Occasion of this Supplication: The Coronavirus Pandemic (Covid-19)
I call to You. And in the calling, I feel Your presence. This is no boast of my own piety. It is simply You.
A God who is present, a God who is generous, a God who is eternally given. I do not presume to know Your ways, but I find myself asking after Your concerns. I hear the world calling out for You, a great chorus of need.
The message once brought by Martha and Mary, “Lord, he whom You love is sick”, is now the plea of entire cities and villages. The pandemic strikes the earth, and all people seek Your aid. The lonely, adrift in a sea of darkness and uncertainty. The anxious, burdened by the fate of their loved ones. And yet, this great cry of humanity only draws me deeper into love for You. Do not let me speak of it, for Your love leaves me dizzy.
I picture You moving from one home to the next, leaving one soul only to attend to another. You journey from house to house, from hospital to hospital. You are everywhere: You are within us, on the streets, at the doors of hospitals worn thin by fear and the weight of accumulated bodies. You are in the homes where fear has taken root, in the houses that cry out from pain and solitude. You are with those whom our nations, our sciences, and our health policies have failed… failed to shield their eyes from despair, to open for them a small window to the light, to break their isolation, to cast out an enemy that uses our very bodies to wage a war against us in the shadows.
What are You doing amidst all this?
Perhaps I could guess. But I would rather hear it from You, for when You speak, all things are made beautiful. Who can speak as You do? Will You reveal Yourself to me today? Will You speak a word to me from Your own mouth?
Unveil Your mystery to me anew. Unveil the secret of Your ever-new expressions of love. O God, who never tires of loving, “only say the word.”
Or do You wish for me to say it?
I will. I see You in every room, before every soul, within every body. I see You as both the sick and the visitor. In these days, we are all one of the two: we are either sick, or we are quarantined, forbidden from visiting one who is sick or might be. Today, You seem to be the one deprived of love, and yet You are the one performing the act of love. You love on behalf of everyone, for the entire world. You share the beds of the sick, and You visit them. You, today, are the one missed and the one who is missing another; the one visited and the visitor; the patient, the consoler, and the physician.
“I was sick and you visited me,” You said. You are all of it, in every detail, in actions that unite this present moment with eternity, its fear and its beauty. You are transfigured today, with a wondrous eloquence, in both word and deed. For are You anything but eternally transfigured?
Do I hear a knock at my door?
Are You behind it? I, too, like every other person, ask that You would visit me today. I am not envious of those who have occupied Your time. I am simply asking for that which is Your very nature to give. I am not worthy. I appeal only to Your generosity, to Your freely-given love. I want nothing from You but for You to come and tell me of loneliness and of closeness, of pain and of healing… of all that You see and all that You do today. Tell me of Your outstretched, mighty hand, of Your voice crying out to every storm, commanding it to be silent. Tell me of beds that have become like crosses, and of great and glorious resurrections.
Your stories are countless, and my time is my own; it is for me, and it is for You. If You do not wish to speak, it is enough. Just come. “Show me Your face.” I will not tell you of my own sicknesses; I will not tempt You with what You already know.
If Your time allows, I have a story for You, a new story, which is to say, a story about You. Is there anything more beautiful than You? No. Is there anyone more eloquent? No. Is there anyone who, like You, never tires of love, never wearies of labor? No, there is not. From what is Yours, I have a story I wish to tell You.
Through what You are doing today, through this love that is one with our threatened yet awestruck bodies, the entire world has become a Divine Liturgy.
Come. Let us listen. Let us partake. Let us receive the gift, and let us go forth in peace.
I know You are here.
