Let's be honest, whatever your circumstances are right now as you're reading this, it is safe to assume that this is really not how any of us imagined we'd be celebrating Easter. Americans are now entering their sixth week of living under a declared state of emergency, and are struggling to adjust to closed schools and shelter-in-place directives. To say nothing of having to sit by and watch the U.S. economy groan to a virtual halt, thanks to a virus that is, just like all the other kipple we are sardonically surrounded by in our homes, stamped “Made in China.” For a culture used to freedom of movement, being forced to stay at home is not as easy as some people thought it would be.
Harder hitting and more importantly is the fact that while liquor stores, smoke shops, and abortion clinics remain open, churches and all other places of worship have had been closed down as well. To be fair, despite the frenzied wailing by some, this is not the first time church buildings have been closed during a plague in the Church's history, either by official decree or by a simple lack of priests. Although much has been written about our need to follow the example of St. Charles Borromeo who refused to leave Milan and ministered to the people there during a year-long plague in 1575, it is important to note that even he closed the churches in Milan at the time and instead built altars outside for the faithful to gather around.
To be sure many priests and bishops have indeed followed Borromeo's example and are now live-streaming masses, having drive-up confessions, and in the case of one local priest a Eucharistic procession with the people following in their cars! Nevertheless, it is no exaggeration to say that the arrival of the CCP Virus to our shores has been an unmitigated wormwood event in our lives.
Worse yet, is that driving home all this bitterness is the reality that the same personal devices we use to entertain and educate ourselves, as well as keep in contact with family and friends and watch church services, are the same ones bringing us blatantly skewed and continuously negative news about this whole Wuflu muddle. Any thought that Trump Derangement Syndrome or the political tribalism that we have grown used to could be set aside during a national pandemic, would prove laughable as we are continuously fed almost nothing but tales of worry and woe.
In fact, it was while watching one of the media's daily dour diatribes, that I was reminded of a an object found in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. The “Palantír” was a crystal ball-like object that allowed a person to see what was going on and communicate with others in different parts of Middle-Earth. Denethor, the steward of the kingdom of Gondor and who was at war with the dark lord Sauron, possessed one of them and used it to gaze into Mordor to see what Sauron was up to. However, he was ensnared by Sauron so that he did not so much “see” but was “shown” what Sauron wanted him to see. Thus Denethor was shown images that he interpreted as the eventual defeat and downfall of Gondor. Ultimately he despaired and took his own life by leaping upon a burning funeral pyre that he had made for his own son.
In many ways our video screens now serve the same purpose as the Palantír, as our world's own “dark lord” goads an entire legion of establishment media and political figureheads to engage in a kind of psyops to control the pandemic's narrative for their own designs. Many of them are perfectly content to use COVID-19 victims, our tanked economy, and even our civil liberties to build a funeral pyre of their own with which to incinerate the memory of the 2016 election and to rig the next. Interestingly enough, in one of those “truth is stranger than fiction” moments, much of the incomplete, skewed, and walked-back data the media runs concerning this pandemic is being managed, analyzed, and stored by a rather secretive software company called (folks you just can't make this stuff up!) Palantir.
The Night is Over...
Regardless of how much we watch the news or scroll through articles, sifting through all the hype and hysteria is a monumental task requiring a lot of discernment and a strong will. However, this should be nothing new to us as the Father of Lies and the Accuser of our Brethren is, as always, at work, but especially in “these last days” through what has been appropriately called the Luciferian media.
However, as all of us know (or should know) this is the way of the world. Christ told us as much time and again, and in times like these that we should remember what we have just liturgically gone through to get to this morning. Our Lord, instituted the sacrament of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday, before beginning his two-day long via dolorosa as he was tried not once but twice in a kangaroo court of public opinion. Of particular notice was his meeting with Pontius Pilate on Good Friday where Christ stood before a representative of what at the time was the greatest political power on earth. There over the course of a short inquiry with a man his own wife had warned him about, Pilate makes one of his most iconic statements, “What is truth?”
Pilate, like so many in the Luciferian media today, are unable or (more likely) unwilling to realize that the truth is staring them right in the face; literally so when it came to Pilate. To Christians truth is not some abstract concept but a tangible reality in the person of Jesus Christ, who although was God was “found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”
Hence, our Lord is right to say that he is the “the way the truth and the life” and “the light of the world”, because of how his death and resurrection have reordered all of creation. Not so much that it has returned to an Edenic state, but that the light of Christ now illuminates the world in a way that the truth is plain for all to see. And just like sifting through all that fake news, recognizing and accepting that truth requires a lot of discernment and a grace-perfected will to do so. It also requires a sense of humility and gratitude so that we don't end up becoming angry or resentful when we discover that the some of the works we have brought to fruition are shown to be weeds that will, at the end of time, be pulled up and tossed into the Gehenna dump.
...and the Dawn Arrives
In book two of The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, Aragon, Gimli, Legolas, and Gandalf, who appropriately enough had just returned from death, visit the king of the Rohirrim, Théoden. Gandalf frees Théoden from a spell placed on him by Sauruman, a fellow wizard who desired his own power, and counseled Théoden to move against Sauruman. While Gandalf left to get more help, Théoden, his soldiers, as well as Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas hold up in a fortress called Helm's Deep and eventually endure wave after wave of attack from Sauruman's forces.
When it appears that they cannot withstand another attack, Théoden begins to despair and starts to regret going to war so hastily. Aragorn comforts him, and tells him not to lose hope and to trust that Gandalf will return. In the meantime, Aragorn mounts the ramparts of Helm's Deep and parleys with the assembled forces below. Ignoring their mockery, Aragorn tells them that he “came out to see the dawn” for “none knows what the new day will bring.” He warns them that no army has ever taken the fort, and that leaving is the only way they will survive as he tells them, “You do not know your own peril!”
At that moment the gates to Helm's Deep are thrown open and Théoden leads his armies in a charge into the enemy. Shortly afterwards, Gandalf “clad in white, shinning in the rising sun” arrives with fresh help in the form of more troops and a forest of living trees called Huorns, with which they utterly destroy the forces of Sauruman.
This account is meant to remind us of two things on this Easter Sunday. The first is that we are in fact in a battle against evil, in both the form of a virus that kills the body and a Luciferian baadespel (the opposite of a godspel or gospel) that is hellbent on killing our souls by denying or twisting the truth. The second is that when we celebrate the resurrection of Christ at Easter, we are acknowledging the fact that the light, life, love and truth of Christ has already won the day. What remains is for us to carry out and embody those qualities throughout the rest of this pandemic and beyond, no matter what each “new day will bring.”
After the battle of Helm's Deep, Théoden lamented at all the destruction the battle had wrought, as well as the long road ahead in the ongoing war to destroy the One ring. Gandalf tells him “To such days we are doomed, so let us now go on with the journey we have begun.” On this Easter Sunday, I would only make one change to those words, and that would be to say that Christ is risen indeed and these are the days to which we have been blessed! So let us carry on in the fight that we are all already part of, in his name for all the days we have been given.
Photo Credit- beliefnet.com