Have our post-enlightenment minds slipped so deeply and so inconspicuously into some cultural amnesia that we are no longer accepting of, or even mindful of, what our predecessors believed? Do we flatter ourselves with the hubristic presumption that because we create truth we understand and control the world? Do we decide what is real and what is fiction – a mindset which, so saturated in prosperity and void of grace, relegates our awareness of God to the tenuous bonds of our memory. Have we abandoned and forgotten the sacred?
A pernicious consequence of this widespread neglect is desecration. Desecration is a word we hear seldom today. When we do, it is typically in reference to mistreatment of our national flag, appropriately enough. However, it has a more insidious application.
Should it surprise us that the decline in belief in the Real Presence in the Eucharist is contemporaneous with our diminished regard for the sanctity of our lives? Both demonstrate a rejection of the sacred and are themselves examples of desecration.
How many of us who call ourselves Catholic are ignorant of, or indifferent to, the reality of the Eucharist? Rather than the ongoing sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary – a sacrifice which redeems the world – is it for us merely an easily neglected, emotion-tugging symbol which somehow warms and unites our spirits? This secularized attitude borders on desecration.
Given our acceptance of the rising rates of euthanasia, suicide and our society’s cavalier stance on abortion, have we unconsciously, or – worse- consciously, jettisoned what we once believed about the sacredness of life? Or, has some form of social amnesia in this regard anesthetized our conscience? Doesn’t this also suggest desecration?
It is through the power of the Holy Spirit that bread and wine become the body and blood of our crucified Lord. It is the Holy Spirit who enters the conceived child endowing him or her with the likeness of God, a likeness which vivifies and sanctifies its possessor from the moment of conception through eternity. Acknowleged or not, holiness is present.
And yet, we tolerate desecration.
Philanthropy plays a critical and indispensable role in meeting the eleemosynary needs of the world, needs that are encapsulated in the corporal works of mercy, i.e. feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, sheltering the homeless, etc. However, in our amnesic society Catholic philanthropy – indeed any philanthropy motivated by the Judeo-Chirstian ethos – has an obligation to redouble its efforts to promote the spiritual works of mercy, in particular the imperative to instruct the ignorant. Doing so is to recall from the depths of our recollection that sense of the sacred which, having once guided us, has now been now dulled by our neglect.
It is encouraging to note that many of the non-profits supported by the donors in the NCCF community are doing this. Grants are made here and abroad to organizations that focus on announcing the Good News of the Gospel and opening our eyes to the sacred. In exercising this important apostolate, they rescue us from the amnesia into which we as a society seem to allow ourselves to slide ever more deeply. They save us from the sin of desecration.
Interestingly, the words ‘amnesia’ and ‘amnesty’ are linked in etymology. As the Kingdom advances, let up hope they are linked in the divine mercy as well.