Love in the Time of COVID-19
Today is Laetare Sunday. Laetare means rejoice, and is the first word of the ancient prayer that opens this liturgy: “Rejoice, Jerusalem: and all who love her: Be joyful, all who have been in sorrow: that you may exult and be filled from the breasts of your consolation.”
This year, in particular, we get the sorrow part: we've been displaced and isolated. We miss our friends and seniors, in particular, are missing out on all the festivities that mark the end of a schoolyear and their college career. No Senior week. Maybe even no commencement ceremonies! No closure. So, what possible reasons could we have to rejoice?
Questions are raised by those who do not understand God as incarnate: Why would God allow this virus? Is it a punishment for a sinful world? This is similar to the questions asked in today's gospel by those who challenge Jesus. "Who has sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind"?
I read the statement of an atheist who feels that the notion of God has finally lost in the debate between science and God. The comment: "Seems like all eyes are on science for a solution to the coronavirus, not on God. Churches are closed! Liturgies are canceled! People are slowly realizing that real problems can’t be solved by imaginary solutions!” That is this person’s reason to rejoice!
But, clearly, the author of this quote does not understand the God of Jesus! The assumption is that if there were a God, God would not allow the coronavirus or at least would eradicate it once it appeared. But Jesus says that doesn't sound like any God that I know. The God I know is not separate from nature controlling it. Instead, God is with us in it.
Remember how we began Lent: “Remember you are dust, and to dust, you will return." We reflected on the paschal possibilities (life, death, resurrection) in this statement: We are of God. God is the essence of our being; God always was and always will be, and if we are of God, the same is true of us! We come from the stuff of the cosmos, and we will return to it. But when we return, we return to a place of completeness. We have learned to hope and to love. Our faith is in eternal life.
The second reading assures that Christ gives us light in the darkness. Christ is the light in the darkness. Nothing in the darkness ultimately matters. Nothing in the darkness is of God. So we move away from sorrow and mourning during this dark time of quarantine to "every kind of righteousness and truth." Through science, we find ways to alleviate the suffering that accompanies illness and death, and we take precautions to avoid causing more of it. We are anointed by God to do so in this temporal place. But no matter how successful science is in this endeavor, it doesn't overcome the eventuality of death. Christ has already done that, by bringing the human and the divine into communion!
As Catholic Christians, we usually celebrate that reality in the Eucharist. Our current darkness does not allow that. But we can at least commune spiritually until we come together again at the altar of the Lord. We can hold each other in prayer. We can share our faith online through Bible study and sharing reflections on the daily and Sunday readings. We can check-in with friends and, especially, older relatives and neighbors who are isolated and yearn to hear from us. That’s the Liturgy of the Word.
Google The Mass on the World. It is the first chapter of Teilhard de Chardin’s book: Hymn of the Universe. In the Mongolian desert without bread or wine, Teilhard, a Jesuit priest, prays mass over the elements available to him: land; sky; wind; fire. How do we pray the Eucharist in isolation without bread, without wine, without priest? We acknowledge the holiness of all we see. Our homes. Our rooms. Our land. Our people. We pray in consecration, acknowledging that all is holy. This is why Jesus chose bread and wine. They were the most basic available elements. We see creation not with our own limited vision, but with the healed vision of Christ. At first, it is not very clear. But with time, all can come into focus. We see the connectedness of all creation and, as we say in the Creed, of all things visible and invisible. We enter into the darkness of our isolation, disappointment, illness, and through our healed vision are able to see the light in that darkness, the light of Christ. We expose the fruits of the works of darkness. We rise from it by living the light of Christ. And then we share it. So, rejoice. Laetare!
