When the COVID-19 (or Coronavirus, as we were all still calling it in March 2020) pandemic hit five years ago, I was already staying home from work—on paternity leave.
I vividly remember hearing that Pope Francis would be offering televised remarks from a rainy and abandoned St. Peter’s Square, and since I was home anyway, I remember tuning in to see what he had to say.
What he had to say was a prayerful message of hope that was exactly what I needed to hear in that moment of fear—when most of what I was watching and reading was sounding alarms, spreading panic, and telling stories of death and desolation in the face of this threatening illness.
As he displayed the Eucharist in a monstrance on live television, I was breaking down in tears in my living room. Regardless of your thoughts on Pope Francis, he understood the assignment in this moment. His words were insightful and his prayers were powerful. I’ll never forget this image:
A new website was released today to commemorate his address, and I want to share a few of the more impactful lines from his reflection:
The storm exposes our vulnerability and uncovers those false and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities. It shows us how we have allowed to become dull and feeble the very things that nourish, sustain and strengthen our lives and our communities.
The tempest lays bare all our prepackaged ideas and forgetfulness of what nourishes our people’s souls; all those attempts that anesthetize us with ways of thinking and acting that supposedly “save” us, but instead prove incapable of putting us in touch with our roots and keeping alive the memory of those who have gone before us. We deprive ourselves of the antibodies we need to confront adversity.
In this storm, the façade of those stereotypes with which we camouflaged our egos, always worrying about our image, has fallen away, uncovering once more that (blessed) common belonging, of which we cannot be deprived: our belonging as brothers and sisters.
One phrase in particular stuck with me in that moment and for months after: “the false and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities.”
In a world of distraction—even when there isn’t a raging pandemic—those eloquent words are about as true and convicting as it gets. How much of our day is spent obsessing over false and superfluous certainties? Your job, your car, your hobbies, your health—even your family—are all going to pass away when we leave this world for the next. If you can’t take it with you, maybe hold on a little bit more loosely here and now, too—clinging more desperately to the faith that will save you over the phone that will destroy you.
While a time of great fear and true loss, the pandemic also forced everyone to slow down. Slowing down is not a concept that 21st century humans are keen to embrace. Busyness is a valuable currency that allows us to mentally pay off the debts we owe to ourselves, to our family and friends, and to God. The time we should be using to embrace the blessings and gifts God has bestowed on us is already spoken for—and we’re not really sad about it.
Making the real priorities our priorities is hard work, even when we know what they should be and profess to care. It’s not our fault. We’re busy.
As the Pope illuminates above, our out-of-whack priorities are strengthening the wrong muscles, and when adversity arrives, we are often lost, cast out to sea in our anxiety and lack of true faith.
But the Pope provided an answer five years ago that is also perfect for our current season of Lent. I’ll let him play me out:
The Lord asks us and, in the midst of our tempest, invites us to reawaken and put into practice that solidarity and hope capable of giving strength, support and meaning to these hours when everything seems to be floundering.
The Lord awakens so as to reawaken and revive our Easter faith. We have an anchor: by his cross we have been saved. We have a rudder: by his cross we have been redeemed. We have a hope: by his cross we have been healed and embraced so that nothing and no one can separate us from his redeeming love.
In the midst of isolation when we are suffering from a lack of tenderness and chances to meet up, and we experience the loss of so many things, let us once again listen to the proclamation that saves us: he is risen and is living by our side.
The Lord asks us from his cross to rediscover the life that awaits us, to look towards those who look to us, to strengthen, recognize and foster the grace that lives within us. Let us not quench the wavering flame (cf. Is 42:3) that never falters, and let us allow hope to be rekindled.
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