Did God send Covid-19 – or should we even ask that Question?
First published in the Tablet Online 11 May 2020
This reflection of mine will not dwell on the coronavirus – though my thoughts were sparked by a sermon on the pandemic by a Pentecostal preacher I watched on TV. Thumping the pulpit he shouted: “You ask why? Why indeed! God is chastising us for our sins! Don’t we read in Genesis 6,5 that God sent the Deluge because ‘the Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become’?!”
Most Christians I am sure will reject this image of the Tyrant God, the difficult-to-please Disciplinarian, the all-seeing Eye, the strict Master who expects perfection from everyone and unleashes disaster to punish us. But is the Testing God much better? He allowed Job to endure crippling hardships, including the death of all his children and grandchildren. He inflicts pain and suffering on people to give them a chance to gain merit, as the apostle of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque, believed. Or what about the Partisan God, the God who spares us if we know how to invoke his/her pity, if we plead with tears in our eyes?
It reminds me of a college student I knew whose father died of cancer in his forties. “I begged God”, she told me. “I spent hours in church on bare knees. I cried. I implored God to save my dad, for the sake of mum and my four brothers and sisters. No use. He is dead.”
And then she added. “I will never go to church again!”
If we are honest we will admit that we all struggle to a great extent trying to grasp the meaning of a God who is Love in a world with so much suffering, where mass murders and holocausts are possible. Is what we say about God correct? Could it be that our inadequate portrayals of God are emptying the pews? Are we driving younger generations into the arms of secular agnosticism?
In recent days a song by Indian nuns has gone viral on the social media. They chaunt: “Go, go, go away, Corona! We have Jesus who will destroy you for ever!” The truth is that Jesus does not destroy the virus, as any thinking teenager will realise.
What do we know about God?
The problem is that we think and speak too glibly of God in human terms. “God hears my prayer. May God protect you wherever you go. God rejoices when you do good, God is angry with you when you sin”. These are anthropomorphisms, speaking of God as if he/she were a human being. Last Christmas I heard a priest preach during midnight mass: “What an amazing thing! On this night the Son of God in heaven rose from his seat at the right hand of the Father and descended all the way down to Bethlehem to assume the form of that newborn baby lying in a manger.”
A dangerous way of speaking about God.
For God is infinitely greater than anything we can ever express in human thoughts or words. The truth is that in his deepest essence God will remain unknown to us. God is beyond our understanding. God cannot be contained within our human concepts. By the very fact that we formulate a thought or coin a term about God, we impose a limitation on God characteristic of human thinking. All great religious thinkers have understood this.
The Tao Te Ching (500 BC) begins with the words: “The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.”
Indian teachers of the past never tired of reminding their disciples that God could only be described by denying imperfections about God: the way of ‘neti-neti’: “God is not this, not that.” The Jewish Philo of Alexandria (20 BC-54 AD) said: “God alone can assert a positive assertion respecting himself since he alone has an accurate knowledge of his own nature.”
The Muslim scholar and mystic Al-Ghazali (1058-1111) arrived at the same conclusion. He stated: “It is impossible for anyone, except God, to understand God truly.”
The same is expressed strongly in Christian tradition. It has always proclaimed God’s utter transcendence. Dionysius, a Christian writer (about 500 AD), wrote a classical treatise about this: ‘The Celestial Hierarchy’. In it he describes the paradox that only by accepting the unknowability of God we can come to know God. By accepting the limitation of conceptual thought, we can be united to God in direct experience. “The mind, liberated from that which is seen and which sees, penetrates into the darkness of true mystical not-knowing from which all intellectual understanding is excluded. Belonging to none, neither to oneself nor to anyone else, the mind is united to the pure Unknowable in its highest part where there is no conceptual knowledge. Knowing nothing conceptually, its knowledge transcends all that can be conceived”.
This comes very near to what our great Christian mystic Ruysbroeck (1293-1381) describes in one stanza from ‘The Book of the Twelve Nuns’. I will render a free translation from the Dutch here: “Pure not-knowing is the light in which one sees God. It is in unconditional not-knowing that we see God, but without knowing what we see, for what is seen transcends all things”.
