Lent in the Time of Coronavirus: Part 1

This piece is the first in a five-part Lenten reflection series written by the staff of CTA. For Part 1, Abby Rampone shares her thoughts on Lent and the Coronavirus. Look for subsequent installments in the weeks to come.

This week, my classmates and I learned that our seminary in New York City is cancelling all events and in-person classes until after Easter because of the coronavirus. It’s honestly devastating. I never expected that my last semester of seminary would be interrupted by fears of a global pandemic, of all things. My friends and classmates are scattering to the winds. I’m afraid that my graduation will be cancelled. A friend recently described it as “the sudden fragmenting of our community.”

Across the country, business-as-usual has been interrupted. Class divisions are being thrown into stark relief as private schools close and public schools remain open. People will get sick. Some will die. Some will lose their jobs. The most vulnerable in our society — the immuno-compromised and chronically ill, the elderly, the uninsured and underinsured — will be most at risk. Hate crimes and bias incidents against East Asians — encouraged by President Trump’s rhetoric — reveal the coupling of fear and xenophobia. 

I don’t particularly want to pay attention to Lent right now. I’m already disoriented and upset, so why should I lean into a liturgical season that asks me to reflect upon my ultimate mortality and insignificance? Class cancellation feels like an unwanted Lenten penance: I imagine us video-calling into classes from our bedrooms, isolated like medieval monks in their cells. 

Liturgical seasons don’t heed our social circumstances. They move forward like clockwork, again and again and again in an endless repetition that can be both comforting and infuriating. I don’t want Lent. I don’t particularly want Easter, either: I want Ordinary Time. 

Lent in the time of coronavirus makes me think about Lent in the time of church corruption. As reform-minded Catholics, we are already carrying the weight of the Church’s sins. We are already hyper-conscious of its failings and our own implication in those failings, so why should we take forty days to deliberately make ourselves feel worse? It’s even tempting to think that we don’t need to repent. We are the victims, not the villains, right?

Just as liturgical seasons don’t heed our circumstances, despair does not heed the liturgical seasons. Our pain is not time-bound. Our hopelessness can creep in on Easter Sunday. Those of us who live with conditions like depression can’t always plan ahead for the next episode. We cannot solemnly and deliberately cover the crucifix in anticipation: sometimes the cloth descends unbidden. We know not the day nor the hour, right? We don’t know if or how the next global crisis will affect our lives.

I have to believe that we need the solid predictability of Lent anyway, though. We need a time for deliberation, for slowing down, for contextualizing our pain within the larger pain of the world. This is not a time to take all that pain upon our shoulders and hold ourselves responsible for what we cannot change, though. It is a time when we can solemnly say, yes, things are not going well right now. And it is not just my fault. We live in a fallen world. Humanity is collectively sinful. We must not abdicate responsibility for our personal sins, but we should also resist an unhealthy individualist tendency to make Lent all about our personal brokenness. We are all dust. We are all hurting. 

Coronavirus preventative measures are largely focused on social isolation, so as part of my Lenten practice now, I am thinking about alternative means of nourishing my relationships and communities. I will make phone calls and see friends when I can. I will support mutual aid efforts when I can. We are in this together. We are responsible for each other. I will not reject Lent, but I will also refuse to allow Lent to become a season of despair. Lent has never been about despair: it asks us to take a sober look at our shared humanity. God does not want us to stay in the desert. God wants us to be honest about our hurt without forgetting that the hurt is not forever. In the end, after all, comes Easter.