New Life

The celebration of the Lord’s glorious Resurrection has begun, so may I wish God’s blessings of Easter peace upon all our readers, your families and friends.  As this past Lent has been unique in its trials and sufferings, may Paschaltide also be most unique in its rejoicings.

The month of March encompassed the bulk of the Lenten season.  The great and terrible penance which the Eternal Father has permitted to afflict the world at this time has become for us each day, a more tangible reality.  A sociologist friend began to warn us of the imminent danger of the corona virus early in February, but it seemed a bit exaggerated.  After all, flues come around each year.  But in just a few weeks time, even his dire predictions had been far surpassed. 

One day, I was scheduled to help Sister Charitas cook, so we conferred after work blessing and I went upstairs to change into our kitchen habit.  On my way back to the kitchen, Mother Vicaress met me to say that Sister Charitas had been quarantined.  She was not well and she had been talking to a person at the door a few days ago who had been traveling and whose mother had the virus.  Sister Elise, our registered nurse, looked very medical for the next week in her mask as she imposed the most strict isolation on Sister Charitas who simply disappeared from our midst.  During that time, I received a note from her encased in plastic and no doubt sanitized.  The rest of us began washing our hands in earnest and walking around with pocket sized hand sanitizer.  Portresses wipe off packages that come in at the door, cooks wash the vegetables in soapy water as do the sisters in charge of the fruit.  At the same time, everyone had to come to terms with the fact that if Sister Charitas had the corona virus, then all of us have been exposed and it was more than likely that at least some of us would come down with it as well.  When Sister Veronica disappeared from community with the complaint of a fever, it seemed that the inevitable had begun.  Thank God that for both of our Sisters, their afflictions proved to be a more conventional sore throat rather than the current plague.  Never have we been so happy about a sore throat bug!  But the point had been made, a very sobering one indeed.  Facing our mortality at such close quarters has a way of setting all our priorities straight.  

As I am sure it has been for you, each week and then each day of this month has seen more and more directives coming from both ecclesiastical and civil authorities aimed at halting the spread of disease.  On March 17^th our newly ordained priest friend, Father Dan, who celebrated his first mass with us last year, was our celebrant again.  He announced that the bishop had forbidden all public masses.  It was the saddest day of his 289 days as a priest.  When he held up the Host at the end of the canon saying, “Behold the Lamb of God…” I was not sure he was going to be able to finish.  Who are we that we are called to the Supper of the Lamb and others are not?  So many of our friends have tried to take refuge with us so that they could attend Mass and receive, or simply just to attend.  At first we were able to let them come, but then we finally had to refuse.  It has been so painful for them as for us!  Our last public Mass was on the anniversary of our dedication when we had our first public Mass, March 27^th.  Father Dan also said in his homily that when we come to the end of this, he hopes we will be able to tell many “glory stories” of people’s acts of charity.  We can already tell so many.  Our good benefactors, often looking like bandits in their masks, literally risk their lives to bring their gifts of food to us.  They leave them outside the door, or come in, saying few words and leaving quickly.  Most have serious and anxious faces.  All are suffering.  Our priests anguish since they cannot minister directly to their flock.  Some have come up with creative ways to get around the restrictions, including “drive by confession” where a priest will sit in the middle of his parking lot and penitents will drive up in their cars, roll down the window and tell their sins.  Of course, the internet is being extensively used to live stream liturgies, and post recordings of homilies.  The Dominican Friars in Washington DC are offering “Quarantine Lectures on line for students exiled from their colleges and anyone else who is interested.

Meanwhile, we all ponder the meaning of what is happening in our prayer.  Holy Mother Clare says that the abbess should “mercifully impose a penance” on a Sister who has failed in our form of life.  As a world and as a Church, we have been heavily penanced, but this is part of God’s mercy to turn us back to Him.  On Ash Wednesday we prayed, “Let the priests weep and say, Spare O Lord your people…”Little did we know how literally we would be carrying this out!  And this we continue to pray as we confess our sinfulness.  

Our President has told us that we are at war now with an invisible enemy and all Americans must do their part.  He has mobilized the National Guard to build temporary hospitals and the Army to transport supplies, automobile manufacturers to make ventilators, garment industries to make protective garments for health workers.  What is our part?  We have been told by a priest friend that in ancient days when a king came to a city, there would be a delegation sent out to meet him which would show him reverence in an attempt to win his benevolence. Women would bring their children to soften his heart toward them. This actually is the cultural background for the Palm Sunday procession.  Now it is we, the cloistered nuns, who alone go out to meet and receive the Son of Man as he comes in judgment upon the world.  As the world has become one global hermitage, each person in his or her room behind closed doors, may each turn to God in prayer, repenting of the evil he or she has at hand, so that a new world may be born out of this time of darkness, and a renewed Church faithful to her Lord.