Maynooth College reflects on COVID 19

New Realities in Uncertain Times

Jeremy Corley, Neil O'Donoghue, Salvador Ryan

• Publisher: Messenger Publications
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781788123358
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

Where is God in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic? This volume offers a variety of reflections from the perspectives of theology, scripture, philosophy, ethics, liturgy, pastoral, and canon law. The chapters are addressed to anyone seeking understanding, whatever the level of faith. The book will be helpful for those in parish ministry and interested laypersons, especially in the Irish context. Besides being valuable for personal reading, the volume is also a welcome resource for parish councils or small parish groups, because each chapter concludes with questions for reflection and discussion. This book seeks to offer the beginnings of a theological reflection that will doubtless take years to complete. Contributors to the volume include Tom Casey SJ, Anne Codd PBVM, Pádraig Corkery, Jeremy Corley, Philip Gonzales, Michael Hurley, Gaven Kerr, Nóirín Lynch, Michael Mullaney, Neil Xavier O’Donoghue, Kevin O’Gorman SMA, Noel O’Sullivan, Jessie Rogers, Salvador Ryan, and Michael Shortall. The volume also includes an interview on the pandemic originally given to the Tablet by Pope Francis.

Praying in a Time of Pandemic

Kevin O’Gorman, SMA

‘Deliver, Lord, your Church, to save it from all evil.’ (First / second century Didache 10)

‘In liturgy as in life, the stakes are high.’1

Just prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis, a copy of Bishop B. C. Butler’s book Prayer2 came to hand. As the pandemic intensified and increasingly became the sole topic of conversation in society and the media, the book’s subtitle – An Adventure in Living – raised serious questions for ‘prayer and faith’ in a period that focussed on sheer survival. The title of two popular songs from the 1970s – ‘Stayin’ Alive’ (The Bee Gees) and ‘Surviving the Life’ (Neil Diamond) – sounded more in tune with the time and its troubles. The second phrase in the latter’s lyrics, ‘Providing the soul’, presents the problem of survival not solely in physical but also in spiritual terms. The ‘terms and conditions’ of lockdown and separation raised issues of both health, arising from illness, and hope as a result of isolation.

In the Foreword of his book Butler speaks of ‘ordinary unassuming busy folk faced, as we all are, by the immeasurable mystery of existence and the need to take up some position in the face of that mystery’.3 The global experience of the pandemic has engendered existential and economic, ethical and evangelical questions for many of us, if not all, as we are forced to face assumptions about so-called ‘normal living’. Opening up the scope of his work Butler offers the following invitation: ‘But I would hope that even an agnostic, if this book should fall into his hands, would catch some glimpse of the meaning which it tries to express, and would judge it no betrayal of his intellectual integrity to feel that it would be good if these things could be found to be true’.4 Appealing to integrity, prayer in a time of pandemic seeks to identify, interpret and intercede for ‘these things’.

The Embolism, the prayer immediately following the Lord’s Prayer in the Communion Rite of the Mass, offers an opportunity to both explore and express the things essential to human survival on earth. Described in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal as ‘developing the last petition of the Lord’s Prayer itself, [it] asks for deliverance from the power of evil for the whole community of the faithful’.5 Placed between the Our Father and the doxology, the Embolism is an expression of both petition and proclamation. Ending on an eschatological note, it can be extended to embrace the whole of humanity in its explicit reference to the Second Coming of Christ the Redeemer. As an elucidation of ‘prayer and faith’ in and for a time of emergency, the Embolism is eminently eloquent.

Deliver us, Lord, we pray, from every evil

Deliverance has a deep biblical resonance, beginning with the release of Israel from bondage in Egypt. This deliverance is the basis of their bond as a people under the leadership of Moses and their belonging to God by covenant. Daniel Harrington declares that ‘what was new about the Mosaic religion was the emphasis on the escape from Egypt as the great act of God on behalf of his people’.6 Deliverance is a dynamic description of God’s intervention in the life of both Israel and individuals. Despite hearing ‘so many disparaging me, “Terror from every side! Denounce him!”’ the prophet Jeremiah proclaims he will sing and praise ‘the Lord for he has delivered the soul of the needy from the hands of evil persons’ (Jer 20:10, 13). The Psalmist issues the poetic petition, ‘Deliver us, O Lord, from our bondage as streams in dry land’ (Ps 126[125]:4). Detailing the distinctiveness of divine deliverance in the Old Testament and describing its many different deeds, Wilhelm Kasch declares that ‘they are determined by the creating and sustaining will of Yahweh for whom the salvation of the people and the individual is part of his creative action in the salvation history commenced by him. Because he is the sovereign Lord of this history, the nature, range and possibility of deliverance are wholly dependent on him and his will’.7

