If Jesus Came in the Days of Covid-19....

N.B.: The following passages represent re-imagined moments from Scripture to speak to our present situation living with the repercussions of covid-19 and are meant primarily for the sake of humor.  No irreverence is intended.  The same cannot be said, however, for satire.

Jesus healed a woman who had been infirm for eighteen years and was criticized for it by the authorities who were afraid because He challenged the authority of their medical practice.  He then said to them:

"To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?  It is like to a coronavirus, which men took and released into the world, and it grew and spread through all the world and none could wipe it out, and wherever people went there were remembrances of it and it was the thought on everyone's mind and the first topic of every conversation." (cf. Luke 13:18-19)

Another time, Jesus was speaking to His disciples, instructing them that they must be prepared for scandals to come, but urging them not to scandalize anyone and to forgive everyone even should someone repeat the same sin seven times a day against them.  The disciples, not liking the hard work of virtue this would require, pretended to accept its reality and said to Him:

"Increase our faith."

He, however, recognizing how His words would lead to an explosion of virtue signaling as all began to speak of how they would forgive anyone without touching the forgiveness they indeed needed to offer, spoke again to bring their minds back to the true realities:

"If you had faith the size of a coronavirus, you might say to this skyscraper: 'Be lifted up and be transported into the desert,' and so it would happen." (cf. Luke 17:6)

Then as Jesus gathered for His last party with His disciples before He would suffer and be put to death and after giving them His body and blood under the form of bread and wine, He gave them instructions on how to live so they would not need to turn to self-help manuals.  He urged them not to seek positions of power and elected offices, but rather to be of no more regard than the homeless on the street, serving others and not thinking of themselves.

Seeing Simon Peter bursting with ideas for social reform and protests in favor of justice, Jesus said to him:

"Simon, Simon, behold Satan desires to have you that he may sift you all as with the testing for covid-19.  But I have prayed for you that your faith should not turn to fear of what may happen in this world and you, when you have been converted, must turn and strengthen your brethren." (Luke 22: 31-32)

Behold the Handmaid of the Lord

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding."

I like to imagine it might have been early in the morning and dark when our Lady crept outside, following a silent prompting in her heart to come out and pray as she stared up at the beauty of the stars fading with the first light of dawn.  Then, in that darkness just before the dawn, the light of the angel Gabriel burst upon her like the rising of the sun.

"Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women."

Called by name, she could not doubt that it was to her the angel spoke.  The message was for her and none other.

Who would not tremble at such a grace-filled message?  The words must have spoken to the depths of her heart and to her vocation, touching her soul in a way that only the truth of the Lord spoken to our hearts can do.

"Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God."

First, the injunction not to fear, a call to trust, to commit all doubts and uncertainty into God's providential love.

Then words of such power:

"Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a Son; and thou shalt call His name Jesus.  He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of David His father; and He shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever.  And of His kingdom there shall be no end."

For where God works there is ever clarity and strength, slicing through our own expectations with the sword of truth.  And He ever calls us to transform our perspective.

"How shall this be done, because I know not man?"

Tradition holds that Mary had taken a vow of perpetual virginity and that Joseph had done so as well.  Her question makes most sense in light of this view, which certainly precludes any possibility or expectation for a child in the picture.  I wonder whether she questioned in that moment her certainty regarding her vow of virginity.  Did she ask in her heart if God wished her to tread a different path?

"The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.  And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: Because no word shall be impossible with God."

Although Mary must have known then that God confirmed her in her vow of virginity, nevertheless the message must have transformed how she saw the entire rest of her life.  She could have questioned further, she could have resisted, she could have clung to what she wanted.

Yet she said only: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word." 

She could scarcely have uttered a more beautiful surrender of her expectations for her life.  All that she must have seen as necessary she laid down, accepting instead the power of God at work.

My prayer today is that we will have the courage to do the same, to surrender anything that we think is necessary for ourselves or others, to lay our expectations at the foot of the angel Gabriel, and speak with Mary: Behold the Lord's servant always, ready to fulfill all that He desires.

I wonder too about those moments after Gabriel departed.  Did the world seem dark and dreary?  Did her heart ache within her even with the joy of receiving God's message?  Perhaps the devil too crept in to tempt her not to trust in the Lord's plan and in His messenger, for if he could undermine her trust, he would have a foothold to drag her away from her obedience.

Yet Mary arose with haste, never heeding such tactics, and went to bring Christ to her cousin, to share with her the glory of God's word.

For her it was necessary only to attend to the duty of the moment and not to worry about the future.  She went to be present where she could draw closer in her service to the Lord and did not fret about what must come or what to do about it or how.

Here I am, Lord; I come to do Your will.