Sadly, we have to note that in this difficult crisis we have practically no official leadership from the Church to show the faithful the way forward in this situation. Since this is how things stand, we must abandon ourselves especially to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who will not leave us without instructions or allow the faithful to be left alone in the midst of the crisis.
Let us remember what we have already said:
As God allows the pandemic, it is on a spiritual level a rebuke from Him, which we should accept in faith and give the appropriate response.
Since many of the faithful are deprived of access to the sacraments, which is already a very heavy burden and creates a situation that was previously unimaginable, it is now important to emphasize other forms of prayer.
An almost global ban on openly celebrating Holy Mass is an apocalyptic sign, which must be taken seriously and should sharpen our vigilance. It makes it clear to us that we live in special times, in a “situation of exception”. On the one hand, darkness wants to spread; on the other hand, the faithful are called to spiritual resistance.
The Holy Rosary, this eminent prayer, should be part of the “daily spiritual bread”; as should the intensified reading of Sacred Scripture and good spiritual literature; the practice of the jaculatory prayers or the systematic “prayer of the heart”. It would also be good to participate in the Liturgy of the Hours of our Holy Church. Harpa Dei will try to give access through the media to one or another office.
It is a great blessing and, in these times, a particular comfort to be able to transmit and receive the gospel in a mediated way. We should make the best use of these means, while we can. Here, too, we must be careful: can we exclude the possibility that one day we will be deprived of access to the internet, or that it will be very restricted? We cannot be sure!
That is why it is important to live personally in a stable and firm relationship with the Lord. This can be fostered in the family, in a religious community or in a good parish community; but it is indispensable to be able to be alone with God as well. In the meditations on the “Message of the Father”, we had heard His words about how great His joy is to be alone with a soul. In these times, it seems to me particularly urgent that each one should work on this for himself.
Dear friends, I address a serious word to you: in a crisis situation like this, we cannot rely on anyone else but God. Even people who are very close to us can themselves fall into a crisis, or become ill and have to isolate themselves…
We can certainly be grateful for every help a person gives us, and welcome it as coming from God’s hands. But, in the end, only in Him can we abandon ourselves completely. This is why this pandemic, in which even social contacts are forbidden or restricted, in addition to other unspeakable circumstances, gives us an essential message: deepen your relationship with the Lord! Only in Him you can put all your trust! Let us not build our security on people, but on God alone.
Christian mysticism speaks of profound processes of purification, both at the level of the senses and of the spirit, in order to attain unification with God. In a certain sense, this event that we are facing is also a process of purification. In the Church it has already begun, and now seems to be spreading to the whole world.
Let us come to the point: If God uses this pandemic as a serious warning to call us to conversion, then the most important thing is our conversion. As the faithful, let us completely order our life before God, and leave behind all mediocrity.
In this context, I am thinking whether with Harpa Dei we can offer something like a mini retreat for our listeners, on the night of next Friday to Saturday. The daily meditations should remain short, because they are impulses for the spiritual life, and they cannot become conferences.
We are considering how to make this idea concrete… The theme could be: “How to deal spiritually with the current pandemic”, or something similar. In this framework we could broaden and deepen what we have talked about in these four meditations.
I would like to ask each of you if you are interested in this. We ask you to contact us, if possible in name, to get an idea of how big the interest is and we can, so to speak, “register” you. Having this information, we could make a more concrete plan.
From tomorrow until next Saturday, I will continue with the essential points of the “Message of the Father”.
And at Easter, the meditations will focus on the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.