The Long Lent of COVID

By Tom Ponchak

I don’t know about you, but sometimes it feels like the past year has been one long Lent. The coronavirus pandemic began shutting down society just a couple weeks after Ash Wednesday last year. Since then, we have experienced prolonged times of imposed fasting and abstinence. It has felt like a long spiritual desert where our religious practices and community gatherings have been disrupted. Like Jesus in the wilderness, as a church and a nation we have experienced a season of temptations which we haven’t always resisted. Our faith in institutions, religious and secular, have been put to the test. 

I listened to an interview on the radio about the impact that quarantines and shut-downs may have in the future as people’s habits—like dining out, traveling, or going to movies—have changed and they may not go back to some of those things as restrictions are lifted. The same can be said for churches. Many who may have been attending Mass out of habit or obligation have had the better part of a year to form new habits for Sunday mornings. The challenges ahead are just as daunting in many ways as the ones we’ve faced through 2020.

 

But there is hope. One of my favorite quotes from St. John Paul II is, “We are an Easter people and alleluia is our song!” The hardships and sacrifices endured during every Lent always give way to the celebration and joy of Easter. The uncertainty and pain of the cross will always surrender to the glory of the empty tomb, if only we persevere. God was not surprised by the coronavirus. He was not caught off guard or sleeping. The world does not shut down without it’s Maker still being fully in control. During my battle with cancer the one spiritual truth I learned was that God is good and because he is good, I can trust him even when I don’t understand my circumstances. 

 

If all we had to rely upon was our own strength, our own creativity, our own ideas, then we would be in a difficult place, but we are not alone. Each of us, as baptized Catholics, have been given the great gift of the Holy Spirit to dwell in us, lead us, and empower us. The very presence of God, the very same Spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the dead dwells in us (Rom. 8:11). We have seen the Holy Spirit at work in our parish leading our priests and staff to adapt to the “new normal” of the pandemic in creative ways. We’ve offered online options for bible study and RCIA, live-streamed Masses with drive-thru communion, created an online community through a new parish Facebook group, and much more. During this pandemic I’ve participated in online conferences and prayer meetings where I have been blessed to witnessed individuals receive healing through the prayers of others hundreds of miles away through video conferencing. God is not bound by the limits that bind us.

 

We will continue to rely on the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us moving forward as we look with hope to the day of leaving “social distancing” behind us and look at each other face-to-face again. We will need the Spirit’s presence and power to send us a faithful witness out to a world that has been shaken by plague and social distress to call them back to the Father, to receive his mercy and love. The long Lent of COVID will not have the last word. We are an Easter people, and alleluia is our song!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Being and Doing

By Tom Ponchak
Image
"Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her." (Luke 10:42, from the Gospel for the 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time) I was listening to a podcast with Fr. John Riccardo and he said something to the effect of “we often think that the calling to be a disciple is to work for Jesus, but the calling of a disciple is to be with Jesus.” The Gospel account of Martha and Mary this week is so important for us to hear and learn from.  Over the last six years, I have worked in two suburban parishes doing adult formation. Both parishes are located in very affluent areas and have a large number of upper middle class, white collar professionals. We have CEOs, attorneys, physicians, salespeople, pharmaceutical professionals, corporate executives, and even professional athletes. I’ve joked at times that our home could probably fit in the garages of some of the parishioners I kn...
Read more

Cultural Insanity and The Christian

By Tom Ponchak
Image
On multiple occasions over the past year I’ve had a reoccurring dream. I find myself in an insane asylum where the inmates have taken over and have the appearance of zombies. I was going from room to room looking for other trapped people, some asleep and others unaware of what was happening, and leading them to escape. At the same time, I encounter a few of the insane zombies and I am able to cure them so they become “normal” and leave with us. I believe this is a prophetic dream speaking to the nature of our culture and our mission as Christians. In the early telling of the story of Narcissus in Greek mythology the young man become enamored with his own image and committed suicide after despairing that no one could love him as much as he loved himself. It’s from this story that modern psychology takes the name Narcissistic Personality Disorder to describe an individual with an inflated sense of their own purpose and a lack of empathy for others. The Mayo Clinic lists the followin...
Read more

Loaves and Fishes

By Tom Ponchak
Image
  “Give them some food yourselves.” Jesus’ words to his disciples were surprising, challenging, and seemingly impossible. They responded as most of us would have, taking a quick inventory of their resources and realizing their limitations. In making such an outrageous suggestion Jesus was trying to get his students to live by faith not by sight. As St. Paul would often refer to in his letters, Jesus was trying to get the disciple to be transformed by a renewal of their minds (Rom. 12:2), to no longer behave like unspiritual men, but as spiritually minded disciples (1 Cor. 2:14-16). It is important to keep in mind when the feeding of the multitude took place. Sunday’s reading was taken from Luke 9:10-17. Leading up to this event, the disciples had witness Jesus calming the storm (Luke 8:22-25), a woman healed just by touching is garment (Luke 8:43-48) and Jesus raising a girl from the dead (Luke 8:49-56). Furthermore, the disciples had just returned to Jesus after he had sent them...
Read more