Paneloux, a Catholic priest. The Church announces a prayer week. Father Paneloux delivered a sermon explaining the plague as divine action. Father Paneloux said, "If today the plague is in your midst that is because the hour has struck for taking thought. The just man need have no fear, but the evildoer has good cause to tremble. For plague is the flail of God and the world His threshing-floor, and implacably He will thresh out His harvest until the wheat is separated from the chaff. There will be more chaff than wheat, few chosen of the many called. Yet this calamity was not willed by God. Too long this world of ours has connived at evil, too long has it counted on the divine mercy, on God's forgiveness. . . For a long while God gazed down on this town with eyes of compassion; but He grew weary of waiting… And so, God's light withdrawn, we walk in darkness, in the thick darkness of this plague." Tarrou, another character in the novel, asks Dr. Rieux, "What did you think of Paneloux's sermon, doctor?" Rieux answered "I've seen too much of hospitals to relish any idea of collective punishment. . ." Tarrou then asked, "Do you believe in God, doctor?" The doctor said that if he believed in an all-powerful God he would cease curing the sick and leave that to Him. But no one in the world believed in a God of that sort; no, not even Father Paneloux, who believed that he believed in such a God. I do not expect God to come down to the earth to hand out masks, soaps and sanitizers. He does not produce or supply ventilators, drugs and vaccines. God works through people. It has always been so. Even the Old Testament stories say it. For instance, Moses had to erect a bronze serpent on a pole in order to save the lives of people bitten by fire serpents; he had to strike the rock for water to quench the thirst of his people. . . We may trust in God for strength to negotiate these dreadful times. We may pray so that the medical personnel save more lives and their own and the researchers find a remedy for the pandemic at the earliest. The world currently lives in a ‘new normal’. Christians, at least most of them, have not seen the inside of a Church anytime in the recent past. Most of us have not physically participated in community worship service now for several months. It has been a pretty long time since we have partaken in the ‘Holy Communion’. We still do not have the technology to receive Holy Communion online. Maybe, we might soon have it delivered through courier service, with a price tag attached to it. And most other religious activities, involving physical participation of believers, have remained suspended. Yet, people do not seem to be overly concerned. Hardly anyone worries that God would be angry for abandoning community worship. I do not know whether anyone fears of ending up in an ever burning hell for not partaking in the flesh and blood of the Lord. The idea that God requires community worshipping has been drilled into us from our childhood days. Had this been true, God would not have allowed a situation that prevents the faithful from coming together to worship Him. This is where the words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman become
significant. The Samaritan woman said to Jesus, “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” And Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. . . a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth” (John 4: 19-24). Maybe, this pandemic is meant to teach people how to worship God ‘in the Spirit and in truth’. Religious faith is a personal matter. We do not need palatial structures or any particular rites and rituals to worship God. We do not need an institutionalized Church to live a Christian life – to love one another. Christianity can easily survive without the pomp of an ecclesiastical system that seeks to rule over the believers. Worship does not need the imperial Patriarchs or Bishops in their ceremonial regalia. Christians are under no obligation to maintain this obnoxious system by paying through their noses. The cunningness of early Christian leadership created this abomination. The faithful do not have to live under its tyranny. The clergy alone needs it. Having been accustomed to the old order for a long time, many might find the new normal discomforting. But, it will pass given the time and space to cope. Look how treating the newly infected and the quarantining of their contacts have become an everyday task. Haven’t we become accustomed to death, to mourn silently, to leave our dead to strangers to dispose of as they choose? We no more bother that there are no coffins, caskets, priests or funeral prayers for our relatives and friends. We are not overly disturbed that dead bodies are dumped into mass graves. We do not complain that we cannot say adieu even to our parents, mates and children. “An epidemic normalizes the harshest and most inevitable truth of all: Death.” The pandemic has changed everything, perhaps, forever. It has also been rather subtly changing our outlook on life. We no more feel guilty about preventing the burial of the dead for fear of contamination of the neighbourhood. We shutter up and barricade people in their homes so that they do not come out and spread the virus. We can even refuse to admit our life partners and children into our homes to safeguard ourselves from infection. Our own personal safety has become our foremost and rather only concern. In these times of the ‘new normal’ the beast in deep slumber within each of us seems to be waking up! Editor’s Note: Mr. Georgekutty is a former Central government officer and academician. He is a gold medallist of the Institute of Cost Accounts of India (ICA) and its Fellow Member (FCMA). He holds postgraduate degrees in Business Management, Computer Application, Commerce, Journalism, English, History, Philosophy, Politics, Public Administration, Sociology and Gandhian Thoughts. He is passionate in studying Philosophy and Religions. After quitting his post retirement job as director of a business school, he has been devoting his entire time on reading, writing and public speaking. He has also written a number of books. He is settled in Karunagappally, Kerala.
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