When you’re testing things that are unknown, you cannot guarantee it, but we’re hoping that, with a number of interventions, be they compounds or antibodies … we’re hopeful, cautiously optimistic that we may have one or more of them that would provide some degree of health and therapeutic intervention. — Anthony Fauci

The New Normal

Above is a recent remark by the high priest of science for our time, Anthony Fauci. He’s the author of our “new normal.” That would include an end to hugs and handshakes, along with mandatory coffee filters to cover over our smiles.

Two thousand years ago a different man defined a new normal. His name was Jesus Christ. The second person of the Trinity declared, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body … Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? … seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

The biggest beneficiary of this coronacrisis is fear. I’ve never seen it so close to the surface in the world around me. Fear. It’s everywhere now. And the only institutions vested with the power (by the people) to address this fear are the governments of the world. And millions of us don’t trust anything the government says or does. Our crisis is not physical. It isn’t a microscopic splice of enzymes. No, the enemy we face is fear. And I’m afraid governments may no longer have the level of trust required to tamp down our fears.

What does this mean? If governments are impotent then what do we do? Who do we trust? The Church?

Christianity in the West is merely a corrupt extension of the government. Everyone knows that now. Christianity doesn’t exist in the West as a religion any longer. No, Christianity is a women’s social club. And only women attend anymore. Some of them wear pants, but all are down with transgendering in their pagan universalist gayness.

My friends are dividing into two camps. Since I only recently entered the Roman Catholic Church I don’t have many friends or associates there yet. Within Protestantism I’ve noticed that the fighters are holding to a theology of radical individualism. Me and Jesus. That’s all that’s right or possible. The other camp is trying to stay loyal to their theological hierarchies — their denominational leadership, pastor … whatever is the source of authority in their particular social group.

The radical individualists seem to see a zombie apocalypse right around the corner. The other group is more trusting of the social structures and institutions in which they are embedded.

I am Catholic now because I’m a Christian. The collapse of Protestantism forced me to make a choice. I decided to go with the institution that preserved the scriptura sola for a little over a thousand years. And that was after they held the meetings a few hundred years after Christ was resurrected to decide which letters and writings would be included in the Bible, and which ones wouldn’t be included. The Church of the Popes created the Bible. A Priest in Germany named Martin Luther decided after a thousand years of theological work by men like Augustine and Aquinas that the letter written by James needed to be jettisoned. It’s in my version of the Protestant Bible. I’m not sure why.

Catholics hold that Protestants are Christians because they are baptized in an orthodox manner. Protestants hold that some Catholics are Christians, but most aren’t. Pinning that definition down is impossible now that there are tens of thousands of denominations.

The Catholic Church, on the other hand, writes everything down. At least everything that is really, really important. We call it the “Deposit of the Faith.” I am still learning what that means exactly. Right now I think of it as the doctrine and dogma of the Church. Many Catholics are not applying those doctrines or dogmas to their everyday life. That’s why the Church is so weak, and politicized, right now. Both the laity and the hierarchy are responsible for this weakness in the Church. Thank God we’ve got the Deposit of the Faith, which includes the Bible. It also includes practical theological and moral work done over the last two millennia. I’m finding much personal reward in studying the theological work of Thomas Aquinas. I’ve also gained much from looking at Augustine. I need to read his work on politics, “The City of God.” I’ve read most of his “Confessions.”

I’ve got Lymes disease, named after a small town in Connecticut. It causes pain in my elbows. Fortunately it is not debilitating for me. Some argue that Lymes disease is a bioweapon that escaped from a government lab near Lyme, Connecticut. Many thousands of people are affected by this disease. Thank God Anthony Fauci wasn’t around when it started to spread. He would have shuttered the world.

My New Normal is the same as my Old Normal. I’m dying, just like you. My body is corrupted by the Fall of Mankind. Whether it is compromised by a bioweapon, or a naturally occurring virus/disease, I know that God has allowed it for a reason, a good one. He wants me to embrace my suffering, just like He did. He wants me to see in it the opportunity to identify with Him, and His suffering, and the suffering of so many millions all over the world.

This global plannedemic is spiritual. It is an opportunity. God is inviting us to face our fears, and overcome them. Governments can only do so much. They exist because they must. God made it that way. They have a job to do, as does the Church in the West. Both institutions need to get busy cleaning up their acts, and doing their jobs better. They could start by warming the globe with goodness, truth and beauty instead of fear, power and lust.

Amen.