Due to the current medical emergency, the state government here in California has issued a "Shelter at Home" order which keeps citizens from leaving their homes for any reasons other than those it identifies as essential, e.g., buying food and household goods, visiting the doctor, fueling up the car. All of these have to do with sustaining physical life.
That's fine, but Catholics have a right to ask: what about sustaining our spiritual health?
Most of the bishops of California reacted to earlier, more limited restrictions by immediately canceling all public Masses, the hearing of confessions, and most of the other sacraments. There wasn't an audible peep of protest that the spiritual care of their flocks deserved a reasonable exception, such as has been carved out for ... wait for it ... gardening services. A few commendable prelates like Archbishop Cordileone of San Francisco held out as long as they could, keeping the churches open and the sacraments continuing, until the Governor's most recent edict of March 19 made the point moot by forbidding California's Catholics from traveling to Mass at all. At that point, the state declared to the bishops, effectively, "Thanks, but the Catholic faith is irrelevant to people's wellbeing" to which most bishops replied, "Yeah, I guess it is. OK, we're shutting down."
The consecrated leaders of the One True Faith — the Faith that has preached from the beginning that our eyes should be fixed not on the life of this world which passes away, but upon the vision of eternal life in Heaven — suddenly withdrew the Mass and the Sacraments from their flocks. The Real Presence can't be met in person now, but only through streaming video, it seems.
The Faithful will now face this terrible Lent without the uniquely Catholic spiritual lifelines for which earlier generations braved "dungeon, fire, and sword." And it appears that if the state extends the Shelter in Place order through the end of April, this Lent will not even have its rightful conclusion in the mysteries of Holy Week and the triumph of Easter.
The Faith isn't irrelevant, dear Bishops; but most of you are.
In 1867, Matthew Arnold wrote "Dover Beach", a haunting poem evoking the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" of the Sea of Faith. As a boomer who finished Catholic elementary school in 1964 and then watched my Church falter, I've found the roar all too audible. So here I wait, listening for the whispers of that Sea's invincible return.
