This is Easter on the Latin Rite liturgical calendar for 2021, thereby being the date that almost everyone who observes it will observe it on. Orthodox Easter this year is nearly a month away, on May 2.
It's a second sad Easter in a row.
For the second time we're facing an Easter in which the gloom of the Coronavirus Pandemic lingers overhead. Perhaps, in that way, we're looking at an Easter that actually fits historical times, i.e., most of human history, more than our own times, and therefore should give us more to look forward to with the oncoming advance of Spring.
Still, it probably doesn't, and in no small part due to the really odd and unsettled times we're generally in.
For those in the Diocese of Cheyenne, such as myself, we still have a dispensation in place if we feel we should use it. I've noted myself earlier in this blog that I wasn't really happy about Mass's being suspended in the first place, although I'd perhaps now reluctantly concede that it was necessary. As also earlier noted, when they opened back up I resumed going, but when infections started to climb and the vaccine was on the horizon, I dropped back out and made use of the dispensation.
Throughout this entire pandemic, my wife has really been the one who managed our approach to it, being diligent and careful and making me the same. I take the pandemic very seriously and frankly I'm at the point where those who casually deny its anything anger me. It truly is. I've known, as we all do by now, a host of people who have had it and a couple of them are dead. People who give the flippant "it's no worth than the flu" don't seem to realize that the flu isn't a cold either and that its a real killer. The reason we tolerate the flu like we do is that we have no choice. Here we do, but we're rapidly losing out on that choice in part because people who want to believe that it amounts to nothing or wild theories about its original or the vaccine are being slow to get vaccinated. And in our modern society, in which we've elevated the individual and his rights and beliefs to a near religion we aren't willing to use any form of compulsion in order to make sure the appropriate number of vaccinations are accomplished.
That day may never have been possible in any event. We may have lost out on that opportunity from the very first instance, in which case SARS-CoV-2 will be an endemic disease and go on killing.
At least one person I know who takes the disease very seriously, but who is younger and therefore able to bear more risks, has just become numb to it. That is, it's real, they got vaccinated, but they're otherwise too fatigued to observe much in the way of any other precaution. As noted, some people never took any as they refused to believe it was real. Others, and I find this approach the oddest, accepted it was real and took some precautions, unless they were personally inconvenient.
The level of precautions a person took and wear tends to reflect a person's beliefs. The Catholic Church in Wyoming obviously took it very seriously in shutting things down, but I frankly think the Church really dropped the ball in regard to outreach to parishioners. Even on my end, as a former lector and a former council member, I received very little contact during the pandemic from my diocese. If I've received this litter, and have been a faithful and loyal Catholic my entire life, I have to think that marginal Catholics are in no better position than I am. One thing the Church is really going to have to answer for, and I mean in this realm and the next, is the complete and utter failure, it seems to me, to try to reach out during the pandemic. A parish priest is actually responsible for all of the souls in his diocese. If the Catholic souls aren't getting any contact. . . well. . . there's going to be questions that will have to be answered.
Anyhow, at Mass I noticed that almost everyone was very observant about wearing masks, which were required, although there's always the few who will pull them down below their nose at which point they're pointless. Sometimes that's ignorance and in others its a form of protest. Be that as it may, they were there.
I'm told, but don't know, that in some Protestant churches following the COVID guidelines were simply suspended completely.
In a civil context, in some places I've been too that's very much the case. One local sporting goods store had signs about wearing masks but few on the staff did. A few men who work in the store do and have, but the huge army of 20 something girls that loiters near the cash registers grossly overmanning them never did. Sporting goods stores here are almost a center of civil protest/COVID denial.
Circling back around, during the pandemic my wife has lead the charge and we've both been very good about doing what we should. We haven't been to a restaurant in a year, with one noon meal that was a work invitation, and two for out of town depositions, being the exception. I've been invited to "go get a beer" after work, but I declined, something made easy by the fact I decline that invitation usually anyway.
Anyhow, I've now had both of my COVID 19 vaccinations. My wife has had her first. My kids have both had theirs. Only my son and my wife are in the window of non protection, as they're either waiting for their second shot or have just had theirs.
I was going to resume Mass attendance last week, but my daughter pointed out that my wife had been so good about her observation of the rules and just had her shot, so we should probably abstain. She didn't come home for Easter due to school and work and will make Mass where she is. Here we debated it last night and ultimately decided, for the same reason, to wait one more week.
Locally it turns out that of the three parishes two were requiring reservations, but once again due to the phenomenally bad outreach the Church's have, that wasn't apparent at the one we were going to go to until this morning when I happened to find that was on their video feed. For goodness sakes, is there any excuse for not getting this out in some other fashion? So we likely would have been turned away. That would have lead us to the parish across town which is not requiring reservations, but which was anticipating putting overflow in the poorly ventilated basement so that those there could watch it on television.
Next year, for those of us still in the temporal realm, Mass in the normal fashion will have resumed as life in the normal fashion will have had to. The country can't keep being shut down forever and the entire population, save for those who really have the resources to do nothing at all, has to get moving again and patience has worn thing. My guess is that we will not reach the "herd immunity" threshold as there will be those who steadfastly refuse to believe that the disease is serious or who will continue to believe myths about vaccines which are allowed to circulate in the post Cold War scientific age. Those who are vaccinated will get yearly boosters which will be more or less effective. Some will get sick and some of them will die and for some people that will come as a surprise. But life will return to normal, with normal in this instance begin an unfortunate blend of the 1970s inflationary era, brought on by profligate government spending, and 2010/20s moral sinkage.
On that latter item, there were those who hoped that the pandemic might refocus society and cause some reflection on where we were going and what we were doing. Perhaps some of that did occur, but there does not seem to be much evidence of it now. And to the extent it did, a lot of that was swept away by political forces that refused to acknowledge defeat and countervailing ones that accordingly came into power seeking to bring in every "progressive" item on that laundry list that's been thought of since the late 1890s. Things are really not looking that good, and in a lot of ways.
But next year, at least there will be Mass.
Jews traditionally end the Passover Sedar with "Next Year in Jerusalem", signaling an obvious deep religious hope.
Next year in Jerusalem. [1].
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Footnotes:
1. I don't think this is incapable of being misunderstood, but just in case, and because I'm occasionally asked, this is meant symbolically here. I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in visiting Jerusalem. I.e., none. This isn't mean to be rude, but I know it baffles people, and as I have a friend whose been once and who is planning to return again, I know I'll be asked that along these lines; "I'm going on the church trip to Jerusalem. . . wouldn't you like to go?" followed by all the things that a person could see in Jerusalem.
That's great for people who want to see it, but I don't. I don't have any interest in going anywhere in the Holy Land, which may be odd for a Christian, but I don't. None. Indeed, if I were to go to anywhere in the Middle East the locations would be limited to certain big desert areas as I like big deserts. I'm not keen on cities in general, and particularly not large crowded ones.
FWIW, I often give the same reaction to other venues that feature lots of people. "Wouldn't you like to go to China?". No, I would not. "London?". M'eh.
