There is a chilling video online of a parish church in Bergamo, Italy with about fifty wooden caskets lined up around the walls of the church on the floor. This is what is happening in the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in northern Italy. It is a somber reminder of the seriousness and aggressiveness of this coronavirus. The obituary page of the daily local newspaper is ten to eleven pages long.
The Diocese of Bergamo has lost six priests to COVID-19 and twenty priests have successfully recovered from it. Bishop Francesco Beschi stated today that, “we are close to our people knowing that on one side we bring Christ to others, but at the same time, we can become careers of the virus.” He called his priests to have prudence when in contact with others.
Many years ago I read the book “The Lexus and the Olive Tree” where the author pointed out that in one day he visited a Lexus production plant and later that same day watched on television how people were fighting over ancestral lands in the Middle East – fighting over who owns what olive tree. The coronavirus pandemic reminds me of the contrast that Thomas Friedman experienced and described in his book. We live in a very modern world that strives to solve every problem and control all chaos, yet we have been left almost powerless before an ancient and elementary component of our human existence: disease. No matter how modern and advanced we have become as a society, the reality we are facing today was faced by the most ancient of our ancestors.
We pray for all those affected by this virus, for the sick, the quarantined, their families, and all healthcare workers. May Jesus give us the strength to persevere!
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