Easter and world peace

At the Easter Vigil we celebrate the great story of salvation. But it is not just religious people that have salvation stories. Every culture (even the most secular) has them, and they provide the basic logic for our morality and ideas.

One popular salvation story goes something like this: There was a time long ago (say, the Middle Ages) when people lived in ignorance, and were slaves to superstition, religion and tradition. This led to religious wars and violence — a sort of war of all against all — as they competed for scarce resources. Life was mostly suffering and squalor. But at some point, so the story goes, people started to use reason (which they apparently hadn’t before), invented modern science, and learned that religion must be kept private and could not be the basis of objective thinking, much less of public policy. We discovered modern forms of government, economics and technology, which brought about peace, convenience and prosperity like never before.

Now, this is not a prelude to bashing anything in our modern world. I quite like our world most of the time, and we all benefit from its advances in countless ways. My point, rather, is that this can be a salvation story. It can tell a story of humanity as isolated, ignorant, suffering and violent, only recently reborn by a process of enlightenment.

The Easter Vigil tells a different story, which goes something like this: Once, there was a time when people lived in harmony with each other and the earth, for their Creator had made them for this. Not individuals, competition and scarcity, but rather unity, the common good and abundance ruled. Religion building. Any time and place we gather as family can be a domestic church, too. and tradition were the very foundations of this, for it was God who gave both. Only later did sin enter — a sort of unfettered universal competition — in which oppression and bloodshed became the norm. But our instincts for our original unity were never completely lost, and so God slowly called us back from fragmentation toward him and each other. Like the first Adam, Jesus Christ’s body became the center of unity, and called all to become part of it by baptism. Being Christ’s body means we have already died and risen with Christ, and so are freed from the fear of death, on which all the world’s violence is based. Though we know our bodies will die, we can offer them freely for our neighbors, even to death, knowing that when we do, eternal life lies just beyond the veil.

How was your own domestic church changed by the pandemic?

You might have spent every waking moment of 2020 or 2021 with your family, or you may have experienced deep isolation, wishing you could gather with children or grandchildren like before. You might have missed important celebrations: weddings, graduations, anniversaries, funerals or births. You may have been so overwhelmed by virtual work and distance learning, divisions in churches and communities, or anxieties about the future that you found it difficult to pray.

Or, you might have found that regular routines of prayer amid the chaos kept you going.

No matter what you experienced, God’s promise to remain constant and faithful holds true. Christ has stayed with us, never abandoning us even as the world turned upside down.

In thanksgiving to our faithful God, we can commit ourselves to deepening our domestic churches as we seek to strengthen our parishes. One simple step we can take is to keep praying at home, for ourselves and others.

Set a special time and place for daily prayer where you live. Let yourself enjoy the physical presence of sacramentals like candles, rosaries, holy water or prayer cards that remind you of God’s presence at home. Place a crucifix, icon or holy artwork on your wall to remind all who enter that this is a place of prayer.

May we give thanks each time we gather now, for the grace of worshipping together in person.

Most of all, may we never take the gift of the Eucharist for granted. May we savor every second of the sacraments and Scriptures we get to receive. May we stick to our promise never to forget.

Fanucci is an author, speaker and founder of Mothering Spirit, an online gathering place on parenting and spirituality. She is a parishioner of St. Joseph the Worker in Maple Grove.

Let me note just one difference between these two stories. While the first story can seem optimistic at times, at its core it is very pessimistic. For it usually implies that, without modern institutions and technologies as external safeguards, human beings tend to be extremely dangerous to one another. Lust for power, violence and greed is who we essentially are, and the modern world is so much better than all others because we have discovered techniques that keep us from destroying each other. That is a very pessimistic view of human nature because it means that each of us is most fundamentally a threat to one another, including our closest friends or our spouses. Fear all around. Universal suspicion. No real intimacy. What a nightmare.

The Christian story is utterly different. The deep reality of sin is firmly acknowledged, but not as a necessary part of human nature, for we are fundamentally made for each other. In baptism, we receive the forgiveness of those very sins by which we fragmented ourselves and re-become one in Christ’s body. In our story, the “law” of scarcity and competition is a lie. Life is a party, a feast. That’s what Easter is all about.

Miller is director of Pastoral Care and Outreach at Assumption in St. Paul. He has a Ph.D. in theology from Duke University, and lives with his family at the Maurin House, a Catholic Worker community in Columbia Heights. You can reach him at colin miller1@protonmail com

The Minnesota Catholic Conference’s Families First Project to remove economic roadblocks to forming and raising a family includes a simple proposal that would make life a bit easier for new parents by reducing the tax burden they encounter when purchasing necessities for their newborn baby. It is a sales tax exemption on baby products. When young couples consider whether to start a family, the start-up costs on items like car seats, cribs and strollers can be daunting. Right now, all families, including families with infants, face skyrocketing costs on necessities. On average, new parents might spend between $12,000 and $20,000 or more on newborns through the first year of their lives. First-time parents face the largest upfront costs as they acquire essential items for their infants. Minnesota cannot afford to lose young families who will support and sustain our welldocumented aging population. Minnesota is facing a demographic cliff; we have not had replacement fertility levels since 2006, according to the Minnesota State Demographic Center. With increasingly low birth rates, offering a small but impactful solution to families like eliminating the state sales tax on essential baby items could help lessen some of the fear felt by prospective parents. The state’s $17.6 billion surplus in 2023 demonstrates that we can afford to support growing families, especially low-income families who are most impacted by sales tax.

One solution: Eliminate the state sales tax on essential baby items.

HF2125 (Engen) / SF2182 (Coleman) is a bipartisan bill that would expand the state sales tax exemption for certain baby products. Specifically, this proposal would put families first by adding baby wipes, cribs, bassinets, crib and bassinet mattresses, crib and bassinet sheets, changing tables, changing pads, strollers, car seats and car seat bases, baby swings, bottle sterilizers and infant eating utensils to the list of tax-free items that are considered essential.

A quick search of places like Amazon and Target reveals, on average, a parent will spend nearly $2,000 on the items covered by the exemption expansion — with the sales tax on the items totaling about $130. Although $130 out of nearly $2,000 does not seem like an overwhelming number, it can make a difference in the lives of new families. With those savings, the parents could in turn purchase their crib mattress and sheets, or nearly pay for a changing table. Eliminating this tax on the big-ticket items is particularly vital for lower-income families who often live paycheck-topaycheck and are more impacted by inflation and sales tax.

Another bill to support families raising minor children would create a state child tax credit, offering a tax rebate for each child (HF1369/SF1754). Families are doing the hard work of raising the next generation amid immense economic pressure. For this reason, families should be the first recipients of economic relief. You can help get a robust child tax credit passed into law by contacting your legislators today.

Send them a message by visiting mncatholic org/actionalerts