How does Christ’s way of thinking influence the complexity and challenge of living in the world while growing into Christ’s set of values-spiritual poverty, a capacity for humiliation or contempt, and humility?
Since Covid-19, the complexity and challenge of living in the world while growing into Christ’s set of values have shifted enormously. Covid-19 has shouted it loud and clear across the length, breadth, height and depth of the entire earth: no to an economy of exclusion; no to the new idolatry of money; no to a financial system which rules rather than serves; no to the inequality which spawns violence( Chapter 2, The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis Apostolic Exhortation).
Covid-19 is calling the whole world, all cultures, all social groupings to purification and growth, offering the Church, the Body of Christ, a marvelous opportunity through social media to bear witness to a…new way of living together in fidelity to the Gospel ( p47, The Joy of the Gospel). Therefore, in this Covid-19 environment, Pope John Paul XXIII’s sentiment is a timeless one…in our times, divine Providence is leading us to a new order of human relations which, by human effort and even beyond all expectations, are directed to the fulfilment of God’s superior and inscrutable designs, in which everything, even human setbacks, leads to the greater good of the Church (p44, The Joy of the Gospel). — Celpha Sands