Preface
None of us, not even those subject to war-time restrictions, will ever have experienced a Holy Week like this; so in preparing Reflections for each day of the week I have consciously tried to strike a balance between escaping and being captured by the COVID-19 virus. To ignore it altogether would be naive - like the Morning Eucharist I attended which did not mention the death of Princess Diana the night before - but to entwine it into reflections on the set texts would have produced highly artificial and unsatisfactory results.
Instead I have chosen to focus on the inversely proportionate ideas of control on the one hand and uncertainty and difference on the other. The reason for this is that one of the underlying anxieties in the current crisis is our lack of control of events and the inability of science to produce watertight models and solutions which leave us hauntingly uncertain, destroying, I maintain, false security, a paradigm which, sadly, writes across from physics to theology. We should never forget that the divine 'purpose' is a mystery and that all theology is metaphor which requires sensitivity and humility, not aggressive uniformity.
I am aware that these texts are more dense and challenging than it would be prudent to attempt in giving sermons from a pulpit but most of us will have much more time than usual to research using the internet and all of us will have much more time to think. Indeed, for most of us the shift from a life without enough time to one with too much may present the greatest of all our current multitude of challenges.
I am happy to correspond by email or talk on the telephone about any issues arising from these reflections or, indeed, to talk about anything at all!
In the meantime, watch - literally - watch and pray.
Kevin Carey
The Feast of the Annunciation 2020
- Byatt, AS: The Virgin in the Garden (commission earned)
- Bentley-Hart, David: That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell and Universal Salvation (commission earned)
- Homer: Iliad; Odyssey (tr. Fagles) (commission earned)
- Wright, NT: The Day The Revolution Began. (commission earned)
Sections
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