The following are words of spiritual encouragement (lightly edited) from four Catholic priests regarding the COVID-19 crisis.
COVID-19 is causing everyone to slow way down. It's so good for us! In this adjustment time, may we grow in awareness of one another, kindness toward one another, patience, understanding, charity, even joy. God: You love us even now as you call us to think about life, not madly running after things, excitement, addicted to activities, but about You Lord, and ourselves, and one another, slowing way down.
Remember, the Sacrifice of the Mass is still being offered to the Father through the Son by priests daily, even if you can't attend. Unite your intentions to the Sacrifice, pray the rosary, adore Jesus in the Eucharist where possible, confess where you can. Let's pray that more will start to pray, even if it's only one Our Father. It's a beginning. We are decades behind! Mary, Queen of Peace, pray for us.
The most singular problem we have, which is being made apparently clear in this crisis, is a lack of supernatural outlook due to a weak interior life. So many people are rightly distraught by first the limiting of Holy Communion, then the shut-down, and now state-by-state shelter-in-place decrees for weeks on end.
A solid interior life would recognize this as a Father Walter Czisek, S.J. , moment, a Francis Xavier Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan moment, and so many others. Just like so many heroic men and women before us in millennia passed, a solid prayer life would keep us united to Him. We would have a supernatural outlook; nothing would tear us away from Him.
When our greatest treasures are seized – our freedom to walk around as we will, our dinners out, Holy Mass when and where we want, Holy Communion daily – even then we can't be distraught because a solid interior life has prepared us for this moment. As Catholics, we are the Church Militant here on earth. We have been born precisely for this.
The crisis brings us to stark realization that we are not the masters of our own destinies and fates. The coronavirus outbreak can teach us that not only do we have to take care of our bodies, but above all, our souls. Jesus tells us in the Gospel, 'Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that guarantees unto life.'
This spiritual food, of course, is the Holy Eucharist, which, sadly, many of our parishioners are now deprived of due to the cancellation of Masses. The fact is that most of us do focus more on material realities than spiritual ones, and the crisis now can be a wake-up call to rediscover the importance of the Blessed Sacrament, which we need to hunger for and which only priests can give us. Without the Eucharist, our soul withers and dies.
Let faithful Catholics then pray before the tabernacle in thanksgiving for the Lord, Who is still with us, and that He does not withdraw His presence from us in this nation due to the idols we have made and for our infidelities.
Keep your mind and heart fixed on Christ and His kingdom. Remember, the way to both is marked by taking up your cross and carrying it with the Lord to Jerusalem. He is with us and His light is most clearly seen when it's darkest. Pray and unite your prayers and sufferings with that of the Mystical Body of Christ.