“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” This is a proverb that speaks loudly to us in the world of COVID-19.
Contrary to the assertions made by so many “faith leaders” and Christian pastors who claim wearing a COVID-19 face mask is the most charitable thing to do, it appears this nationwide cultural determination to force everyone to wear a face mask in public has become much more than a simple attempt at loving thy neighbor. I contend it’s reached a level that borders on false religious worship and grave offense to God.
This is a good time to mention that I think different people wear masks for different reasons. Some are extremely afraid of dying, but others simply want to avoid getting harassed in the grocery store isle and need to buy food for their families. Many individuals have many different reasons for wearing the COVID-19 face mask.
I fully agree that the motivations of many may be good ones. I have even worn the COVID mask occasionally in order to participate in public activities or at the polite request of a shopkeeper who is afraid of getting shut down by the government. I am as guilty as the rest in falling into this trap.
The problem is that by cooperating with this overbearing social pressure to conform to COVID-19 cultural and legal mandates, especially when you do not need to do so in order to feed a family, compromises our soul by separating ourselves from the true God. The purpose of this post is to show why that is the case.
When I initially drafted this post, it focused on how mandatory, public COVID mask requirements was simply a tool or method used by nefarious forces to dehumanize the population in order to make exercising unlawful authoritarian control over a willing populace easier and more effective. Of course, all of this is true. However, after some deep prayer and asking the Holy Ghost to help guide me on this, I decided to scrap it and focus on perhaps the more important question of why the American public is so willing to go along with mandatory mask requirements, and why this is problematic for our spiritual lives.
We must first acknowledge that whether or not face masks are effective in controlling The Virus is at best questionable from an objective point of view. Even the CDC’s own study published in May of 2020 admits that “Although mechanistic studies support the potential effect of hand hygiene or face masks, evidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of these measures did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza.”
These studies were consistent with almost all previous studies done (before The Virus) that showed “masks and respirators do not work to prevent respiratory influenza-like illnesses, or respiratory illnesses believed to be transmitted by droplets and aerosol particles.” It is safe to conclude that wearing a face mask from an objective standpoint is not saving lives or helping to control the Virus and the government knows it. Something else must be going on.
The cultish-like behavior and obsession with wearing masks and “social distancing” is beyond anything like we have seen in a supposedly free society or population. People die all the time in car accidents, drug abuse, heart disease, etc. but we don’t see this level of obsession with wearing masks or taking other “prevention measures” that most Americans seemingly are accepting without question nationwide.
The answer to this perplexing question is a spiritual one, not just a biological or political one. St. Thomas Aquinas taught us that man is naturally inclined “to know the truth about God, and to live in society.” (Summa Theologica, I-II q. 94, art. 2). He identifies this inclination to know God and live in society along with the inclination to preserve life and the inclination to procreate as the primary precepts of the natural law. Thus, mankind is always searching for purpose and meaning in life, while craving the good will of other people.
Bear with me here, because this all ties back into the face mask issue. We can know the precepts of the natural law through reason. But through His mercy, God also gave us the Ten Commandments to spell out in clear detail how we are supposed to live if we want to lead a good, moral life. What’s interesting about that is that the Israelites, to whom God initially gave the Ten Commandments, engaged in open idol worship despite having just been led out of slavery by God’s servant, Moses—that is, by worshiping the Golden Calf and then sitting down to eat, drink and play (i.e. engage in immoral activities) (Exodus 32: 3-6). It was up to Moses to climb back up Mount Sinai where God wrote on new stone tablets the Commandments for the second time because Moses smashed the first set of tablets after witnessing the worshiping of the Golden Calf fiasco.
After Moses came back down the mountain, his skin was shining because he had been talking to God directly. Scripture then tells us that the Israelites were “afraid to come near him.” Nevertheless, Moses continues to teach them, but he “put a veil on his face” when doing so. When Moses went back up the mountain to speak with the Lord, he removed the veil from his face (Exodus 34:29-35).
Fortunately for us, Saint Paul explains the importance of this passage from Exodus about Moses covering his face. Paul says:
“Therefore, since we have such hope, we act very boldly and not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites could not look intently at the cessation of what was fading. Rather, their thoughts were rendered dull, for to this present day the same veil remains unlifted when they read the old covenant, because through Christ it is taken away. To this day, in fact, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts, but whenever a person turns to the Lord the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:12-18).
This is amazing. Moses’ face covering serves as a barrier or obstacle between God and the Israelites who openly rejected the Lord through idol worship and did not yet know Christ. With the coming of Jesus Christ, the veil can be removed and we can open our hearts and experience the freedom that the true God offers all of us. The Israelites who were knee deep in sin and debauchery could not stand to see the face of Moses that reflected the glory of God. Unlike his people, Moses did not have this barrier between him and the true God, and so he removed the veil from his face when speaking with the Lord.
