December 6, 2023
Among the several(!)books I’m currently reading is “Church History in Plain Language” by prof Bruce Shelley. It’s a great overview of both church and world history written in everyday terms. His description of the tumultuous Middle Ages (6th -16th centuries) can be captured in a few sentences when he quotes Pope Gregory’s sermonic lament at a time when all of Western Europe was in chaos:
“What is it that can at this time delight us in this world? Everywhere we see tribulation, everywhere we hear lamentation. The cities are destroyed, the castles torn down, the fields laid waste, the land made desolate. Villages are empty, few inhabitants remain in the cities, and even these poor remnants of humanity are daily cut down. The scourge of celestial justice does not cease, because no repentance takes place under the scourge. We see how some are carried into captivity, others mutilated, others slain. What is it, brethren, that can make us contented with this life? If we love such a world, we love not our joys, but our wounds.”
Reading these bleak words reminds me that universal sorrow over the state of the world is common to all of humankind’s history. With just a few revisions Pope Gregory’s pathos is our pathos here in the 21st century. All of us are wounded by the chaos that is swamping us.
More than ever in recent memory the world is calling out to the Lord for healing. Days of Prayer are being called for, people are returning to church, and the culture of entitlement which has prevailed since the end of WW2 is yielding to a renewed culture of dependence on Divine Providence.
Maybe Gregory got it right when he implied that the agonies of his day were directly tied to godless living and lack of repentance. It’s a sobering thought, but this may be a day for men and women of faith to confess their spiritual lukewarmness and return to their “first love”.
