The Mask of Unreality

Our Western/North American culture is a culture of Unreality, a culture of ideology, a culture of cancellation, a culture of death. I am reminded of the part of The Fantasticks, when Luisa is forced to put on "the mask" which blinds her to all pain and suffering in the world around her, and which even makes her enjoy it as a "show."

Luisa:

See -- he's there with his assistants.

They all know Yogi --

And they're just loads of fun!

There's one -- a young one --

They're putting him down on some nails.

(SHE puts down her mask)

If he fails, He'll be cut to bits by those nails.

Matt: Help!

Luisa: Someone help him.

El Gallo: The mask!

Luisa: But he's bleeding!

El Gallo: Mask!

Luisa: Horrible!

El Gallo: MASK!

(And HE forces it up to her face. Once more, the transition)

Luisa: Go on. Sit down harder. He's a sissy. I don't believe he's a real fakir. They never complain. He's a fake fakir.

Matt: Help!

Luisa: Fake!

Reading that part of the script is at least disturbing, if not somewhat sickening, isn't it? ... Well TAKE OFF YOUR DANG MASK! Babies are being torn apart, literally limb from limb, in their mothers' womb; Elderly/Special needs people are being denied the help needed to live; Half the people in the world barely have enough food to survive the day; Both children and adults are murdering themselves, or are at least trying to, at an atrocious rate; and we sit back in our cushioned Church pews doing nothing. Our culture says, "put on the mask" and we obedient Catholics listen.

What kind of mask could possibly make us so blind to the diabolical evil around us? The mask of pride; the mask of me; the mask of self-love. Luisa put on the mask and immediately became interested in herself and her own entertainment; even the pain of others was for her own enjoyment, and if it didn't hurt bad enough it wasn't worth looking at. This is exactly the spirit of our culture. We pay to see the brokenness of others. Movies, magazines, social media, news, porn ... we pay to see people suffer, for our enjoyment. When someone is hurting bad enough that they take off the mask of Unreality and dare to speak the truth, the only remedy we offer is to suffocate them with the very mask that broke them in the first place -- self-love.

Self-love doesn't heal broken hearts. It makes them into unbreakable stones. Some people really do have a problem with body/person image, how they see themselves, self-hate. I know. I do not diminish the pain and heartache of those people because it is real. I feel it. It's in my own home. It's in myself. So when I say all this I'm not telling people to suck it up, I've tried to walk that route myself and it only leads to deeper pain. But the self-love that this culture offers leads the exact same way. Self-love in itself can never heal. The culture has been trying that route for decades and we can see that it doesn't work. Only one love can heal. Only Love can heal.

God isn't merely everything; He isn't an invisible force that floats around. Omnipotent and Omnipresent became weak and finite. God became a thing. He became a person. Jesus. Jesus broke the limits, the "rules," the boundaries to enter into our brokenness. He came to Samaria just for the adulterer at the well. He came to Jericho just for a short, selfish tax collector. You are being crushed by your cross, by the weight of the world on your shoulders. You feel it. He came to Calvary, to the Cross, to meet you, to feel YOUR pain, to be crushed under YOUR cross so that you can never say that He doesn't know or He doesn't care. Jesus is undeniable in the real world. Let Him pull the suffocating mask from your face. Let Him break into your life. It will hurt. It will be uncomfortable. It will be the most incredible, indescribable life you could ever imagine.

(photo credit: https://www.deviantart.com/radioactive-jello/art/Broken-Masquerade-Mask-Closeup-124747831)