Thomas Aquinas, the uncrowned king of traditional Catholic theology, stresses the same truth. “The ultimate peak of human knowledge of God consists in grasping that we do not know God. For then we realise that what God is, surpasses all that we understand of God” (De Potentia Dei vii, 5, ad 14). “Having arrived at the summit of our knowledge, we know God as unknowable. Our mind arrives at a better understanding of God precisely to the extent it realises that the nature of God is above all that our mind can grasp” (Boetius de Trinitate
1, 2, ad 1).
Yes, because we are human we have to use human images when speaking of God. As Jesus did when he compares God to a loving father who cares for his children and who is ready to embrace them even after they have made mistakes. But these are just images, flimsy human words to express a valuable truth, such as that God reveals himself/herself in love; that God, in fact, is Love (1 John 4,7-21).
What does this mean in practice?
Encountering God
The first thing we should do is always remind ourselves that our thoughts about God are just images, totally inadequate approximations. The piece of cloth we call a ‘Union Jack’ stands for Great Britain. Can that symbol ever express the full complex reality of 66 million people living a somehow integrated existence in four countries? A fly buzzing round our face has a ‘fly image’ of us. It sees us as a carrier of delicious microbes it can lick off our skin or as a threat to its life when we slap at it. It does not have a clue of the intricate bundle of body, mind, emotion, relationships we are. We grasp even less what God is like. We should sit back and let this realization sink in. Paradoxically this does not push God further away from us. On the contrary, it will enable us to reach out to God on a deeper level, in the speechless dimension of mystical encounter.
God is the innermost mystery of our lives. God sustains us in being who we are. He pervades our world as the foundation of truth, the source of all beauty, the love that gives meaning to our existence – without directly meddling in our day-to-day lives as a super-manager who inflicts disease on sinners or grants rain to believers during a period of drought.
Periods of silence are helpful here. Documents outlining reform of the liturgy after Vatican II stressed the need of inserting moments of silence at some key points of Mass: after the sermon, as part of the bidding prayers, at the consecration and after communion. Most masses I attend have become an endless torrent of words, no room for face-to-face silent encounter with God.
Music can help us enter mystery. Not verbose hymns rambling one stanza after the other, just the organ playing in the background. I am by no means a fan of the old Latin rite, but the ancient Gregorian chants with their haunting melodies in an unknown language perhaps gave people a better chance to immerse themselves in realities that lie beyond. You get the drift.
Confronting God in silence, looking at the world from our mountain top as Jesus did when he prayed, joining Christ in his incredible act of self-sacrifice at his Eucharist, feeling God’s presence in every act of love we may experience, will help us come to terms with our world. Yes, even with Covid-19.
John Wijngaards
Comment 1. MARTIN OTT, 12/05/2020
I applaud the article of Prof Wijngaards as he is leading away from senseless deliberations; but at the end he offers anaestethics rather than medicine. For me he fails to draw and to discuss the obvious consequences of Gods incomprehensibility:
• either God does not hear the prayers;
• or he decides to neglect them;
• or Jesus’ revelation of a caring father who does not send a scorpion if you asked for an egg was not true; or
• God does not exist altogether.
The issue of theodicy is not a theological topic among others, it touches the nerve of any theistic religion and leads directly to the alternative of faith versus atheism. In 1821, the German author Georg Büchner called human suffering the “cliff of atheism”. Does theology offer any help to prevent people falling from this cliff? Can Wijngaards or any other theologian go this one step further?
Response by John Wijngaards
Well Martin, I am afraid that you are missing the point. You believe God does not exist because we cannot grasp God with human terms. But reflect. Our eyes are limited in what they can see, even with the help of microscopes or telescopes. That does not mean that we can’t see does not exist. Similarly the reach of our minds is limited even with the help of the sciences which are our tools. There are principles lying outside our thinking, and outside the sciences, that are presupposed such as the principle of Truth. Also existence itself and the overall meaning of the universe. To read more about this I recommend my book HOW TO MAKE SENSE OF GOD or my website WWW.MYSTERYANDBEYOND.ORG.
