Fr. Chris - Third Sunday of Easter - Homily

"The Church Inside Our Hearts"
​A few years before my beloved, maternal grandmother died, at 96 yrs old, I asked her what this Spanish Flu thing was all about. After all, she had experienced it first hand at 17 yrs of age growing up in Toronto. “Did you go out then, Grandma?” “No, young girls did not ‘gad about’”, she answered. They stayed close to home until they were married or maybe went to college. “But No one went out then!”  
 
After deciding the virus had died out during the summer of 2018, people began to gather again in restaurants and pubs. But within days, the flu hit again with a tidal wave of suffering. Masks were also employed then, worn by most, shunned by some, but many jailed if they did not comply. Aspirin was the only medicine.
 
It was the bodies on front lawns Grandma saw outside her window which told her how dangerous the epidemic was; bodies of school-mates, friends, neighbours, waiting to be picked up by horse and wagon for the morgue or immediate burial.
 
Her story matches interviews of others of her time on YouTube. One gentleman remembered a classmate who came knocking in the morning, desperate for help. “Could someone get a doctor? My mother and sister are really sick. I don’t know what to do. I can’t leave them.” His mother left to fetch someone, but when they returned, the whole family had died, (something apparently happening in our ICUs).
 
“But what about work? Didn’t people have to go to work? And food?”, I asked. “Only those who provided the essentials, food and fuel and such, and who could tolerate the lime and vinegar they cleaned the workplaces with, would still go.
Meanwhile, the Red Cross and church groups collected food and goods from those better off for distribution to peoples’ front steps and outside their apartment doors.”
 
“What about Church and School?” Like another senior’s story, she said, “No one went to school or church for about 2 years! No one dared to go! They were all closed anyway for everyone’s safety.” “But it must have caused a lot of mental fatigue, even illness?” She said, “We are stronger than we realize, especially our children. It made us all stronger. I’d even say it made us better able to cope with the depression when it hit. With the grace of God, people always soldier on.”  
 
“This was a horrible catastrophe! Why don’t we hear more about it?” I asked. “Because like all challenges in life, once you get past them, you just learn from them, and then move on. No one wanted to talk about it. All was forgotten within a few months. We just went back to living our lives again. Yes, many had died, but ironically it opened up more jobs for those in need. Life is just like that. God in his wisdom knows this. God always knows more than we do.”
 
No one went to school or church for about 2 years. What can we learn from this?
 
Perhaps learn how lucky we are now to have scientists who can see a virus and manipulate it; medically trained professionals who can advise us, provide medicine to heal us, and medical equipment to help us breathe. An amazing technical system, the Internet, helps us communicate with each other visually and audibly from vast distances. Food and resources are still available for our tables. Employment insurance and Govt assistance helps pay the bills. OHIP! Grandma lived on porridge most of her winters without milk or sugar, just basic bread, root vegetables and greens in good weather. Little meat. They were lucky to have a small garden.
 
Perhaps we can also manage without Church or School, even if for another year?
Stay home, accept our being a bit deprived, if only in supportive union with those who will never see a church in their lifetime.  
 
Perhaps, like Christ asks us today, we can be witnesses to Christ’s good news, proclaim his gospel of forgiveness of sins and new life in spirit … just by being patient, tolerant, even cheerful ‘living’ witnesses to it; respect with deep gratitude our Health Care Professionals whom we pay through taxes to help us keep well.
 
Meanwhile, let us stay safe in our homes, trusting and knowing God will open his churches for us again. Meantime he will teach us to open the Church inside our hearts instead, in true Christian fellowship like they did in my Grandmother’s time, because, just like she told me, “God always knows more than we do!”     
   
– Rev Fr Christopher Tracey, Saint Joseph Parish, Saugeen Shores, Ontario ​