Due to COVID-19 restrictions, this Easter season feels radically different from past years. Although we are permitted to sing “Alleluia” once again, everything feels changed. Many suffer in isolation, in unemployment, in anxiety, and in illness. In these difficult times, we are called to look for the silver linings. Facing overwhelming uncertainty and fear, I find it helpful to focus on what is rather than what is not.
This is not a time to gather in groups for Mass, school, Easter parties, birthday parties, graduations, weddings, or even funerals. We cannot control the reality of what is occurring in our world right now, but we can do our best to control our actions and strive to live within safety guidelines. It is a time to restrain from the temptation to think we can make exceptions. It is a time to connect by writing letters, making phone calls, texting, videoconferencing, or emailing.
This is not a time to visit the sick and elderly. While worry and sadness consume our thoughts, it is a time to pray. It is a time to support our health-care and emergency-response workers who care for the vulnerable, making themselves vulnerable in the process. It is a time to see the charity and compassion in others and to thank them for being our hands and feet at the beds of those in need.
This is not a time to attend sporting events, gym classes, theatre productions, or concerts. It is a time to catch up on the things we “never have time” for. It is a chance to organize photo albums, watch movies, bake, learn a new technical skill, paint the basement, plant a garden, read, make music, play board games, do a puzzle, complete a forgotten knitting project, or go for walks. This is a time to simply “have time.” It is a chance to pause in a society that encourages fast-forward mode.
This is not a time to hug one another. It is a time to touch each other’s hearts with random acts of kindness, such as buying food for someone in quarantine or paying a bill for someone who has lost their job. In our neighbourhood, someone spread joy in the form of dozens of rocks, painted in bright colours and bearing messages of hope, placed along the sides of the street. My children decided to join the initiative, painting and distributing some rocks themselves. This gesture is not a way to change the situation we are in; however, spreading love and positivity is a way to brighten people’s moods.
This is not an easy time. While worry, sadness, and disappointment abound, it is a time to hold onto hope. It is most certainly a time to pray. It is a time to seek – and to be – holiness in this world.
As Christian writer and speaker Terry Hershey observed in his “Sabbath Moment” column during Holy Week (terryhershey.com), “The holy is not confined or restricted to what we call normal. My eyes are open to the sacrament of the present moment, knowing that the ordinary is the hiding place for the holy. My eyes are open to the sacred; in compassionate gestures and hospitality and small heroes and big virtual hugs. My eyes are open to the deep river running in each of us. My eyes are open to hope found in clarity with no need for arrogance, cruelty, fighting, or paranoia. My eyes are open to the invitation to give up the control that I clutched.”
This is not a time to go to church. While our sacred buildings may be closed, the body of the Church is “open” – alive and well in each faithful person who seeks the holy, who prays in solitude, who watches online celebrations of the Eucharist. Regardless of what we’ve lost during this time, we have gained eternal life because Jesus is risen.
During this difficult and uncertain time of distancing, we must draw closer to what is most important. Let us look for silver linings. As we strive to seek holiness – to see what is – may we remember that, even though things are not the same, it is still Easter. There is reason to proclaim, “Alleluia!”