Comment 2. SYLVESTER LOBO. 14/05/2020
I am a permanent deacon in the Archdiocese of Bombay. I find an aberration in John Wijngaards article, “Did God Send Covid-19…” in the recent issue of The Tablet and was reproduced in one of the Indian Catholic Newsletters. John in his article dismissingly says that “Jesus will not destroy the virus, as any thinking teenager will realise.”
Jesus is a God of miracles. The greatest miracle is his resurrection by which he established the truth of eternal life that is waiting for us. He worked miracles throughout his public life. He healed the sick giving them good health. He gave new life to the dead. He fed the hungry miraculously.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb 13:8). If Jesus worked miracles in the lives of people 2000 years ago, he continues to work miracles today. Jesus has all the power in him to eliminate the corona virus from the face of the earth by the power of his word. Jesus has all the power
to wash away the corona virus from our bodies and our surroundings by his precious blood. Jesus is the God who burnt away the grief, pain and fear of the Jews from Mother Mary and Apostles on Pentecost day, making them a new creation. The same Jesus has all the power to burn away the corona virus today from all of us in his Pentecostal fire and make us all a new creation of good health of body and soul.
Says Jesus, “If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in Heaven” (Mt 18: 19). These are difficult times when we have to agree that Jesus need to eliminate the corona virus from the face the earth and pray to him for the same. His assurance is there for us that
we need to only agree on a particular petition and ask the same of our Heavenly Father, who is sure to grant it.
In our Heavenly Mother we have a great intercessor. Today we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima and rosary is a very powerful weapon which brought about the transformation of Russia. We need a transformation of our lives from corona virus and this is possible through the intercession of Mother Mary. Jesus worked his first miracle at Cana through the intercession of Mary. He is working a miracle for us today through her intercession by eliminating the corona virus from the face of the earth. Let us pray as many personal, family and community rosaries agreeing on this one intention
that Jesus destroys the virus. Let us pray the following prayer before every decade of the rosary:
“Heavenly Father we pray in agreement, in the name of Jesus, through the intercession of Mother Mary, through the intercession of St Corona, that you in your mighty love wipe away the corona virus from the face of the earth. Lord Jesus you wash away the corona virus from our bodies and from every living person in your precious blood. O God Holy Spirit, you burn away the corona virus from our surroundings in your Pentecostal Fire. O Holy Triune God may your reign of life in all its fullness with good health dwell in us. Amen.”
After every rosary, let us pray the miraculous prayer, Memorare, nine times seeking the intercession of Mother of Perpetual Succour against corona virus.
Deacon Sylvester Lobo
Response by John Wijngaards, 16the of May 2020
Dear Sylvester,
I appreciate your sincere intentions in posting a reply to my article on Covid-19 and God. You obviously have a strong faith and that is good. You also have pastoral responsibilities as a Deacon and because of that I urge you to carefully re-think what you have been saying. You are misguided in some of your convictions and you may do damage to others by passing on those erroneous beliefs.
The first one is that you assert that, as Christians, we live a life filled with the promise of miracles. It is true that Jesus performed miracles. He had to reveal that God is love within his very short three-year ministry. He did not promise, however, that the lives of his followers would be strewn with miracles. Some Gospel passages should not be misconstrued to contain such a promise. Jesus’ stated that if we “say to this mountain, ‘throw yourself into the sea!’, it will do so provided we have no doubt in our heart” (Mark 11,23). He did not mean this literally. It is a hyperbolic expression, a typical Aramaic exaggeration people in his time would understand. Is it literally true that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven (Matthew 19,24)? Or that we should pluck out our eye if it causes us to sin (Matthew 5,29; 18,9)?
Your main problem though consists in how you think ‘prayer of petition’ works. A crude understanding of such prayer reduces God to a confused organiser or a hard-hearted monster. But the ultimate meaning of all our requests for help lies in spiritual graces, the strength to meet challenges, an increase in living by the Spirit.
Because this is quite a delicate and complex issue, I have taken the time to explain it in a longer text which I kindly invite you to read. You will find it here: https://www.wijngaardsinstitute.com/prayer-of-petition/ . Please, read it carefully. It may help you deepen your own spiritual life and guide you in the valuable support you can give to so many others as a permanent deacon.
