Christ is risen, death is now conquered….and dystopia too!

04-23-2023Weekly Reflection

Dystopia(from the Greek meaning a “bad place): an imagined world or society which makes war on reality in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives.

Man was created to know, love, and worship God. Here he finds his true self, the order of God’s love. …whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. Matthew 10:39

Systematic Disorder the work of Demons: …the purpose of ‘systematically shaking the foundations, systematically undermining society and all principles; for the purpose of demoralizing everyone and throwing everything into chaos, and then, once society had begun to totter as a result — and was sick and weakened, cynical and devoid of beliefs, yet still yearning for some guiding idea and self-preservation —they would suddenly take it into their hands, raising the banner of rebellion and relying on a complete network of groups of five, which would all be active at the same time, recruiting and making practical efforts to search out all the means and all the weak spots that could be exploited’ ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, from his novel Demons

The moment…a will of (claimed) absolute independence and of power without limits clashes on all sides with the being it has not brought about, what remains to it other than to throw itself into revolt against what is and to seek help in outbursts of violence that nothing can appease. For all being becomes truly unbearable to it, whether it be the things of God or its own being. This is why in its rage at not being able to create, man becomes anti-creative. “ Fr. Heinz Schmitz O.P., Social Progress and Revolution

In this now clearly de-Christianized time, there are numerous events that show how, having removed God from everyday-life, man can only embrace a dystopian path. Dystopia, in fact, needs to impose a direction based on the deviation from the nature of things, to create a distortion of reality that makes man (created in the image and likeness of God) a being incapable of distinguishing and recognizing the true, the beautiful and the good, a man, wounded and unable to adhere to what corresponds to his heart's yearning. This would lead him to desire and accept only what complies exhaustively with his questioning of meaning. Hence the dystopian attack can only take place here and it is a continuous, violent, non-stop attack.

Because a person’s life does not proceed in a meaningless dystopian direction, but has the dignity given by the order of creation, which derives from what decreed its salvation, the resurrection from the dead of Christ restores meaning and hope to man and makes him look up, beyond the flat horizon of a vision of fear, mortal and earthly. With this spirit the Christian wakes up every morning, knowing that he is not just a finite creature, and faces life not oppressed by the limit of the precariousness of his physical existence, which would only lead him to try to "sanitize" his path, but directs him towards this criterion "salus animarum suprema lex" (the salvation of souls is the supreme law). In other words, the Christian looks to the salvation of the soul as the supreme principle that provides the order of things, thus also identifying his or her place in the harmony of creation, in the certainty of Easter. We know where the place of this order is, where such harmony exists, where to find refreshment for body and spirit, in the hope of the resurrection that has overcome our mortal limitation. From this awareness we can also make the only judgment that saves, because it gives this certainty. Because Christ has truly risen from the dead, our faith is not in vain.