Shortness and Uncertainty

We live in unsettling times. No doubt this is true of every age of history, but ours especially so. Back in the 1950’s, human beings began worrying about nuclear warfare. Since then, other existential threats have emerged: the warming of the earth’s atmosphere, the collapse of the birth rate, the impending avalanche of public debt, the extraordinary risks posed by artificial intelligence, the possibility of catastrophic war with China. Besides these we may add: the steady coarsening of our culture, the polarization of our politics, the decline of religion, the decay of the institutions – and did I mention the collapse of the pollinator populations necessary to our food supply? Wherever you look, threats multiply. Perhaps these fears are unfounded – though I have trouble believing they are all groundless. The fact that we have not had a nuclear war since 1945 is comforting, but no guarantee that it will never happen – and the number of deranged regimes with arsenals of nuclear arms just keeps growing. Perhaps we shall muddle through – but it will be by the skin of our teeth.

These are not cheery thoughts, and perhaps not what you want to hear from your priest. (I should be much relieved to be proved wrong.) But I am not writing to generate anxiety – I rather suspect that most of us are already unsettled about where the world is going – and that we would rather have straight talk than happy talk. There may be practical things to be done to mitigate or avert these threats, though flailing about in panic is not one of them. Nor am I am advocating the survivalist agendas of the preppers. The question I am getting at is somewhat different: given the threats we face, how shall we then live? Unique as our current circumstances may be, this is the perennial question, posed by the what a prayer by Jeremy Taylor calls “the shortness and uncertainty of human life”. At the best of times, each of us has a short time to live, and the length of our lives is uncertain. Given the fact of our mortality, how shall we live now? “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom”.

In August we completed the annual reading of the books of the Kings, with their account of the downfall of Israel’s kingdom. The road to its final downfall was a long one, as long as God’s patience, but at a certain point – the sacred historian identifies it as the reign of Manasseh – Judah passed the point of no return. That judgment is now inexorable is what Josiah (Manasseh’s heir) learns from the book of the law he discovers after his accession. His reading of the law is confirmed by the prophetess Hulda, who also tells him of the reprieve God has given him, in light of his faithfulness. Judgement is inexorable, but it will come after Josiah’s demise.

Knowing the inevitability of judgment, what then does Josiah do? To the best of his ability, he puts his own and Judah’s house in order, with reforms of worship in wholehearted compliance with the word of God. As he knew, they could not avert judgment (and they were abandoned by his successors). Nonetheless, he keeps faith with his God. Josiah’s response teaches us that faith is not transactional: it’s not dependent on what we get in return, except for God himself. That is the testimony of Job: “Though he slay me, shall will I put my trust in him”. That is the testimony of Teresa of Avila: “God alone is enough”. On the far side of death and judgment, God remains God, and he remains faithful: “who keepeth his promise for ever”.

Perhaps Josiah had no more clarity about what to expect than the fact of God’s faithfulness – but he was looking in the right direction. In the greater light we have by the gospel, we see that on the far side of death and judgment, God still keeps his promises, and there is resurrection – “all sad things come untrue”, the world restored to right order with its maker. The skeptics say that resurrection is “pie in the sky when you die by and by”, a self-deluding distraction from the urgent business of living in this world, but they have missed the point. It is precisely about the importance of the decisions we make now. Because God remains God, there is resurrection, and because there is resurrection, what we do now “in the Lord … is not in vain in the Lord”. That’s a perspective in which every earthly choice and decision, every moment in time, has eternal significance. That’s a reason to live now with hope and courage in obedience to God’s will, whatever the outlook is for this world or this life.

This prayer I quoted earlier is found in the Visitation of the Sick (p. 316), though we put it to use in the Burial of the dead. Don’t let that scare you: it’s a prayer about how to live now:

O GOD, whose days are without end, and whose mercies cannot be numbered: Make us, we beseech thee, deeply sensible of the shortness and uncertainty of human life; and let thy Holy Spirit lead us in holiness and righteousness, all our days; that, when we shall have served thee in our generation, we may be gathered unto our fathers, having the testimony of a good conscience; in the communion of the Catholic Church; in the confidence of a certain faith; in the comfort of a reasonable, religious, and holy hope; in favour with thee our God, and in perfect charity with all men. Grant this, we beseech thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.