The world seems to be coming down around our ears. Each day we read in the papers and hear on TV news of wars, famines, disasters, and diseases that threaten the fragile harmony humanity has built. More disturbing can be the tensions we hear of within the Church and the resulting quarrels splashed across Twitter pages and Facebook groups. Any student of history will tell you that this turmoil is nothing new, but that explanation offers little comfort as the headlines blare more forcefully and the pundits bellow more severely. What are we to do when society and our sanity are threatened in so many ways?
Folk singer John Prine advises that you “Blow up your TV/ Throw away your paper/ Go to the country/ Build you a home.” Prine’s advice isn’t perfect (he also advocates that his listeners “try to find Jesus on [their] own”) but his larger point rings true. There are some things that are objectively more important than others. Peace comes when we recognize this and properly order our actions towards those things that matter most instead of becoming preoccupied by and worrying about lower things that we cannot control.
This understanding is illumined further in the Epistle of Barnabas: “When evil days are upon us and the worker of malice gains power, we must attend to our own souls and seek to know the ways of the Lord.”
This doesn’t advocate indifference to the world around us, but rather, focusing first on those things in our lives that matter most. Saint Barnabas urges us in the midst of ‘evil days’ to look first to that problem which is most intimate to us—the salvation of our eternal soul. Before worrying about political policy or ecclesial bickering, the state of our soul should be our first concern. What is my relationship like with God? With my family? With my neighbors? (Mt 22:37-40) These are the things that should really matter to us because they affect our salvation. If we get this hierarchy wrong and seek to gain the world rather than our salvation, we risk a terrible loss (Mt 8:36-38).
Paradoxically, it is by respecting the preeminence of the salvation of the soul over worldly prestige that some of the most well-known figures of the Church left their mark on the world. Msgr. Ronald Knox, speaking about the English martyrs, called them “the men who upset the world.” By their prioritization of eternity, they stood as witnesses to the faith during a time of political and social turmoil. Having learned to “measure things by the standard of eternity” they ultimately entered into it, both in the heavenly reality and in the hearts of their countrymen. They did not set out to become martyrs—nor should we—but, when the time came to stand as witnesses, they looked to what really mattered and trusted in what was promised to those who remain faithful (Heb. 10:23).
Confession and the Mass are the best aids offered by the Church to attain salvation. Prioritizing the reception of the sacraments, along with regular prayer, fasting, and almsgiving is the best way to attend to your soul and attain peace amidst worldly chaos. However, we must recognize that this peace Christ offers is not the peace the world gives (Jn 14:27). It will not be an affective peace of sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows, but the effective peace of securing eternal life. We will continue to be surrounded by death, enmity, and decay every day of our lives until that happy day when we are ushered into the presence of Peace himself. That day, that heavenly prize, is the only thing that really matters.
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Image: Bernard Van Orley, detail of The Final Judgment and the Burying of the Dead
