The Good Old days!

How often you hear people talk about the “The good old days” or “the Golden age”. And then they spend a fair amount of time telling us and bringing our attention to the amount of evil in the world and backing this up with evidence of a list of bad news items.

They will also tell you that people no longer love each other and give you evidence of marriages breaking up, people getting sick, hurt or killed and many other real tragic stories.

They finally end by telling us that the ‘end is near’ and that these are all signs of the end times. They will go further and set dates and times of when the world will end. These are done by individuals and organizations (Some religious) who are hell bent on installing fear in people. Predictions off course arising from skewed, twisted, unhistorical and literal reading of scripture. (I intend to write something soon about this matter).

At the beginning I thought that it was only few people that say this! But Oh No! Many, too many say this!

This is reinforced by skewed news reporting where watching the news is as sad and depressing as attending a funeral; as if there is no good news to tell. (I mean we are quick in reporting death of people and accidents and never the birth of a new person other than the heir to the throne and never how people arrive safely to places other than the President.

Even print and online media have joined the party with second by second update of the latest global tragedies. Scrolling on CNN, Skynews and Co. exemplify this. I mean even Facebook’s ‘news feed’ may as well be called ‘bad news feed’ with people wanting us to feel with them as they ‘share’ the latest tragedy.

And those who are slightly more positive will blame it on the secular world! “It is their fault! They did this! In the past it was better!” They say and here it comes: “The Church was stronger in the past and it is all the fault of Vatican 2. It is Vatican 2’s fault that many people are no longer going to Church and we don’t have Vocations. It is because we changed the Latin mass”. Some add that the real reason is that “the Church is too soft and permissive.”

And the complaints go on and on… (Some are truly troubling and I don’t mean to underestimate them).

Can I say it is too much? Too much!!! Isn’t it? One after hearing these conversations must legitimately ask: Is it true that the past was better? Is it true that we live in an evil world, so beyond repair, irreversibly evil that one should throw in the towel? Is it true that people only hate each other? That there is no hope, no joy, no Love, no good news but only despair?

So can I ask, if this is so, then why are we living?
I want to begin by saying that suffering HURTS and SCARS! That as St JP2 says it is “an experience of evil’. It leaves a distinct and memorable mark. It leaves us shocked, helpless and scared. When it happens to those we love, it hurts because we are left powerless and when we hear it happening to those afar, we are left threatened and insecure asking ‘Could this happen to me?’ We  become cynical of the world. At its depth we are scared to suffer, be alone and to die.

And add to this the constant trouble of daily life and financial, physical and emotional personal ailments as well as real evil, and comments like ‘there is no more good in this world’, ‘the world is going to end’ begin to make sense. Even comments like the  ‘good old days’ were the best when we were children, in the village, or the old house, care free with little worry and no responsibility. It is an escape.

We, in the developed countries regress and speak of the olden days simply because we’re afraid. It may well be that the olden days were simpler and better in many ways but today we live in an age where healthcare and medicine has never been better. Life expectancy has increased from living to the 30s in the 1900s to mid 60s today. For many, job opportunity and technology has never been better. We are able just as in the past to choose more, pray more, love more, care more, connect more… because we are alive!!!

The old days had as much, if not more evil. Our memory betrays us and we forget the troubles from world wars to health epidemics, colonization, communism oppression and if you lived in Lebanon and other war torn places, you can add civil wars. Yet all that without instant media to report it extensively and immediately.

And further to this one must add the fact that there are more people living on earth with a jump from around 3 Billion in the 1960s to 7 Billion today. Simple math means there is bound to more trouble and problems and more evil.

We need to wake up! The inescapable reality is that I DO NOT LIVE IN THE PAST, in the Good old days, rather I LIVE HERE and NOW. Our life is passing away! There is nowhere else where we are and we must BE, and where God is present except in the now!

So how should we respond to this disease or reality? The answer is the word Gospel. This means Good news. The answer is in the Incarnation, in Jesus.

God sent his Son so that we may have life and have it to the full. Historically, Jesus came into Palestine that was ruled by the Romans. To the oppressed and suffering Jews, Jesus came to proclaim God’s Kingdom. A kingdom of Love, mercy and justice. He came to heal and preached the beatitudes.

The greek word is Makarios meaning happy or blessed. He told the poor, the persecuted, those who mourn and the hungry, that they should be happy because the kindgdom is theirs.

He told them that God, ‘Abba’ or daddy cares. And he proved this through his life, parables, miracles and above all his death. He died holding the hurt and ridicule. Even when he preached about the end of days, it was always in the context of love, hope, justice and mercy.

He could have come and preached doom and gloom. He could have told them the bad news, he could have told them to just give up. He could have told them about the good old days of Moses and Abraham. But he did not!

The logos, the word came and became the Good news. He became the mercy of God, the joy in the midst of despair, the smile in the midst of tears, the light in the midst of darkness. He was a healer who proclaimed the Kingdom! A future that is filled with hope and justice!

He told us that we are blessed! We are the light of the world!

Yes, there is darkness NOW but there is light! We just need to be the best version of ourselves in order to light up more! We just must not be afraid!

Let us too be messengers of the Good news, true disciples and healers! Let us stand in the face of those who may out of good intentions and hurt have become prophets of gloom and respond in the words of St John 23rd in the opening address of the Council. I feel the need to echoe his words again today that: “At times we have to listen, much to our regret, to the voices of people who, though burning with zeal, lack a sense of discretion and measure. In this modern age they can see nothing but prevarication and ruin … We feel that we must disagree with those prophets of doom who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand. In our times, divine Providence is leading us to a new order of human relations… where…even human setbacks, leads to the greater good of the Church.”

Indeed with the psalmist we must proclaim “Today is the day the Lord had made, let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps 118:24). We are after all people of the resurrection.There is no other time to be alive except in the Present! We are waiting for spring but its already here. Here and in the now we must live, die and resurrect, knowing fully well that He is with us in the NOW!