Made for times like these

Even in crisis, the Church's sacramental life sustains and renews us

Mike Allen

Browsing the internet, I found a black-and-white image from 1940 entitled “Bombed Bride.” The photo features a woman dressed in white, walking out of her London home that German bombs had damaged. The beaming bride is on her way to her wedding, carrying a bouquet and escorted by her uniformed father. As they stroll past broken bricks and house trimmings, a smiling friend waves through a shattered window.

The image is timely in the age of COVID-19. Our present crisis shares a similar casualty to wartime: the demise of domestic normalcy. We Catholics grieve the rhythmic rites we otherwise take for granted. This disruption affects my area of ministry, preparing couples for marriage. Most of them got engaged before the pandemic that now casts a shadow over their plans. They had envisioned a wedding day of happiness, warmth and elegance amid family and friends. Now they are either postponing their nuptials or designing skeletal substitutes.

I read of one couple, Kate and Kyle, originally set for a June wedding in the Diocese of Orange in California. In their diocesan magazine, Kate explained, “I guess I went through the five stages of grief. There was denial, sadness and anger — we went back and forth with that one for a while. I guess we realized this is just what was meant to be. Now we’re just at acceptance.” They eventually had a small wedding, hoping for a more festive celebration at their first anniversary.

In the Diocese of Lexington, we have done our best to adjust. We offer marriage prep sessions online, a benefit of new technologies. I am impressed at the flexibility and good humor of the couples and marriage prep leaders in navigating the new terrain. Everything is a tradeoff. What couples gain in convenience, they lose in interpersonal touch. We are the “Body of Christ,” after all, not pixels on a screen. These concessions are only temporary substitutes for ministries that best happen incarnationally. But nothing is wasted. As a good spiritual director would ask, “Where is God in all of this?” Perhaps this crisis can freshen our understanding of the sacraments. Think of the past Masses we have approached by autopilot rather than anticipation. We may have been more attentive at special liturgies, even weddings, but we have tended to sentimentalize them. This season can remind us that the sacraments are not photo ops, but signposts of a hard-as-nails affirmation that our present trials will not crush us. Our faith is lived in the real world, not on Fantasy Island.

In his 2016 letter Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”), Pope Francis reminds us that families always live with a certain fragility. “Every family should look to the icon of the Holy Family of Nazareth. Their daily life had its share of burdens and even nightmares,” he wrote. Furthermore, he added, “The life of every family is marked by all kinds of crises, yet these are also part of its dramatic beauty. Couples should be helped to realize that surmounting a crisis need not weaken their relationship; instead, it can improve, settle and mature the wine of their union.”

There is a haunting Latin phrase: “Media vita in morte sumus,” i.e., “In the midst of life we are in death.” It expresses a typical Catholic sobriety about the transience of life. Most historians trace the phrase to the 14^th  century, which saw famine, war and plague kill a sizable portion of Europe. It was a brutal time, yet the Church and her families endured. I am not minimizing our present crisis. Engaged couples need our empathy, not a history lesson. No woman browses bridal magazines for matching masks for her bridesmaids. No one wants this new normal.

And yet, the sacraments exist for times just like this. As I see it, the photo of the “bombed bride” belongs with the iconic picture of soldiers receiving Eucharist at Iwo Jima, or even the recent images of impromptu baptisms at the corner where George Floyd was killed. The grace expressed in the sacraments points beyond this passing darkness to the unshakeable love of Christ for his people.

“Media vita in morte sumus” is only penultimate. Death may haunt us in this mortal coil, but the sacraments speak a truth more enduring: In the midst of death, we are in life.