There is one common thing that unites people on a both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. It is fear about the future. There is a joke in Poland right now. Two older men met together. One asked the other: what is your plan for January. The other guy answers: to be alive.
Yes, this is a plan, to be alive. Of course nobody can guarantee that it will be done but we can hope. And here is the part that for the last few months is completely lost. For so many years our life was built on achievements as an outcome of our efforts. We did something while being sure that the results would be exactly as we expected. Action and reaction. COVID completely ruined this concept leaving us in the darkness of the unknown. There are still some people that haven't left their homes since March. Our very precise world faced the truth about the fragility of our existence. But there is one thing that was exposed by this entire situation. I noticed that people lost hope.
In the last few days I met some of my old friends in Poland. They had one common element: luck of natural joy. People do not chat on a street anymore. Everyone runs, afraid to talk to others. The distance between them is growing, and why? Because we are afraid both directions: to die or to cause death. And here is the paradox. The Polish Constitutional Tribunal decided last evening that abortion of sick children is against our Constitution. Of course many people started to protest. But this time there was no fear about death, rather anger that they cannot kill. I tried to understand this crowd. The same people are afraid to die and the same people are not afraid to kill. The only conclusion that came to my mind is that those people are very selfish. Where there is selfishness there is no hope because a person cannot be hope for itself.
And here is a big chance for the Church. We are the sign of hope. It is a hope much bigger than our own ego. In this time of COVID, lack of humanity and false compassion, the Church shows that Jesus Christ is above all those things and if we come to him our fear will be healed. It doesn’t mean that we will not die or have sick children. It means that we are not the end, that there is much more after our death. This hope is a light scattering every darkness. John 16:33 “I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.”