A Killer Virus
By Bishop Carl F. Mengeling

Spiritual health should always be a front-burner concern for Catholics and everyone. Total care of our souls and those in our care is a serious responsibility with immense consequences. Happiness, now and forever, depends on it.

For Catholics and other Christians, spiritual health is the goal of our Lenten Season of repentance and conversion. There’s an amazing similarity in our concern and efforts for health of body and health of soul. Both depend on: healthy lifestyle, disease prevention and detection, treatment and recovery and steadfastness.

The usual response to "virus" is confusion, fear and anxiety. It’s like a mysterious agent destroying our bodies. It works secretly and unnoticed until symptoms appear. At first we’re not aware, but gradually we know something is wrong.

There are also viruses that attack the health of the soul -- and they operate like the virus that attacks the body.

The New Testament singled out a dreadful virus that invades, weakens and threatens the whole edifice our spiritual life. It’s symptoms, strategy and lethal effects were identified. It is LUKEWARMNESS marked by an anemic sadness and spiritual paralysis.

This virus that begets sadness is the opposite of the joy that comes with a healthy spiritual life. Only John’s Gospel gives us Jesus’ last discourse at the Last Supper. Chapters 14-16 are a profound revelation of the heart of our Savior. At the heart of his message, Jesus pauses and says: "All this I tell you that my joy may be yours and your joy may be complete" (John 15:11).

Revelation, the final book of the Bible, warns of this virus. The Spirit tells the Church at Laodicea: "I know your deeds. I know you are neither hot nor cold. How I wish you were one or the other hot or cold! But because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth" (Rev 3:15-16).

To the Church at Ephesus: "I hold this against you; you have turned aside from your early love. Keep family in mind the heights from which you have fallen. Repent and return to your former deeds" (Rev. 2:4-5).

What are the symptoms of lukewarmness? They are summed up in the words of the Spirit, "I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first." Christ is no longer seen or heard. Friendship for the Lord has become spiritless, faded and dull. The spiritual life becomes routine, sickly and feeble. It is now "doing things" and no longer "loving someone." The soul becomes uncaring and unenthusiastic for Christ.

Fr. Rodriquez writes: "Lack of devotion is the essence of lukewarmness. Devotion is a commitment of love, availability and surrender. Lukewarmness is a wholesale disdain for prayer and sacrifice, a preoccupation with selfish concerns and comfort, a coarse and lazy approach to anything that pertains to the Lord and a self-centered pursuit of human approval."

St. Jose Maria Escriva writes: "Lukewarmness means softness, laziness bent on the easiest, most pleasurable way, any shortcut, even infidelity to God."

Lukewarmness is a tricky virus that creeps up on us. It’s presence is clear when our spiritual life is "getting by with the minimal and as little exertion as possible." We give up on prayer and the struggle to improve and our compromises take over.

The lukewarm Christian is like the train that left the main track and sits marooned on a side spur going nowhere.

The cure is to get back on the main track -- "the way, truth and life" of Christ. No better time than Lent!