2020/08/23: Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, we reflect on the Responsorial Psalm of the day Psalm 138. We thank the Lord for His Steadfast love, His answer to our prayers, good health, the frontline workers, the grocery and retail people wearing nitrile gloves and surgical masks. Today we have all the time in the world to praise and thank the Lord for who He has been in our life.
Today we praise God for you, Santo Niño Missionaries, the devotees of the Infant Jesus! You come together week after week on Friday and Saturday in this upper room - in this tiny chapel in Montreal imitating the early Church community of the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline Communities found in the New Testament. You are a community of faith. You gather in Jesus’ name (Matthew 18.20). You share the Eucharistic and Fellowship meals together. You pray for your members, your family, others, and their needs. You strengthen each other in faith through your devotion to Mother Mary and the Infant Jesus. I witnessed so much joy, peace and strength in your participation. I am amazed at the sharing of your resources with the people in the Philippines.
Dear sisters and brothers, we are faced with a question of questions: Why did God allow the pandemic? As Santo Niño community, how do we respond to the pandemic in the light of the Gospel? What is the opportunity for love opened by this pandemic? Do we choose to continue in faith? Or do we place ourselves in darkness, sin and despair? How do I use this time to spread God’s message of hope? Here are some points for your meditation:
1. Pray! Praying is to go with Jesus to the Father who will give us everything (Pope Francis, 2020). Pray for the many families who don’t have work, who have lost their lives and who have nothing to eat. Pray for the elderly and chronically-ill people. Pray for many situations in the world that cause great sufferings. Pray for people who died in Lebanon. Pray the I-Breviary that has all the Catholic prayers. Unite yourself with the prayers of the Church (Father Mike Schmitz, 2020).
2. Hunger for God by reading the Gospels. Come to Jesus, the Light. Has the pandemic made you aware of your need for God? Experience the loss of God in your life amidst the plenty you have. It is not easy to be in the light. The light makes us see many ugly things within us: vice, pride, and the worldly spirit.
3. Bring your personal stories to God. Most of the time, they aren’t very clean. Our stories might be in need of God’s tenderness and mercy. We bring them to be touched by God, His compassion and Mercy. Today we pray, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” (Matthew 8.2).
4. Faith, when it is tested, becomes great, mature and full (Father Mike Schmitz, 2020). Keep your faith strong. Do not give into insecurity.
5. Renew your life through prayer, silence, reading the spiritual classics and spending time with the beauty of nature, a precious gift from God (Pope Francis).
6. Find non-sacramental prayers, Novenas, and devotions. Post-Vatican II we emphasized so much on the Eucharist. Maybe, it is now time to revive the non-sacramental practices. Find a patron saint whose devotion may help you to have spiritual recourse to God in prayer. (Bishop Robert Barron, 2020). Some examples include: The Saint Michael Chaplet, Chaplet of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and the Chaplet of Holy Souls.
7. The gulf between the haves and have-nots is on the increase during the pandemic which has created new poverty. We cannot forget the problems stemming from the new poverty. In India alone, 25 million migrant laborers from 64 districts have returned to villages. Look for ways to provide timely relief to the needy in whatever way you can.
8. Do not entertain the images of a punishing god and the thought that the pandemic is a divine judgment. God, revealed by Jesus in the Gospels, is not a punishing god, but God full of love, mercy, compassion and forgiveness.
9. Be an evangelizer. Be part of a joint action to care for life and creation namely sober and austere lifestyle that respects nature and people. Just for your reflection! Willful and systematic destruction of the natural environment and of the culture of an ethnic group are worse than corona virus because they carry a colonial and capitalist system which does not understand life care. (Pan-American Social Forum and Pan-American Church Network, 2020)
10. Remember! No Hitler, no Saint Maximilan Kolbe! No Hitler, no Saint Edith Stein (Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross)! Who knows that, among us, there may be 'saints of Corona time''? Are you one of them?
11. Do not test positive for Corona J Be positive and Remain positive! Stay safe!
Dear sisters and brothers, this pandemic is a reminder that everything in the world is contingent and transient (Bishop Robert Barron, 2020). We cannot hold on to them. Death leads to resurrection. We face this pandemic with the Spirit of the Resurrection and of Christ who “is now in our hearts by the power of His Spirit” (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, n.38). May Mary our queen in Heaven and Mother on earth unceasingly intercede for us! Amen!
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