Three days more.

And here we are, at the Triduum already.

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I wrote a post earlier about how it seemed almost appropriate that we should be pressed into quarantine smack in the middle of Lent. 

I was thinking about it as a sort of warning against "reading too much into things," that those of us who are inclined to try to find meaning in the small coincidences of life would probably try to find that meaning anywhere.  That there's nothing particularly special about quarantine during These Forty Days, linguistic parallels notwithstanding.   We'd find meaning if it were Advent too.  If it were Christmas.

And if it were Easter?  I suppose we're about to be tested.

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Consolations.  

Turning to the old, old ideas about consolations is my way to understand the temptations we Americans have to listen to the prosperity gospel. 

Although I suppose anyone can fall into it, I do think it is a peculiarly American idol, this notion that bad things don't happen to good people, that faith is reliably rewarded with material comfort, or that karma will get the bad actors in the end.  It manifests differently on the left and right sides of the political spectrum, it manifests differently among different subgroups; but it isn't evenly spread around either; some folks have it worse than others for sure.  

Aaaaahh, I don't need to write it all over again.  Here's the post I wrote about it last year, inspired by a post Amy Welborn wrote that identified the truth that gets twisted into the "health-and-wealth" gospel.

Humans are perfectly capable of taking true graces that truly come from God and... screwing up our responses to them....

Consolations are, in the writings of the saints and in the writings of the magisterium, the opposite of affliction.   These are free gifts of happiness, contentment, felt blessings, confidence in the presence of God, strong feelings of conviction. All bestowed by God on some of the faithful, and occasionally understood to be withdrawn from them by God, as a means of increasing their (or someone's) growth in faith.

Numerous saints have warned Christians against mistaking the consolation for something it is not. It is not (necessarily) a reward or a punishment; it is certainly not a reliable indication of the holiness of the individual, such that holier people receive more or fewer consolations; and while we may hope for consolations, we are expressly warned against making the consolation the end that we seek.

I feel like with prosperity gospel, the end-of-the-end is a feeling of confidence that one is on the right track.   To practice one's faith and put one's values into actions---and the faith and values don't have to be Christian or even theist ones either, they could be any sort of humanism, for example---think of activists who grow rich on speaking fees, or enjoy accolades from the upticking follower count---

---then to get the payoff, the success, the praise, or even to see what they've worked for come to measurable fruition---

---and to see that payoff as some kind of personal validation, not just that their efforts were well-designed or well-timed, but to see in it a rightness of the cause and a confirmation that they, they themselves, they are good and not bad.

Success = Rightness and Goodness.

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Where am I going with this?  "Consolations" in spiritual writings often refers to feelings of affection and energy and fervor and devotion, which can make it seem that consolations are always abstract things.  I don't think that feelings are abstract things.  I think they come from our bodies and are therefore material things.  And if "consolations" can be one kind of material thing, then they can be other kinds of material things, like our circumstances; our richness or our poverty, our liberation or our captivity (physical, not metaphorical).

And where are we now?

Entering the Triduum, bereft of many of our usual consolations at Eastertime.

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I mean, we may have some other consolations to take their place. 

Some of us have beloved relatives gathered around us who might otherwise be off at school or living in another city.  Some of us have a renewed appreciation for health and safety, and renewed concern for others, and renewed gratitude for the many people whose labor makes life easier for others.  Some of us have had time to reflect thrust upon us, and have found the reflections fruitful.  

But surely not everybody has those consolations.  Some people are in grave danger.  Some people appear to be deliberately spreading malice and lies, perhaps only the tip of the iceberg of mass spiritual danger.  Some people are working harder for less; some people have lost all income and despair of the future.

And---I repeat---we've almost all of us who celebrate Easter lost the ordinary means by which we stir up our hearts to feel the Resurrection.

We have no reason to expect to receive any consolation this year.   I don't mean to exclude the possibility that we'll be graced with it.  I just mean---I look forward to the Triduum liturgies because, in part, they usually give me at least, some little glints of joy, here and there; at best a thoroughly exhilarating feast of the senses.  I guess I feel I'm sort of entitled to that feeling, and variations from year to year are part of the expectation and the pleasure.  What will I find in my basket on Easter morning?

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I expect a kind of poverty this year.  I expect to find out more of what it means to be "poor in spirit," a phrase I turn over often and, despite reading many glosses, have never settled comfortably into understanding.  

I took the position (different from some of the saints) that all consolations are sent by God and it's our response to them that matters; not that some are sent by God and some from the devil or the world-in-opposition-to-God or whatever.  So if consolations are sent by God then the withdrawal of consolations is His as well, and once again, our response is what matters.

We have no wine.

We have no wine.

What happens next?

 

 

 

Comments

[Melanie]

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Cardinal Sean talked about consolations in one of his Lenten retreats. About mistaking the Experience for the Person of God. The Experience is not God. I like that because it gets at the same thing you're saying, I think. That consolations are-- or can be-- more than just feelings. But I think "experience" encompasses feelings and goes beyond them.

I sometimes feel guilty about the consolations I've received in a time of desolation. So I'm trying to focus my energy and attention-- very badly, but I'm trying-- on praying for those who are without consolations and asking God to give them some of the consolation that I have received. I don't know why I feel that the sign my prayer is answered should be the removal of the consolations. But I guess that would be too simple. There is no sign. Just the work of prayer and the hope that it does someone, somewhere some good.

I'm trying to focus locally. I drove past our local hospital yesterday-- where Anthony and Lucy were born and where we've spent long hours in the ER as well-- and prayed for the doctors and nurses and patients there. I read an article that said they have 100 patients with the virus and 24 in the ICU. Who knows how many more it will be in the coming weeks. My goal is concrete: to keep us out of there. But then to pray for those who are there.