Job and His Friends, 1869, by Ilya Repin In the streets and towns of Ireland, these days have taken on a real Lenten feeling of desolation, writes Fr Jeremy Corley
One cold morning a few weeks ago, just before receiving the ashes on my forehead, I heard the traditional Ash Wednesday reading from the prophet Joel: “Proclaim a solemn assembly. Call the people together. Between vestibule and altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, lament. Let them say: spare your people, Lord.”
Just as in other years, I then understood it as a call to spiritual renewal during the season of Lent. But as I think back on it now, this reading has a special poignancy. Faced with a virus for which there is no known medical cure, we turn to God in prayer: “Spare your people, Lord.”
Desolation
In the streets and towns of Ireland, these days have taken on a real Lenten feeling of desolation. Indeed, all over the world, millions of people are affected. Vast cities in China have been almost entirely closed down, and many European towns have empty streets. In Italy, more than 60 priests have already died from the coronavirus.
This pandemic has made us think again about our human abilities and limits. A recent report declared that a planned international space probe to Mars is now being postponed by at least two years because of the virus. In previous years, we could send astronauts to the moon, but now you can hardly buy a plane ticket to fly from Dublin to Rome.
Some universities advertise their courses with the slogan ‘limitless,’ and indeed the possibilities for students can often seem unlimited. But the coronavirus forces us to face up to the stubborn limits of our creaturely state. As Pope Francis reminded us in his ecological document, Laudato Si’: “We are not God. The Earth was here before us.”
Some ecologists have accused our Western culture of being ‘anthropocentric’. As a species, we human beings give so much attention to our desires and needs that we often forget the needs of the other creatures with whom we share the planet.
Because of the difficulties involved in simply surviving, people in past ages were probably much more aware of the fragility of life. Ancient religious texts dwelt on these issues with a directness that can sometimes make us uncomfortable today.
The Book of Job reflects on the limits facing human beings. Understandably, Job in his suffering is so caught up in his personal pain, that he cannot think about the vast world beyond him. He blames God for not attending to his pressing personal needs, but ignores the fact that God has to look after the whole cosmos.
Before the end of the book, God asks Job: “Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain, and a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land where no one lives, on the desert which is empty of human life, to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground put forth grass?”
The world has uninhabited wildernesses with dry expanses of sand. Yet when God sends rain, suddenly the desert blooms with lovely wild flowers that are normally dormant. On some occasions, no human beings will witness this beautiful sight, and yet it is one small part of God’s providential organising of the cosmos.
We can learn from Job’s initial attitude of acceptance of his suffering: ‘Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?’”
At the end of the Book of Job, God does not give him any rational explanation for his pain. Job does not discover why he has suffered this anguish. Ultimately, the problem of suffering does not find an answer in the book.
Today we may also find it hard to understand why God allows so many people to be afflicted by the coronavirus. But perhaps we can learn from Job’s initial attitude of acceptance of his suffering: “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?”
Moreover, we can learn from Job’s first response to his affliction: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Perhaps we can also be consoled by the conclusion of the story, when God restores Job to health and blesses him after his suffering is over. Job does not finish by gaining all the answers, but he has an encounter with God, and that is enough for him.
The Ash Wednesday reading from the prophet Joel has a hopeful ending: “Then the Lord, jealous on behalf of his land, took pity on his people.” In other words, God listened to the heartfelt prayers for mercy, and restored his people.
We believe that the pain of Lent leads to the joy of Easter. It is possible that this year the Lenten situation of the virus may extend longer than 40 days. But we pray in hope that the coronavirus will subside, and God will grant us his gift of new life.
Fr Jeremy Corley is a priest of the diocese of Portsmouth, England, ordained in 1987. After five years of parish work, he undertook a doctorate in biblical studies at the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C and since 2011 has taught scripture at St Patrick’s College Maynooth. He is currently president of the Irish Biblical Association.