John Wijngaards
Sylvester Lobo replies, 19th of May 2020
Dear John,
Thank you so much for taking your time out and sending me your kind response which I appreciate greatly. Thank you also for sending me your scholarly, insightful article, “Does asking God for favours work?”
Respecting fully your vast knowledge and experience as an author, scholar-theologian, Scripture specialist and with a desire to learn from you, I want to continue this interaction. I would like to first clarify couple of things about my first communication to you, then seek clarifications from you on some of the doubts I have that have been raised by your thoughtful article.
In my response to your article, “Did God Send Covid-19…?”, I had asserted, “Jesus is a God of miracles,” and gave examples from the Scriptures to prove my assertion. But in your response, you have pointed out that I am asserting, “as Christians, we live a life filled with the promise of miracles.” No, I did not say this and I wouldn’t say this. But I shall certainly offer innumerable biblical references which reveal to us that our God is a God of miracles and that he has promised us that he will answer our prayers. “Ask and you shall receive…(Mt 7:7).
In fact, you are agreeing with my assertion when you say, “it is true that Jesus performed miracles.” I am in sync with you when you say Jesus “did not promise, however, that the lives of his followers would be strewn with miracles,” and nowhere in my response did I say that. On the other hand, all the three Synoptic gospels do report the above quoted promise of Jesus. And in John’s gospel from chapter 14 up to 17,1-26, Jesus repeatedly promises us, “If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it” (underlining is mine). Again, “If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven” (Mt 18:19). How do you interpret these promises of Jesus?
You have quoted me some examples of hyperbolic expressions of Jesus against the two simple assertions of the Scripture that I quoted ((Heb 13:8 and Mt 18: 19). I wish you had given me your interpretation of these simple statements of the Scripture instead of telling me that metaphoric and hyperbolic expressions cannot be taken literally which I am fully aware of since I studied theology and Scriptures for five years as a full-time day scholar of St Pius Seminary, Bombay.
I agree I need to grow in my understanding of how a ‘prayer of petition’ works and I need your help in this. Let me first share with you the basis of my prayer of petitions. I offer my petitions to God in faith like unto Abraham (Gen 18:22-33) who saved Sodom and Gomorrah from the wrath of God; I pray in faith like unto Moses (Ex 32:31-32) whose petition worked for the people of Israel to reach the Promised Land; I pray like unto Elijah (1Kings 18:41-45) through whose petition God brought rain for people; I petition God like unto Martha (Jn 11:1-44) which made Jesus give a second life to Lazarus; I petition God with the faith of Peter and James (Acts 3:4-7) who made the lame walk; I plead God like unto the people who were healed by the handkerchiefs that had touched the skin of Paul (Acts 19:11-12). Did the prayers of petition of these Biblical personalities reduce “God to a confused organiser or a hard-hearted monster”? Or is it that a prayer made in faith is indeed answered by God in his own way, in his own time?
I went through your article, “Does asking God for favours work?” three times over to gather right insights on prayers of petition. I wish you had highlighted the element of faith as basic to any prayer of petition. That faith forms the foundation of every prayer of petition is very clear from the fact that most of the times when Jesus healed, he told the beneficiary, “Your faith has made you well” (Lk 8:48). What brought results to the prayers of biblical personalities is that they prayed with faith.
Thus, the nuns too were chanting in faith, “Go, go, go away, corona. We have Jesus who will destroy you for ever.” To dismiss their singing (which according to St Augustine, praying twice over) is to deny the faith of those nuns. By saying that “Jesus will not destroy the virus, as any thinking teenager will realise,” you are also a denying the truth that Jesus does have the power to destroy corona virus because he destroyed virus in the body of Peter’s mother-in-law and gave her good health (Mt 8:14-17). We pray to God, we sing to God in faith believing that God answers our prayers in his time, in his ways as he did, not only during biblical times but also all through humankind’s history.
Otherwise how do we explain the miracles that God has worked through Mother Mary at Lourdes where documented cases of healings are seen through piled up crutches and wheel chairs? How do we explain the documented miracles God has worked through innumerable saints? Again, please don’t misunderstand me that I am advocating a faith based on miracles. No, what I am trying to say is that miracles have been a part of Catholic faith all through as an answer to prayers of petition made in faith.
