I have always been intrigued by Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones (Ez. 37:1-14). God asks him to prophesy over the bones and they come back together and start growing tendons and flesh over them. But there was no breath in them. So God asks Ezekiel to prophesy again; breath came into them and they came to life.
Let’s turn to ‘Apocalypse Now’! COVID-19 has deconstructed our elaborate, apparently secure way of life which screeched to a halt. Everyone was obliged to retreat to our little corner, concentrating on survival. But where has life gone? When will it come back?
Technology came up with an answer: the internet. Distance will be defeated. We can see, connect, interact. Life is back to a ‘new normal’. And yet... how many are longing for a hug, a kiss, a shared meal… The bones seem all in place but where is the flesh? Faces, conversations, school, family are all there, crammed into a box on a screen. Tap and touch those magic boxes. All you feel is cold, slippery glass or grimy keys. We still thirst for the ‘real’ thing. Shapes, colours, sounds are all there… They look real, but are they?
The pain in people’s eyes and hearts is evident: “When will I be able to hug my daughter, son, mum…? When will churches open so I can celebrate Mass and receive communion?” The bones and flesh are all there, but they still lack life! Like food in a shop window for a hungry, moneyless beggar. Everything is there, but locked behind a pane of glass and therefore unreachable!
God says to Ezekiel: “Prophesy, son of man, and say to it: ‘Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” (Ez. 14:9) The breath is God’s Spirit of Love that gathers us from the four corners of the world to have life in abundance (Jn 10:10). Our bones and flesh thirst for the Spirit that gives life.
Long before COVID, our cultures concentrated on our flesh and bones, making gods out of the economy, consumer society, comfort, technology and political power. COVID came and sowed confusion. Towers came tumbling down. Glass box illusions shattered. The valley was filled with dry bones, lean economies, shuttered shops, empty roads.
Yet our thirst for togetherness is the voice of the Spirit of life. Believers and non-believers crave to go to ‘church’ – that sacred place where we can find the source of living waters. It’s not just craving for skin-deep touching. It is craving for a heart-to-heart embrace through a body that is not the beginning and end of life, but our only way to experience a life that has no beginning and no end.
May this crisis wake us up to the full reality of who we are: temples of God’s Spirit of love. How wonderful it would be if not only churches, but also homes, factories, supermarkets and political establishments started living up to their true nature – to be sacred spaces where people experience “how good and wonderful it is when brothers and sisters live as one.” (Ps 133)
God is not only online but fully alive on the holy ground we stand on… and wise are his prophets.
Fr Paul Chetcuti, member of the Society of Jesus