food pantry. Normal means settling into a comfortable routine not really affected by the suffering of the poor and marginalized.

But for many others it is a different story. For young black men like my son, “normal” is frequently being pulled over for driving while black and fearing that they may be shot. For women, “normal ” often means making less money than men for doing the same work and being sexually harassed or assaulted. For some immigrants, it means fleeing violence and death in your country only to have your children taken away from you at the US border. For schoolchildren, “normal” is having drills in case an active shooter should come to their school.

“Normal” is giving tax cuts to the wealthy while cutting programs to feed the poor. It is the growing inequality between the rich and the poor, where the wealthy can spend a million dollars on a car and poor families are trying to make sure there’s enough food on the table and praying that no one gets sick because they cannot afford health care.

“Normal” is 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty and 10,000 children dying from hunger every day. It is ignoring the damage we are doing to God’s wondrous and beautiful creation while nearly 2,000 different species go extinct every year.

Is this really the normal we want?

Come Together

If there’s one lesson we have learned from the current pandemic, it is that we are all connected to each other. What happens to one of us affects all of us. I believe this is the message that Jesus is teaching us in Matthew 25:40: “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”

Jesus’ early followers understood this. In the first days of the Church, disciples “devoted themselves to . . . communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers. . . . All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one’s need” (Acts 2:42, 45).

Their vision was not of a Jesus who died on the cross so an avenging God might forgive a sin that was committed thousands of years ago. Rather, as Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan write in The Last Week: “His protest was against a domination system legitimated in the name of God, a domination system radically different from what the already present and coming kingdom of God, the dream of God, would be like.”

We know that this ideal community didn’t last long. We hold on to this vision, hoping that it may again be realized. Someday we might do as Jesus told us in Mark 8:34: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny [themselves], take up [their] cross, and follow me.” Instead, we have built a theology around separation and individualism, where we are here only for the sole purpose of “getting to heaven.”

Something is good only if it serves the purpose of getting us to heaven. Instead of taking up the cross as Jesus told us to, we created a theology around worshipping the cross. This theology is called substitutionary atonement—the idea that the cross was necessary and required as an atonement for original sin.

In his Easter message, Pope Francis said, “I hope that this time of danger will free us from operating on automatic pilot, shake our sleepy consciences, and allow a humanist and ecological conversion that puts an end to the idolatry of money and places human life and dignity at the center.” COVID-19 has demonstrated the power of our collective will when we agree on what is important.

Pope Francis encouraged political leaders to “work actively for the common good.” St. Francis viewed the earth and all nature as God’s creation, a place of continual incarnation. St. Bonaventure tells us that how we choose and what we choose make a difference—first in what we become by our choices and second in what the world becomes by those same choices.

Choose Wisely

At some point, this crisis will end. A vaccine will be developed; the shelter-in-place and the safe distancing measures will be lifted. Then we will have a choice: Do we want to go back to the same “normal” of inequality, discrimination, and separation? Or do we follow Pope Francis and work to do better?

We can come through this with a better appreciation of all of God’s creation. We can choose to live simply and full of gratitude as St. Francis taught us. Knowing how fragile life is, we can live more intentionally. We have the opportunity to come together with God to create a new normal, one based on the interconnectedness of all creation. But first we must rethink who we are. We need to change our paradigm; as Mark says simply, “No one pours new wine into old wineskins” (2:22).

But if we are to create a new normal, we must first throw away our theology of substitutionary atonement, a theology that Jesus was born because God demanded a sacrifice, a theology of separation. We need to reclaim the theology and message of Jesus, a message of peace, hope, and love—a message that, together with God and all creation, we can build a new creation, a heaven on earth.

Several years ago, Dominican Sister Sylvia Rosell, from the Stillpoint House of Prayer in Albany, New York, explained it to me this way: “If you still your mind, you can hear your own heart. And at the core of your heart is the indwelling of God. It’s just like when you love someone, you just sit there and you look at each other. You just silently stare, and there is a terrible presence between you. It’s an awesome thing. God is present and you are present—to each other. It’s a matter of just being there.”

For example, we might start out with the reading of a short passage from Scripture, but gradually our words and thoughts simplify. The natural drift of prayer is often from words to silence, according to Father William Johnson, SJ, who has written several books on prayer. At times, he says, we may feel led, as if by a hidden compass, into this kind of silent union with God.

In many cases, prayers that rely on words may be the best form of prayer for us. In fact, Father Johnson cautions against striving too hard to get rid of words and thoughts. Yet he believes we should be conscious of those times when the Spirit is moving us to silence. “It’s like there are two layers of the psyche,” he explains. “In one layer there are lots of words and thoughts going on, but on a deeper level, you are united closely to God.” When we feel drawn to silent union, it is good to go there and rest in God as long as the Spirit invites.

Similar to the “Prayer of Inner Quiet” is what we might call the “Prayer of Listening.” In this prayer, the focus is on listening to God, who reveals himself in our inmost being. You listen at the core of your being to the deepest voice of all, the voice of God and of the Spirit. Thomas Merton describes this kind of prayer as “finding one’s deepest center, awakening the profound depths of our being in the presence of God, who is the source of our being and life.”

You may find it rewarding to try this simple prayer exercise.

Sit down and, keeping your back straight but free, begin quieting your mind and your body by taking a few relaxing, deep breaths. Close your eyes if you wish. Center your awareness on the silent and infinite presence of God within your heart.

Let the Spirit lead you beyond the noisy world of space and time and into the silent realm where God dwells as the source and ground of your being. Center your attention on that hushed point within you where the human touches the divine, where the branch (you) intersects with Jesus, the vine—where you and God are one and dwell in each other.

Let yourself sink into the silent immensity of God. Simply let your prayer be a silent being there with God. Without any need for thoughts and words, exchange quiet love with God for as long as you feel inspired to do so.