I particularly like the point that you make: “If we pray for conversion, for grace, for the Holy Spirit, our prayer will certainly be heard. Because through our prayer we predispose ourselves to receive these gifts.” And I believe this particular point can be used to relook at the example that you give at the beginning of the article, “Many regions of this complex globe on which we live do not receive sufficient rains. But by timely prayer now and again, we help God to prevent some disasters that would otherwise have occurred.” No, we are not helping God to prevent some disaster. He doesn’t need our help. But with our prayer of petition made in faith, as you say, “we predispose ourselves to receive these gifts’ from God,” may be timely rains, may be cure of a disease, may be destruction of a virus…but always according to the will of God.
You say, “How partial since God only helps those for whom his/her friends pray; and not the many millions about whom no one cares!” It’s not about the partiality of God. It’s about people who believe in him and predispose themselves to receive the gifts from him through their prayers of petition and praise.
The nuns while they were singing what they were singing, were providing “the psychological soil in which the seed of divine action can bear fruit.” These nuns through their prayer of petition made in faith, did not want to change God, but wanted to experience the glory of God in their lives and in the lives of every human being seeking the destruction of corona virus. Do you think the singing of nuns could be seen from this angle or not at all? You may say that God does not work against nature. But when Jesus during public life worked miracles, did he not work against nature? And don’t we believe “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8)?
Deacon Sylvester Lobo
John Wijngaards responds, 21 May 2020
Dear Sylvester,
Thanks again for your positive and thoughtful reply which I greatly appreciate.
To help you understand the point I am trying to make, I have decided in my response to focus especially on one specific question you ask in your letter. Namely: how to interpret Jesus’ promise that the Father would give us anything we ask for in his name. You will see that, when replying to this focal issue, many of the other concerns you express in your letter are also covered.
Rather than send my reply in a long email, I thought it would be best to put it online in a separate text. Read it here. This also makes it easier for you to share it with others.
With all God’s blessings on your life and ministry,
John
Sylvester Lobo replies, 26th of May 2020
Dear John,
First and foremost, I want to appreciate your warm and immediate response that showed your brotherly concern for me and now a detailed response with all the insights. Thank you for both. What both responses manifest is your humility despite your scholarship; and your compassion despite expertise! I am really gratified. Thank you.
I did a bit of research to find out whether the statements of Jesus, “If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven” (Mt 18:19); and “If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it” (Jn 14:13); have any hyperbolic element in them. First I referred to Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament which tries to explain every difficult verse and passage in the NT.
This Study Bible ignores verse Mt 19 completely because I suppose it doesn’t find any hyperbolic element in it. It does explain verse 18 and then goes on to explain verse 22. Then I looked for Jn 14:13 which is explained as follows: “14:13 Whatever you ask: The Ascension of Jesus will not be his retirement, since even now he lives to make priestly intercession for the Church on earth (Heb 7:25; 9:24). I will do it: A promise to grant whatever is needed to facilitate our salvation (Mt7:7-11) (underlining mine). So, no mention of hyperbolic element in this verse as well, instead a meaningful explanation is provided that is in sync with what I had proposed in my response to you.
Then I referred The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, which referring to Mt 18:19 says, “This translation stresses the legal sense of the terms as they would be used in a lawsuit or settlement…” So, no hyperbolic element is pointed out, instead the verse is simply explained for what it is in that particular translation. The NRSV, which I use and was used as a textbook for us in the seminary, translates the verse differently which I have quoted above and it suits very well the subject under our discussion.
I moved on to Jn 14:13. Again, no mention of any hyperbolic element in the verse, instead simple explanation is given: “13. whatever you ask in my name I will do: This saying appears in a number of variants.” Then all the references from Mathew to John are given. This is followed by the explanation that what we ask for “sometimes Jesus is the one who answers the request, sometimes the Father, when asked in Jesus’ name…”
So, as you can see, both the reputed commentaries do not see the above quoted statements as hyperbolic, contrary to what you are saying. Both the commentaries reinforce the belief that what we ask for in faith is granted by God/Jesus according to his time and according to his will. In this context, I suppose you are aware how much intercessory prayer (another name for prayer of petition or in your words “asking for favours”) has taken importance in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.
