The LORD said to Samuel: “How long will you grieve for Saul, whom I have rejected as king of Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and be on your way. I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem, for I have chosen my king from among his sons.”
Like catastrophes of the past -- World War II, the assassination of JFK, the shuttle disasters, 9-11 -- the onset of the Pandemic is fading away. The normal that we hoped to retrieve after a month or two of quarantine is disappearing like the last car of a train. Political events, technological developments, arts and entertainment, wars, fires, floods, tornadoes: they keep coming. And they keep altering whatever it was we called normal.
The LORD seems to ask us, How long will you grieve that which will never return? The pandemic felt like a punishment when it began. "It is certainly punishing!" I said to some people who replied that it was not God's wrath. Two years later they're more inclined to agree with me. It feels like punishment.
What are we learning from this hardship?
Several epidemics preceded this one: HIV/AIDS, Legionnaire's Disease, the Bird Flu, Ebola, and so forth. When the corona virus hit it was easy to blame a President who was clearly overwhelmed and unprepared to deal with it. His incompetence and mismanagement seemed to exacerbate the trouble.
But it soon became apparent even to die hard Democrats that this disease was worse than anything we'd experienced before. Even as the medical sciences developed with astonishing, unprecedented speed an effective treatment, we were not prepared to address the spiritual crisis.
This disease came at the worse possible time for a divided nation. For one thing, we'd forgotten the importance of public health. If we're outliving our ancestors by twenty, thirty, and forty years it's not because our private physicians have better surgeries. Rather, the governments -- federal, state, and local -- have built and maintained the infrastructures that protect us against disease, poisoning, and accidents. How many anagrams should we name to remind us of that? OSHA, FDA, NIH, FHA, HUD, etc. More than I can think of.
Hospitals and health care workers have been overwhelmed by the pandemic largely because people denied the importance of public health. We must care for one another. But many refuse to cooperate even as many unvaxxed-by-choice die of Covid. Some beg for the shot just before they're put on the ventilators. They exercise their freedom with "No!" They have forgotten how to say, "Yes" and "Thank You."
How long will you grieve?
The disease has come at the best possible time for a divided nation. It will disappear when we reunite. In his book Upswing, Robert Putnam points to the opportunity to begin rebuilding social cohesion. He recalls the deep economic and social divisions of the Gilded Age, the gradual leveling of America from the 1890's through the Great Depression and two world wars, and the disintegration that began in the 1960's. By that time, social cohesion had suppressed too many individual freedoms and conformity had become unbearable.
Religion offers the opportunity to regroup. Our Catholic religion -- because it is catholic -- invites everyone to set aside their cherished opinions and accept the revealed truths of our faith. Clearly, Catholics are not united by our political opinions, economic interests, or racial harmony! Even our languages are diverse. But our Baptism gathers us and our Holy Communion unites us.
As the year ended, the Church listened to the words of Pope Saint Leo the Great in the Office of Reading. They are worth hearing again:
So those who are born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God must offer to the Father the unanimity of peace-loving sons, and all of them, adopted parts of the mystical Body of Christ, must meet in the First-Begotten of the new creation.
He came to do not his own will but the will of the one who sent him; and so too the Father in his gracious favor has adopted as his heirs not those that are discordant nor those that are unlike him, but those that are one with him in feeling and in affection. Those who are remodeled after one pattern must have a spirit like the model.
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I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.