This is not going to win me any points with the internet.

If today you have the chance, schedule your vaccination from Covid-19.
Why?

It’s the Catholic thing to do.  It’s a good thing.  It’s an act of service, sublimation and will help you and those you love, and even those you don’t like.

We’ve spent over a year trying to not get this disease.  It’s clear it can be very bad.   You don’t want to have it and you don’t want to infect someone else. That’s why you wear the mask too.  Why?  Not because we’ve been burnt by acid or something but…

Also, you don’t want anyone that anyone loves, to have severe consequences possibly including death as a result of indifference, carelessness, or what could be prevented by innoculation.   Spend the time and get in line and get the shot.  Here, I’ll even give you a link to get started in registering and finding a place.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/vsafe.html

Yes, it will take you two times to get it and two weeks following for it to take full effect.  You can do it.  You can handle it.

Make it your project for May.  It’s free and available at most grocery store pharmacies, regular pharmacies, and there are public county clinics too.  This is your friendly neighborhood mom nag.

Why talk about this?

We long for a society that cares about the weakest, and which is willing to roll up their collective sleeves and take it.  A community doesn’t simply do what is easiest for one’s self, but what is best for not just one’s self, but others.   We’re supposed to be for others, if we’re Catholics.  It’s supposed to be visible by “how we love each other.”  Wearing the mask to protect others, that’s one way.  Getting the shot, that’s another.

To claim that Christ is your vaccination is to treat faith as magic as opposed to a means of grace, and to ignore reason, science, logic and rationality.  None of these things should be ignored. None of these things are innately bad. We’re not faithful if we ignore God’s gifts.  We’re being ungrateful like the Israelites in the desert saying, “We hate this food,” because they’d grown tired of the gift of mana and quail.   Faith works in accord with reason, science, logic and rationality, it is not limited by it.  Indeed, we can’t have miracles if there aren’t norms that God can, via grace, exceed.

God expects us to use our brains.

Reason, logic, science, rationality, intellect, knowledge, curiosity, all of these things God gave to us as part of being able to experience the complex magnificent wonder of His creation.   We’ve been given brains for a reason, and not merely to keep our bodies moving from point A to point B.  Using these gifts allows us to develop more talents –and whatever we use, God multiplies.  Pretending one is immune to Covid-19 because one has faith is not, “Pray, Hope and Don’t Worry,” but Hakuna Matata Thelogy.

The former surrenders suffering we cannot address to the Lord, the later pretends suffering isn’t possible to fight/challenge or address, and thus can be ignored, whether internal or external, whether personal or public.  Saint Padre Pio sought medical attention for his medical ailments including cancer. God chose to infuse the Saint’s life with healing, including not becoming infected by his stigmata, but it was a gift, not a consequence of Saint Padre Pio’s either requests or personal piety. God is not magic and  cannot be manipulated.  To try to do so, is a grave sin of presumption, (You shall not tempt the Lord your God), and ingratitude for the gifts we refuse to use.  (We hate this food).

Saints suffer.  Jesus took His apostles into the boat and into the storm, and there He slept, so they would learn, that following Jesus didn’t mean there wouldn’t be storms.  Prosperity Gospel pretends that faith will mean riches, health, all good things and no worries.  Hakuna Matata Gospel pretends others worries don’t matter or can’t be addressed.   Neither is anything but heresy.   Neither loves God with one’s whole heart or one’s neighbor as one’s self.   Neither is Catholic.

Working on sanctification will involve the cross if we want the consequence of the cross.  It isn’t that we should seek pain, nor that we should shoulder pain as if there are no means of mediation, but that suffering and the cross are part of life.  Receiving the vaccine is a way of preventing one’s self from catching the deadlier version of the disease, and thus being able to care for those we love.  That’s a small price, being willing to be pierced.  Saint Padre Pio submitted to being pierced.  So I’d say to those worried about the vaccine, get the shot and “pray, hope and don’t worry.”

Hoping this post pierces the heart, and reminds everyone, we are our brothers’ keeper.  Get the shot so we can show we are Christians by our love.  As a bonus, by our not divorcing faith from reason, or falling for the idea of a person of faith having to ignore the reality of science, we show that intellect and faith are not opposites or contradictory.  Science exists. People of faith are smart.  Miracles abound, but to think that one won’t get ill simply because one wills it, is not faith, it is magic thinking.

Christ doesn’t say, “Hakuna Matata.”  Christ says, “Take up your cross and follow me.”  Getting a shot is hardly a cross, but it’s a tiny sublimation and Christ is merciful to most of us, allowing us to endure splinters at a time, of the whole cross we must embrace to imitate Him.