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God’s promise and our responsibility
THE THEME OF THE 2022 ANNUAL CATHOLIC APPEAL
is Making all things new … God’s promise and our responsibility. It draws on words from the Book of Revelation, “Behold, I make all things new” (Rv 21:5) and highlights God’s promise of complete renewal and our responsibility in making that promise a reality. In accepting the promise, we work with the Lord to renew and transform our world and our very lives.
This year’s theme provides an antidote to the pain and struggle that we’ve all endured from the pandemic during these past two years. Illness, death, isolation, job loss, social upheavals — these things and more have laid bare the deep and troubling experience of anxiety.
Anxiety is more than simple worry or fretting. It is even more than a generalized fear. Anxiety is a sense of impending loss accompanied by a feeling of losing control.
If you understand anxiety this way, then certainly the pandemic has left all of us anxious. That fear of the unknown coupled with a sense of doom — never sure who might succumb to the illness, when it might happen and with what consequences — is always present. Add to this the often mixed communications about the pandemic — its severity, its predicted course, needed mitigations and a patchwork of public policies — and it’s no wonder that the whole world seems to be experiencing anxiety individually and collectively.
Certainly, we are anxious for ourselves and for what might happen to us, but even more poignantly, we are anxious for those we love. Think of all the parents concerned for their young and unvaccinated children. Think, too, of adult children fearful about their fragile and susceptible elderly parents. We wonder if and when the pandemic will ever end.
The Appeal theme highlights God’s promise of making all things new. Spiritually, we need to cling to that promise. We also need to take up that promise and, in our own way, work with it to make it real in our lives and in our world.
The anxiety that the pandemic has stirred in us is a human and psychological challenge that we need to address. That same anxiety also summons us as a people of faith to a spiritual response. We consider both these dimensions.
From a human and psychological perspective, we note that anxiety in our circumstances today is not unreasonable nor unexpected. There is good reason to be anxious. In this context, I recall a humorous but insightful exchange that I had with an elderly woman. She said to me, “With all the things that can go wrong in life these days, it’s really scary to be alive.” She had a point. Our anxious feelings are not off the mark.
It is not a pleasant feeling to be anxious, but there can be a positive side that can work to our advantage. Anxiety can make us aware of possible harm, which can mobilize us to respond appropriately to whatever is causing that fear.
On the other hand, in some circumstances, anxiety can immobilize us. We can be frozen with worry. That kind of emotional paralysis does not usually lead to good outcomes. Another and perhaps more common
way that anxiety works against us is by distracting us. We can be so caught up in our fears and worries that we find ourselves continuously distracted from the task at hand. It takes more time to accomplish what we need to do, and we feel a disproportionate depletion of energy. This distraction of anxiety can invade our prayers and frustrate us terribly. Still, we are not without hope. There are spiritual strategies that help us face “Have no anxiety and address our anxiety. at all, but in One strategy finds us returning to the everything, by theme of this year’s Appeal. The Lord’s prayer and petition, words to us, “Behold, I make all things with thanksgiving, new,” focus our attention on God’s make your requests promise. By returning regularly to this known to God.” promise in a deliberate and intentional (Phil 4:6) way, we remember that our current situation is not the whole of our story. God draws us into the future that is of his making and embodies every hope and aspiration that we might have — even beyond our imagination. Recalling God’s promise enables us to see past the troubled present moment. In a sense, it enables us to have a larger context, a wider vision and a greater wisdom for living. A related message comes to us from St. Paul
in a well-known passage from his Letter to the Philippians: “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.” (Phil 4:6) Is Paul suggesting that we just get rid of our anxiety, perhaps by wishing it away or dismissing it by dint of our own efforts? No, not at all. Paul is inviting the Philippians to take their anxiety and redirect it in prayer that draws us into greater reliance on God and his promise. He also says to do this “with thanksgiving,” that is, mindful of what God has already done for us. The grateful memory of past grace ought to instill confidence in us for the present moment and for the future.
The Appeal theme highlights God’s promise of making all things new. Spiritually, we need to cling to that promise. We also need to take up that promise and, in our own way, work with it to make it real in our lives and in our world. We need to claim our responsibility. God’s promise and grace do not take away human freedom. Far from it, God’s grace invites our freedom and summons us to collaborate with his grace.
As we stand in this present moment, filled with its challenges and its anxieties, we have our responsibility to work with the Lord to make all things new. How do we do that? What does it look like?
The Word of God tells us what the new and renewed world looks like, perhaps not in detail but certainly in broad strokes. We know, for instance, the basic elements of that new world from the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, which is a kind of charter of the Kingdom of God. It is a world marked by mercy, compassion, connection, justice, peace, truth and love.
We take up our responsibility to work with the Lord in making all things new when we move on these pathways. For example, our mercy and forgiveness break down frozen resentments. Our compassion manifests in outreach to a neighbor in need, whoever that might be. Our sense of connection enables us to build bridges across differences of race, “As we stand in this ethnicity, culture, economic class and way of life. Our work for justice establishes the present moment, dignity of all people and a sense of fairness filled with its in our relationships. Our contribution to challenges and its peace enables people to live easily with anxieties, we have each other. Living by truth breaks down our responsibility to the pretenses and deceptions that so often work with the Lord mark our world. Our love, of course, brings to make all things it all together, especially as it shares in the new. How do we do that? What does it look like?” life-giving and faithful gift of self in the pattern of Jesus. What begins as dim and even dismal — our anxiety in the face of the pandemic and the social unrest of our times — ends in hope. This hope, as St. Paul says, does not disappoint. This hope is not simply the product of our wishful thinking; it comes from God’s promise to make all things new and our own willingness to work with the Lord to bring about a new and transformed world. Our mercy and forgiveness break down frozen resentments. Our compassion manifests in outreach to a neighbor in need, whoever that might be. Our sense of connection enables us to build bridges across differences of race, ethnicity, culture, economic class and way of life.
