Tuesday reflection: We're all in this together

By Marcia O’Dea, RSCJ

“We are all in this together.” This statement has been repeated often in the past weeks; and it points to the collegiality of our efforts to avoid the coronavirus, to prevent its transmission and to care for others. Yet, in many ways, we are in this “separately.”

Our distinct lives come into sharper focus as we individually walk in our neighborhoods, create new projects and work in our homes or gardens. Isolation and distance remind us that we are unique in the world. In these days, we may long for a presence to our family and friends, but we also sense that our personal gifts and ways of being can offer others something special, something precious.

To put these thoughts in a “Sacred Heart” perspective, I believe, when I am settled “in place,” I can see more clearly what is essential to share with others: what springs from my inner vision, my courage and my faith. Mater Admirabilis reminds us of this truth; we pray to her:

“Above and beyond those trifles that harass us and carry us away,
That burden our minds and hearts and distort our scale of values,
Give us, we ask you, a hunger and thirst for the essential.”

These times remind me to look to the work of “His love” more than to my own. His love, as Janet Erskine Stuart says, bids me be, “large in thought, in word, in deed.” To quote Pope Francis in his beautiful Ubi et Orbi address, we “[abandon] for a moment our eagerness for power and possessions” and “we [find] the courage to create spaces ... to allow [for] new forms of hospitality.” It seems that we listen to Life in new ways that are more interior, more nuanced by prayer and more attuned to others. In our solitude, as Alexander McCall Smith in his poem would suggest, we discover:

“Love and friendship
not just for those to whom we are closest
but also for those whom we do not know
and of whom in the past
we have been perhaps frightened.”

Because I can hear these calls to what is essential, I can know better what it means to be in this “together.” These personal invitations will not disappear when things return to some “normal” because they give strength to my self-awareness and breadth to my understanding. After “this” – blessed with new gifts and insights and somewhat wiser hopes – I could find myself freer to love more lavishly.

Prayer (in part): Janet Erskine Stuart, RSCJ

Keep us, O God, from all pettiness.

Let us be large in thought, in word, in deed. . . .

Grant that we may realize that it is the little things of life that create

differences,

That in the big things of life we are one.

And, Lord, God, let us not forget to be kind. Amen.