New Normal: Business as Usual? (Easter Sunday)

             

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the whole world to undergo community lockdowns and quarantine measures that halted everything we all used to do--Yes, even going to the church! Cathedrals and churches were closed even during the holiest of the liturgical seasons—the holy week and the Easter Triduum. I can still remember celebrating the Easter Vigil mass, the mother of all vigils, in an empty cathedral! Understandably, the prayer request of most of the faithful then was for the speedy containment of the transmission of the coronavirus so that all can go back to doing what we used to do.

All were praying for deliverance from the devastating plague of the Covid-19 pandemic. All the Powerful governments, together with the giant multinational corporations, the world economic experts, religious leaders all around the world and practically just everyone were wishing that our social life may return to normal as quick as possible. We were all wishing for the resumption of our human activities--in other words, to be back to business as usual.

But a few months back before the pandemic, a tiny but angered voice was heard by the whole world: “BUSINESS AS USUAL? HOW DARE YOU!” This was the straightforward statement of Gretta Thunberg, a teen-age Swedish environmental activist who fearlessly confronted the world leaders gathered at the United Nations Climate Summit. She was challenging them as world leaders to take up radical measures to address the climate emergency.  Admittedly, it has been a struggle for researchers and activists to get the world leaders to take the climate threat seriously. It has been quite easy to lose faith in what these leaders can do or will commit to do in saving our common home as they are intent on keeping everything as they are—business as usual. And alas! It’s not only them. Most of us too uncritically wish to resume and maintain the convenience and comfort of our consumerist lifestyle. So we all turn a blind eye to the climate crisis and look forward to the “new normal” which is, in other words, business as usual.

The Coronavirus put a stop to the world’s daily business-as-usual grind. Everything halted. Incredible! We all learned to settle, even for a while, with what is essential. If God allowed the pandemic to happen, it could only be with a good purpose. And maybe, it is to bring a new beginning. God writes straight with crooked lines. The pandemic is our own undoing. We brought this on ourselves. But God can turn this great misfortune into an equally great blessing. Hence, our prayer for deliverance from the plague must be from a humble disposition of willingness to learn our lesson and to accept God’s message for the salvation.

Our celebration of Easter brings up this hope for a new beginning. After all, Easter is all about new life. I repeat: New life! Not the business-as-usual sinful old life. The Lord died on the cross so that He might vanquish the power of sin and death as He rose again ushering in the new and glorious life for all. Today, we rejoice. We sing Alleluia! Jesus, Our Lord is risen! He brings new life to all.  This is our Easter hope.

If humanity should survive, yes survive we must, the over-all devastation wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic, we pray that we may be ushered into the newness of life. But just as Jesus Christ won for us this new life by dying on the cross, we ought to die too to our old ways in order to rise to this newness.

We all look forward to the “new normal”-- the new way of being and doing.  What aspect of our old way of being that has to die in order to give rise to a new way of being? What lessons have we learned from the pandemic experience? Let me suggest some:

We have to die to our delusion of omnipotence that we may rise as a people with total trust in God’s wisdom and Lordship!

We have to die to our egoism and self-centeredness that we may rise as a people who humbly and deeply care for one another especially the socially disadvantaged.

We have to die to our anthropocentric worldview and materialistic lifestyle that we may rise as people committed to the integrity of creation and genuinely respectful of the interconnection and interdependence of all created beings.

We have to die to our ever growing fixation to a culture of death that we may rise as a people with deep love for the value and sanctity of life even those of the wayward among us.

We have to die to our greediness in hoarding wealth in the hands of the few that we may rise as a people conscious about providing each with his/her share.

We have to die to our ever increasing global interdependence that we may rise as a people who have empowered our small and local but self-sufficient communities.

We have to die to our recklessness in allowing disintegration of our families that we may rise as a people who always have vibrant and loving homes to stay at in good times and in bad.

Let us always remember what the angel said to the women who went to visit the tomb of Jesus very early of the first day of the week:   “Do not be afraid! You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He has been raised; he is not here” (Mk. 16: 6-7).  Christ lives! He wants us to live new lives! Not the business-as-usual old life we have gotten used to… but the one that has been through death and has risen.