Dear Friends,
I am back from my travels to New Zealand! I had a great visit with my nephew Jason and he was a terrific host. He took Fr. Boes and me on many hikes through the spectacular beauty of the mountains of New Zealand. If any of you watched the Lord of the Rings movies, then you saw the incredible vistas and mountains of the south island. Now I am back…and the world has changed while I was away…dramatically. I am doing a self-quarantine just to be safe and to make sure I did not bring any nasty bugs back from the airplanes and airports. Social distancing in the mountains was a given, but not so for jetliners.
It is strange to think that the best way to love our neighbors now is by keeping our distance. We show our care for “the widows and orphans” among us (the biblical model of those in need) by giving everyone room. Self-distancing is its own form of solidarity. We were all invited as Lent began to surrender to our self-centered ways and to grow closer to God; never could we have expected how we would all be challenged in new ways to do this. This Lenten season we are collectively learning how to forego; forego almost everything.
We have been and will continue to witness the worst and best in us as this crisis plays itself out. We have already seen the hoarding taking place and then people trying to make a big profit on it. People have been so self-centered that those in real need are facing a crisis as has been witnessed at One World Health Center, where even basic health care supplies are not possible to obtain.
In spite of that, we have also witnessed an emergence of our humanity in tender ways. Healthcare workers on the frontlines; deacons and their wives quietly checking on shut-ins; teachers creatively offering ways for students to keep learning while also allaying their anxiety; people talking to neighbors; parents spending time with their children; food distributions happening for those who have none and so much more.
It’s my sincere hope that this global pause might, in ways that surprises us, be a boon to real love for one another, an outburst of creativity, a reason to overcome your past hesitations and where the impulse to transcend tragedy becomes a fuel for your endeavors.
Things are changing by the minute and so it is difficult to say what we will be doing next week or next month. Under the present plan, we are probably not going to see each other for sharing in the Eucharist until the month of May. It will be a very strange Holy Week.
During these long days of waiting, please take a little more time to pray. God has given you time. He still wants to be closer to you. Try an Ignatian style of prayer: read a scene from the gospel and then use your imagination to place yourself in the scene to see the sights, smell the air, hear the sounds and experience it as best you can. At some point in your imagining, God may take over. If you hear things you would never say to yourself, then that could be God speaking to you in the prayer. Try it. You have lots of time for imaginings in the days ahead.
Peace,
Fr. Damian