During the coronavirus pandemic each missionary reality of the congregation had a spiritual conversation about the experience of living in pandemic times.
The Sisters of Latin America imagined Jesus walking with them as He did with the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Towards the end of their imagined time with Jesus they wrote what they felt called to: exercise collaboration, generosity and gratitude and evoke the values of our indigenous peoples - the most human and communitarian.
The Sisters in Ngaoundere in Cameroon, tell us that the community opened “The Square of Mercy”, a corner of the house where they meet every day at 3 p.m. to entrust to God all the victims of Covid 19 and all the suffering of the world. There they pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet. The sisters in the service of education found themselves without pupils so they started up a small chicken farm, a good source of income and relations with the people of the town who come to buy. They pose the question; How will black Africa get out of the situation?
Our Canadian Sisters noted that Mother Earth had benefited from this pandemic time because of less travel, less fuel being used, less trains planes and automobiles. They also highlighted how the “Black Lives Matter” movement has highlighted again the suffering of victims of racism. They see that we all have a part to play in stamping out racism starting with our own hearts.
From Spain our Sisters see that the pandemic has revealed that we are one single humanity- we have become united in one evil – the pandemic. At the same time the common phenomenon is not the same in all parts of the world. They highlighted among other things: extreme poverty, the harshness of immigration, unequal resources to deal with the same disaster, total silence on certain groups like refugees, indifference towards countries that never count.
Our sisters in France and Italy imagined themselves in a stormed tossed boat. One word that through light on the situation was ‘together’. Another word that was important for them was ‘solidarity’ – a solidarity that is played out in prayer, entrusting to the Lord all our brother and sisters who are sick, homeless people, garbage collectors, cashiers, postmen…small jobs as too often they are called but lived out with gestures of delicacy, compassion and empathy.
From Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world, our Sisters spoke of their people saying they would rather die of Coronavirus than die of starvation. They tell us that the life of the Malagasy people is already hard but hardship has doubled or trebled following the arrival of the pandemic. On a positive note, medicinal plants are being used more as the people remember the wisdom and know-how of their ancestors.
Finally, an echo from the Sisters in the United Kingdom and Ireland who noted that the humanity of people has shone out in millions of acts of kindness and generosity towards every kind of need. We saw a movement from independence to interdependence. We remembered with gratitude the lockdown heroes and heroines who touched people’s lives in a very deep way especially Captain Sir Tom Moore, Marcus Rashford, Joe Wicks, to mention a few. The joy of growing in our ability to use technology to stay in touch.