Although the idea of deliverance is central to the proclamation of the New Testament, the English versions of the NT vary in their wording to express this theme. One important passage occurs in Luke 4:18, where Jesus sets out his mission in the synagogue at Nazareth, quoting from Isaiah. Raymond Brown comments that ‘the passage (Is 61:1–2), which reflects the Jubilee-year amnesty for the oppressed, is used to portray Jesus as an anointed prophet and is programmatic of what Jesus’ ‘ministry will bring about’.8 Whereas the King James Version translates the third part of this programme as ‘to preach deliverance to the captives’, many other versions refer to ‘release’ rather than ‘deliverance’. Whatever the exact translation here, the Bible employs a variety of synonyms to teach that God is a God of deliverance. In his letters, Paul places Christ at the centre of God’s plan for deliverance of humanity from evil, declaring that the Father ‘has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son’ (Col 1:13 NRSV). With universal deliverance ultimately dependent on the death and resurrection of Jesus, Luke depicts its delivery on earth in the deeds of Jesus during his public ministry. As John Navone notes, ‘the characteristically Lucan theme of salvation’ is ‘linked with deliverance from death in the account about Jairus’ daughter’ and ‘associated with deliverance from diabolical possession; and with the remission of sins in the case of the sinful woman and Zacchaeus’.9

Illness and isolation, sickness and separation are among the physical and social evils experienced by people during the pandemic. The daily register of cases and deaths reported both at home and abroad have made for sombre statistics. One letter writer thanked the medical and scientific community for ‘the reintroduction of the word “death” into common parlance’, instead of ‘the dreaded Americanism “passed away” or more commonly, and worse, “passed” to describe what happens when a body breathes its last’.10 The prevalence of deaths and the poignancy of restricted funeral rites due to the pandemic drive the need for deliverance from this dreaded form of evil, drawing down prayer that the coronavirus may pass. Acknowledging the reality of death in this life, the Second Vatican Council affirmed that ‘while the imagination is at a loss before the mystery of death, the Church, taught by divine revelation, declares that God has created people in view of a blessed destiny that lies beyond the boundaries of earthly misery’.11 Praying to be delivered from ‘every evil’, especially in the end death, expresses the faith which ‘makes them capable of being united in Christ with their loved ones who have already died, and gives them hope that they have found true life with God.12

The initial intercession of the Embolism is an immediate repetition of the final petition of the Our Father. Indeed, as Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI) states, ‘throughout the ages men and women have interpreted this petition in a broader sense. In the midst of the world’s tribulations they have also begged God to set a limit to the evils that ravage the world and our lives’.13 The extension to engage ‘every evil’, expanding the concern of the Church to embrace the ills and injustices experienced in earthly existence, is fittingly expressed by Pope Benedict XVI: ‘Yes, we may and we should ask the Lord also to free the world, ourselves, and the many individuals and peoples who suffer from the tribulations that make life almost unbearable’.14

Graciously grant peace in our days

The second element exchanges the positive for the negative, interceding for God to graciously grant the gift of peace, which will be repeated almost immediately in the Prayer for Peace. Noting that ‘our word peace does not bring out all the richness of the Hebrew word shalom stem[ming] from a root which means to be whole, intact, finished, complete’, Gisbert Ghysens states that it ‘refers, of course, to individual happiness; but also (and more often) it looks to the collective prosperity of the nation as a whole’.15 Like the biblical concept of justice, peace is a relational reality rooted in and resulting from the covenant with God. Peace is mentioned at the end of the beautiful blessing in the Book of Numbers, ‘May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord let his face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord uncover his face and bring you peace’ (Num 6:24–26). Indeed, this blessing bears the peace which many of the Psalms proclaim as the sign of God’s presence. The fulfilment of God’s faithfulness is often interpreted and indicated by the prophets in the bestowing of the Messianic blessing of peace. Some of the most powerful Old Testament texts in the Advent liturgy are assurances of peace in prosperity. Isaiah, in particular, points to the personification in the Messianic prophecy: ‘For there is a child born for us…and this is the name they give him... Prince-of-Peace’ (Is 9:5).

In the New Testament Luke, seeing peace as a symbol of salvation, has Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, point to the light of dawn that, delivering from ‘darkness and the shadow of death’, leads ‘into the way of peace’ (1:79). This sense of fulfilment is immediately felt by Simeon who declares that he is ready to depart in peace having seen the Messiah in the child Jesus in the Temple (2:29–32). Luke is the evangelist of peace, bracketing the ministry of Jesus between the announcement by the angels of the advent of peace and the announcement of the Risen Lord at his appearance to the anguished disciples, ‘Peace be with you’ (2:14; 24:36). As the apostle of peace Paul announces that Christ has come to proclaim ‘peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near, for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father’ (Eph 2:17–18). Paul presents peace positively, not purely as the end of hostility but as the experience of happiness that ends in holiness.

In the ‘Farewell Discourse’ of the Gospel of John, Jesus promises peace to his disciples. Chapter 14 begins with Jesus telling the disciples ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled’, which he doubles on with the addition ‘and do not let them be afrai...