Today we are living through a decisive moment in our history, and we, for better or for worse, are a part of it. It is normal that we feel anguish, that our hearts are touched by pain, that what we see makes us cry. Neither we nor the world were prepared for this difficult situation. Let us ask for the grace to be the prophets and saints that the world needs in this hour of illness, suffering and death.
I think everyone watching the news has cried with the families who have lost a loved one. This reality is touching our inmost core. We cannot wait for it to go away and for everything to go back to the way it was because we are not the same people as we were a few weeks ago. Many things have changed within us. Consciously or unconsciously we are starting to realise that we are not self-sufficient and that we are small and poor, but, above all, that WE ARE ONE. Never before in the history of humanity have we become aware of this to such a degree: WE ARE ONE, in life and death, in health and disease, in fragility and hope, in tears and laughter. It is as if all humanity were in the same boat now and we need each other to arrive safely at our destination. In this sense, this text by Edith Stein has something to say to us: “In the darkest night, (in this world night of the coronavirus), the greatest prophets and saint arise, those who speak of hope arise.” Hopefully these prophets are us.
Prophets talk about the future, they help us believe that we will see the light, they encourage us to continue and walk at night. Prophets make us see the light when we are in darkness. THEY TELL US ABOUT ANOTHER, they tell us about God who is bigger and stronger, who is a loving and Good Father. It is God who suffers in the face of this universal pain. He does not abandon us, God is not far way, he is close by and he is a friend. He knows our fears and understands what’s going on inside us because he’s within us.
God cries seeing this chaos, but it doesn`t paralyse him. He who has conquered death and disease, takes the clay of our humanity in his hands just like the first day of creation, and creates man in his image and likeness again. He creates men and women with the capacity to love, to believe in the force of life. He creates a humanity that lives in fraternity and that looks up at its creator with confidence and tenderness.
Hopefully we will let ourselves remain in his hands so he can model us into the prophets and saints that he dreamed of from the beginning of creation.
Rosaura Rios
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