Change is good.  It makes us do things differently than in the somewhat mindless way that we usually spend our day. Yes, we need to build a new routine and give ourselves time to settle into it, but when that happens, if we let ourselves observe it, we may discover that something inside of us is making us replace the old “normal” with an experience of something deeper, something that was there all the time, but we didn’t see it or let it enter our awareness of what is happening.  You see, our awareness of what is going on in the hours and minutes of our routine-managed day is only a fragment of what is happening in these precious here-and-now minutes and seconds of our lives.

TRANSITIONING FROM OLD NORMAL TO NEW NORMAL

For me my pre-COVID-19 normal was starting my day with reminding myself of the presence of God, ever-present and available, perhaps even patiently waiting for me to notice that He is here.  Then I would pray a Morning Offering and the Divine Office, known as the official daily prayer of the Church, prayed by priests, religious and lay persons throughout the world.  Now, in these coronavirus pandemic days, that is replaced with going to our website and establishing links to online Masses, so that you and I can “watch” – no, it is more than that – “participate in” the Holy Mass of the day, celebrated, not where I am but somewhere else. How do I connect to God and a community and participate in this Mass?  One way is to let myself be taken to a different but real, not virtual, reality by my memory and the Spirit within me, that Spirit that knows me better than I know myself, and fans into flame the embers of my love for God that are stored in the bonds I have been creating with God through the people in my life ever since I was first in the mind of God – even before my conception and birth.

MY NEW NORMAL – AT LEAST FOR NOW

At the consecration of yesterday’s internet-hosted Mass, I let my mind picture my parish priest being at that same moment of the Mass (He does celebrate a Mass every day.) and me joining him in that prayer and action. This made the moment in front of my electronic device transcend my ordinary “watching” of a movie or TV show. After all, we are still connected to those we love when we are apart, aren’t we? We do believe that physical separation isn’t total separation. We are still bonded by that Spirit within each and all of us in the Mystical Body of Christ.  Now is a time to remember that and let it “re-member” us in the very real, very present Lord and God, a Triune God, a God who is a Community of Persons, whose plan has always been that we participate in God’s existence – a God who is love.

ACROSS TIME AND SPACE – WHAT CAN SEPARATE US WHO LOVE GOD

I also picture myself praying with our St. Michael’s Noon Mass community, with my Mount Saint Mary community of Sisters of Mercy, my religious family, and with all the Sisters of Mercy living and deceased.  After all, we are all together. Some of us, having completed our time on earth are seeing God face to face. The rest of us are on our way to joining them in the not too distant future.  Likewise with my family and non-Mercy friends. I believe that I am a part of those who, as St. Paul said, have “finished the race” (2 Timothy 4:7) and are cheering me on.

So, this social distancing is not a separation except in the physical sense.  And what is that, compared to the ever more life-giving, Spirit-led sense that has a chance of fanning the embers of our often forgotten desire to be with God, fanning them into a fire that consumes our preoccupations with ourselves and our all too routine way of seeing our life without much thought about God and each other?

Sister Loretta

PS.  Here is a link to an America Magazine article, Coronavirus has cancelled public Masses. How can we participate in our own homes?, with some other thoughts on this topic.