COVID-19 is an opportunity for the Church

Dear brothers and sisters,

In a time of crisis, fear, or doubt, we often are drawn back to the Church. We long for God in a deeper way because, as C.S. Lewis said, suffering is God’s megaphone into the soul. We are looking for something stable in an anxiety-ridden world. Thus, the hardest part for many faithful Catholics now with COVID-19 is balancing this desire to seek refuge in the Lord while at the same time avoiding getting sick or getting others sick and keeping social distancing.

Many feel like God is testing our faithfulness and want to come to the Eucharist even if they may get sick. However, I would look at it from another perspective.

This is an excellent season to develop the practice of the Domestic Church. We all know that as Catholics a tendency can be to default to the liturgical celebrations and ignore personal devotions. We call it a “check box mentality” where you’re just checking off another obligation to stay on God’s good side, as it were. In reality, the liturgy can be rendered fruitless within your own soul if your heart is not disposed to the sacramental graces that Christ died and rose to give you. That is to say, if you objectively attend Mass and receive the Eucharist, but subjectively the love you have for God and neighbor has run cold, you are not profiting from the liturgy, but are walking towards spiritual ruin. “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Matt. 5:18).

So let us have this social distancing, which is appropriate to slow down and spread out the acute impact of the virus, but let it not be a time to ignore the things of God, but to double-down on our own interior life. If we cannot, or should not, show up at Mass, then let us foster so great a devotion to our Lord that we remain present with him every moment of the day. Let the fathers and mothers start to truly lead their children in prayer, Scripture reading, moments of silence and reflection. Let each home become a school of prayer and of charity. Let each of us carve out more time for our families with truly recreative actions, like walks outside, board games, and even yard work. We don’t need to entertain ourselves on screens, though that will certain happen more often now and their ain’t no shame it! But let’s find healthier alternatives that actually bring us together relationally instead of just physically on a couch.

If you are single, perhaps social distancing might feel extremely isolating. I know that having 4 small children in my house makes me crazy, but having no one in the house may do the exact same thing. Find others. The prohibition is about large groups, but meeting in houses of 5 or 10 people can be beautifully reassuring and combative against loneliness. So this COVID-19 may be a catalyst to getting to know your neighbors, or your fellow parishioners, in a way that just was not possible. It wasn’t possible because the urgency was not there. Now the urgency is here! It’s similar to the effect a hurricane has on our neighborhoods. We need one another now.

It is probably wise to avoid Mass, but it is never wise to avoid Christ! Although the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the source and summit of our faith, “the sacred liturgy does not exhaust the entire activity of the Church” (CCC #1072). After all, between the source and the summit is the path up the mountain! This pandemic may be just the thing for Catholics to become fully apostolic in our vision and practice of the faith, for Acts 2:42 states: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers.” Are you devoted to the apostles’ teaching as much as you are to Christian fellowship? Are you devoted to your personal prayers as much as you are to the liturgy of breaking of the bread together? We need to be 100% devoted to all four. Let this be a time of doubling down on the domestic church, which every single Christian home is called to be. Let’s grow in holiness even if we are not able to receive our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.