Currently, I am reading a book, Pray Lifting Up Holy Hands: The Prayer of Intercession by Cyril John, who is a leading international figure in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. This book is full of testimonies of asking for favours, including healing of diseases, for the arrival of rains which were delayed, and so on, and receiving these favours as per God’s own will and time.
The book also dwells on the matter of prayers not answered and says, “God may not change the circumstances of our lives immediately, but he will change us in those circumstances. By not experiencing the consolations of God, we are drawn closer to experiencing the God of consolations.”
While you seem to be differentiating between spiritual and material gifts in your writings, Jesus did not do the same during his public life. He gave spiritual gifts to Nicodemus, the adulteress woman, the Samaritan woman and so on; and he gave material and physical gifts to people around him by feeding the hungry, healing the sick, giving second life to the dead and so on.
I believe “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8). So, do, lakhs of members of Catholic Charismatic Renewal the world over. We continue to lift up in faith our prayers asking favours from God and intercessory prayers for our spiritual, physical, material and all other needs. We believe Jesus is continuing his High-Priestly intercession for us, Mother Mary and all the saints in heaven are interceding on our behalf. We believe our merciful God does always answer our prayers according to his will and according to his time.
This is why I still believe that you were unfair to the nuns when you dismissed their faith with which they were chanting hymns for the power of God to envelop our lives against corona virus; you were unfair to Jesus himself when you said that he will not destroy the corona virus. Jesus may not destroy the corona virus directly. But in his great ways as an answer to the chants of those nun and prayers of people the world over, knocking on the door of mercy of our Heavenly Father, he may very well empower the researchers to come out with an effective vaccine against corona virus in the near future to overcome the pandemic. Who can fully fathom the love of God for us, his children who have been saved by the blood of his very Son Jesus Christ?
Deacon Sylvester Lobo
Response by John Wijngaards, 31 May 2020
Dear Sylvester,
I believe you are sincere. But I can’t help recalling the old English saying: “Convince a man against his will, he’s of the same opinion still . . .”
I am quite familiar with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement. I have personally seen some remarkable cases of spiritual liberation and conversion produced by it. Father James Borst, one of the great Charismatic pioneers in India was a close colleague and friend of mine. I was invited to speak to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Vth International Leaders Conference In Rome in 1984 on ‘How to plan Scripture Studies’. But I have also come across many instances of charismatic preachers claiming or promising material benefits which – I am sure – are far removed from the mind of Christ.
I do not intend to repeat all the arguments and explanations already given in my previous letters to you. I just urge you to read them again – carefully. You do not seem to detect the inconsistencies even in your own reasoning. For instance, you quote this text at me from the Ignatius commentary on the Gospels: ‘Jn 14:13 is explained as follows: “Jn 14:13 Whatever you ask: The Ascension of Jesus will not be his retirement, since even now he lives to make priestly intercession for the Church on earth (Heb 7:25; 9:24). I will do it: A promise to grant whatever is needed to facilitate our salvation (Mt7:7-11) (underlining mine).’
Well, in your anxiety to stress the all-inclusiveness (in your view) of ‘whatever you ask’, you conveniently overlook the commentator’s stress on ‘whatever is needed to facilitate our salvation’. The commentator also refers to Jesus’ text on a father giving what is good for his children which, in Luke 11,9-13, ends with the explanation: ‘how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him’. In other words, even the commentator you quote stresses that Jesus promises we will receive the spiritual gifts we need, not bread or fish.
My pastoral advice to you is: do not encourage people to expect that Jesus will give material benefits to those who need them. Crying out to God for a physical need is one thing. Expecting a physical miracle quite another. It is far from the mind of Christ. Imagining that Jesus will wipe the coronavirus from the face of the earth because we ask him to do so, distorts the Gospel message.
By holding out physical miracles you may please a small group of fervent charismatics. But you will also be driving away generations of younger, well educated Catholics who realise God is not performing such miracles in our lives.
Dear Sylvester, on this Pentecost day I wish the blessings of the Spirit on your life and on your – I trust – responsible ministry.
John
NOTE
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