Today's Entrance antiphon reads: "The waves of death rose about me; the pains of the netherworld surrounded me" (Cf Ps 18 (17): 5,7]. How true! The waves of death caused by the coronavirus rises around all of us throughout the entire world. "The pains of the netherworld [surround us]." With the psalmist, we pray: "In anguish [we call] to the Lord, and from his holy temple [God hears our voices]". As Pope Francis said to us yesterday from a live-streamed reflection at noon our time: "Be not afraid. Jesus is in the boat with us." And just as he calmed the fears of the disciples and stopped the storm that was threatening to kill them, so, too, will he calm our fears and assist us in stopping the spread of the virus that could kill us. He has power over the coronavirus just as he had power over the storm that scared the disciples to death!
In the first reading of today's liturgy, Jeremiah 11: 18-20, Jeremiah acknowledges that he knows "their plot because the Lord informed me; at that time you, O Lord, showed me their doings." We know the plot of the coronavirus. We know what the coronavirus is doing to thousands of people around the world. As those hatching plots against Jeremiah, and later against Jesus, so, too, it seems is the coronavirus determined "to destroy the tree in its vigor" and to cut us "off from the land of the living." However, the coronavirus will not have the last word any more than death had the last word in Jesus' life or the life of Jeremiah. And just as the cases of those who were healed by Jesus revealed the glory of God, so, too, will the glory of God be revealed in today's world ravaged by this evil. Good comes from evil now as it did in Jesus' time when He was with us physically. He is with us now in Spirit and in Life!
May our faith and trust be strengthened in this storm of life. May we keep our eyes on Jesus and look to Him for the help that we need!
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