It’s impossible to avoid coverage over COVID-19. The unknown follows us into our very psyche looming like a moonlit shadow amid our personal fears. Talk and an insaciable media ever stoke the kindle of uncertainty among us. As industries and the global outlook teeter at the precipice of stability and “social distancing” becomes the newest buzzword, we grow trepidatious even among our own and like the woman at the well in this past Sunday’s Gospel we avoid one another with a paralleled germaphobic wariness.
Yet we are not alone, for God remembers His people and fulfills His promise, “Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? and if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee.” [Isaias 49:15]
As people of faith, we are called to be among the sick, the needy, the disheartened. So what do we do amid this recent outbreak? I’m not endorsing that we all run down to our local hospitals and put ourselves at risk, but there are ways to help and prayer is at the center. Recall at Fatima, Mary called us to pray as did the visiting angel to the children. We must stay vigilant to the task and not grow lax as did the three shepherd children initially did. When the angel witnessed this he rebuked them, “What are you doing! ‘Pray, pray very much'”. In the 100+ years since Fatima, Mary’s message has always remained the same – pray and offer self-sacrifice in reparation for sin.
With so much uncertainty at this moment in history, we must not despair, but remember God’s promise. Through all personal trials and those beyond our control, God upholds His people. If we know in the end that God will triumph, why should we have any doubt now? Like the woman at the well, we, God’s people must stand firm in our faith upholding and showing others that Jesus’ love is inexhaustible. We must do this not only in prayer, but in a prayerful presence giving and living the example and spreading the news that God is ever with us. He is our hope, He is our life, He is our light. “Come to me, all you that labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light.” [Matthew 11:28-30]
Let us pray often the words of Our Dear Lady to Sr. Sasagawa and her religious sisters at Akita, Japan, “Please receive this humble offering of myself. Use me as You will for the glory of the Father and the salvation of souls. Most holy Mother of God, never let me be separated from Your Divine Son. Please defend and protect me as Your Special Child. Amen.”
May God bless you and protect you now and all the days of your life.
In Christ Jesus,
Greg
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Bridging the Crosses 