The pandemic has forced almost all of humanity to live in lockdown. This unprecedented experience gives us the picture of a world ground to a halt. The silencing of human activity breathes new life into nature and the universe, as if creation was being rearranged. In fact, lockdown has emptied our cities, our neighbourhoods. You can’t help but think of the passage in Genesis: “Now the earth was a formless void” Gn. 1:2. Gradually a new state of order is being put in place. As a result, thanks to the decrease in pollution, the lights of the universe shine forth in a new way, the horizon is less overcast with industrial gases. Little by little, nature is reclaiming its rights, wild animals are returning to our cities. Up until now, nature was obliged to bow down to the all-powerful human race. Today, something infinitely small, a virus, is causing chaos, and humanity is forced to question itself and reconsider its rightful place in the universe. Humanity believed that it was able to manipulate and decide everything with its intellect. Now it finds itself confused and perplexed.
The unprecedented way of celebrating the pascal mysteries and the prolongation of the lockdown have created a thirst in us; thirst for a word that can bring deliverance, liberation, salvation, and the reorganization of chaos! Jesus is risen, he has won the victory over death. That is the Word that is sure and that gives us the confidence and perseverance to profess our faith in “the life of the world to come”. Will tomorrow be like pre-pandemic times? The chaos of today is awaiting a word that can recreate us. Use this time of confinement to welcome the word of truth that makes us free to live together in a more responsible way and in greater solidarity.
Sr Roselys