And yet, here we are in 2020 America where her people, like the Israelites, insist on wearing face coverings out of fear. But something else is going on here too. Like the Israelites, who worshiped false gods and engaged in immoral behavior, so too does the America we find ourselves immersed in. And yet, Americans, I believe, truly WANT to “know God” and worship Him because of our natural inclination to do so.
Rather than remove the face masks and accept the commandments of the Lord, which offers a path to holiness and freedom, Americans satisfy their desire and natural law inclination to worship God by substituting a false god, one sign of which is the face mask. Wearing a face mask represents your membership in the false religion of scientism (or materialism), fear of death, and rejection of the True God. Rather than trusting in Christ who reigns over the world as a true King, how many Americans prefer to substitute state governors and “experts” to provide answers and hope for the future that satisfies their deepest passions and cravings for something beyond themselves to worship?
For many, wearing the mask justifies their own sense of importance (saving the world from The Virus), but more importantly, symbolizes membership in the larger, government approved religion, which claims to hold all the answers to life’s problems and sufferings. This false religion appears to provide meaning in life while at the same time seems to explain and provide relief from the confusing and threatening world so many perceive around every corner. Failure to abide by the required cult practices and rituals demonstrates a rejection of this religion and is thereby a threat to society as whole. Refusing to play along with this culturally created and enforced ritual is like Moses coming down the mountain and ruining the Golden Calf party.
This is why those who question mandatory mask mandates and openly reject obstacles to maintaining close inter-personal relationships with friends and family, not to mention Christ Himself through public worship, are so roundly and forcefully punished—either by government retribution or public shaming.
What we are witnessing is the manifestation of the natural inclination to want to know God but substituting a false idol for the true God because, quite frankly, most Americans want to be affirmed in their lifestyles and fears, and would rather trust in a government overlord who promises freedom from death and suffering. To maintain this delusion and confirm the religion, the populace must continue the charade and rituals such as wearing a face mask. Like worshiping the Golden Calf, adherence to this new anti-religion is what the Evil One has always wanted and he found plenty of otherwise well-meaning Americans to go right along with the sham.
To summarize and to put it another way, many individuals have good intentions or motivations for wearing masks and social distancing. Yet, the Evil One is very clever. He takes this naturally good inclination to please God and help the community and misdirects it away from proper faith and charity towards an acceptance and participation in a devious scheme purposely designed to ensnare the well-meaning person into rejecting true faith, hope and charity grounded in Christ, the King of kings.
In its place, unwary Americans are driven en mass into accepting and participating in a man-made, satanic induced lie that says: “I openly believe and place my hope in mankind and its agents to relieve me and my loved ones from suffering and death and therefore pledge my thoughts and actions to cooperating with the plan of those who have been designated as mankind’s experts and leaders for the purpose of achieving this goal.”
Wearing a face mask is a visible and public sign of one’s agreement with this creed, or at best, willingness to tolerate this ideology to avoid conflict, punishment or public shaming.
At its core, Americans are replacing God, not with a Golden Calf, but with an idol to mankind—as the deliverer from hardship, fear and pain into a glorious hopeful future that avoids unnecessary hardship and suffering. The dogma is “science” as interpreted by government officials and predetermined “experts” who serve as the cult leaders. The sign of membership, and the mechanism by which social adherence to this false religion is publicly enforced, is the COVID-19 face mask.
Membership is important to maintain in such a cult because it becomes easier to control the masses when more significant or intrusive actions are required in the future by its leadership. What is going to be asked of us next? Mandatory vaccines? Shut down unapproved businesses? Restrictions on heretical speech contrary to the dogma of this COVID religion? We are already seeing those commands and the membership’s unquestioning compliance.
How should Americans properly respond to this false COVID-19 religion that has taken the nation by storm? Once a nation comes to know Christ, everything else, including science and politics will fall into place.
As St. Paul said, it is coming to and forming a relationship with Jesus Christ and the visible Church He founded, whose longstanding teachings can guide us through the uncertainty and chaos that seems to be consuming the world. It also means rejecting false gods, false hopes and false prophets that the modern culture is serving up on silver platter disguised as “charity.” True charity can only be found in Truth, and Christ is Truth as He says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6). We must put away the face mask and take up the Cross. Or, as Saint Phillip Neri succinctly puts it, “Let no one wear a mask, otherwise he will do ill; and if he has one, let him burn it.”