The universe exists for the sake of joy. So believed Thomas Aquinas, Dominican polymath and one of the Church’s greatest theologians, according to US author and scholar The Reverend Dr Matthew Fox. In this zoom video, Dr Fox, a former Dominican and now Anglican priest who has spent a lifetime studying Aquinas and translating his works, speaks to Roland Ashby about his latest book.

For several months now I have been waking up in the morning feeling slightly depressed. The solitude imposed by COVID-19 has created more opportunities for negative thoughts to arise, and what seemed to be safely buried in the past - mistakes and failures and humiliations, as well as hurts (both given and received) – suddenly reappear as if they happened yesterday - with all the freshness and immediacy, and therefore pain, that that entails.

As I struggle to come to terms with Melbourne’s second lockdown, I am starting to look at our family dog Bessie with new, and envious, eyes. Her simple joy in life has not wavered throughout the pandemic. Each morning she greets me with gusto as she gleefully anticipates her first walk of the day. Each day, it seems, offers a new banquet of olfactory delights. And surely that’s a smile I discern as she leaps through long grass, or frolics in fresh puddles.

One of the most shocking aspects of the brutal treatment by police towards George Floyd, which caused his death, was that it was so brazen, and so calmly and routinely carried out. This suggests a fundamental and intrinsic problem of the police seeing him as less than human. Hence the resurgence, and necessity, of the Black Lives Matter campaign.

Statements by British PM Boris Johnson about his recent brush with death suggest he may have undergone something of a spiritual awakening. This would not surprise St Benedict, sometimes described as the father of Western monasticism, who in the sixth century advised his monks to “Always keep death before you”.

This is a time of lament. Many have lost lives and livelihoods. Jesus gave voice to such despair most poignantly on the cross when he cried out: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, the opening words of Psalm 22.

The coronavirus pandemic has led to much suffering, hardship and anxiety, but it has also been a time of reawakening and rebirth. This is what Easter is all about. Lent, traditionally a time of fasting which prepares Christians for the new life and joy of Easter Sunday, offers rich insights into the solitude and privations imposed on us by the virus.