Transcript:
We glory in tribulations, living the faith. When public worship is prohibited, millions of Catholics in the so-called free Western world, in the coming weeks or even months, and especially during Holy Week and Easter, the culmination of the entire liturgical year, will be deprived of any public act of worship due to both civic and ecclesiastical reactions to the outbreak of coronavirus. The most painful and distressing of these is the deprivation of Holy Mass and sacramental Holy Communion.
We are currently experiencing the atmosphere of an almost planetary panic. The drastic and disproportionate security measures, with the denial of fundamental human rights of freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, and freedom of opinion, appear almost globally orchestrated along a precise plan. An important side effect of this new sanitary dictatorship that is spreading throughout the world is the growing and uncompromising ban on all forms of public worship.
The current situation of the prohibition of public worship in Rome brings the Church back to the time of an analogous prohibition of Christian worship issued by the pagan Roman emperors in the first centuries. Clerics who dare to celebrate Holy Mass in the presence of the faithful in such circumstances could be punished or put in prison. Such a sanitary dictatorship has created a situation which releases the air of the catacombs, of a persecuted Church, of an underground Church, especially in Rome.
Pope Francis, who on March 15, with lonely and halting steps, walked through the deserted streets of Rome on his pilgrimage from the image of the Salus Populi Romani in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore to the miraculous cross in the church of San Marcello, conveyed an apocalyptic image. It was reminiscent of the following description of the third part of the Secret of Fatima, revealed on July 13, 1917, “the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting, stabbed, afflicted with pain and sorrow.”
How should Catholics react and behave in such a situation? We have to accept this situation from the hands of Divine Providence as a trial that will bring us a greater spiritual benefit than if we had not experienced such a situation. One can understand this situation as a divine intervention in the current unprecedented crisis of the Church. God is now using this situation to purify the Church, to awaken those in charge in the Church, and in the first place, the Pope and the episcopate, from the illusion of a nice modern world, from the temptation to flirt with the world, and from the immersion in temporal and earthly things.
The powers of this world have now forcibly separated the faithful from their shepherds. The clergy are ordered by governments to celebrate liturgy without the people. This current purifying divine intervention has the power to show all of us what is truly essential in the Church: the Eucharistic sacrifice of Christ with his body and blood, and the eternal salvation of immortal souls. May those in the Church who are unexpectedly and suddenly deprived of what is central start to see and appreciate its value more deeply. In spite of the painful situation of being deprived of Holy Mass and Holy Communion, Catholics should not yield to frustration or melancholy.
They should accept this trial as an occasion of abundant graces which Divine Providence has prepared for them. Many Catholics now have, in some way, the chance to experience the situation of the catacombs, of the underground Church. One can hope that such a situation will produce the new spiritual fruits of confessors, of faith, and of holiness.
This situation literally forces Catholic families to experience the meaning of a domestic church. In the absence of the possibility to assist at Holy Mass, even on Sundays, Catholic parents should gather their families in their homes. They could assist in their homes at a Holy Mass broadcast on television or the internet, or if this is not possible, they should dedicate a Holy Hour of prayers to sanctify the day of the Lord and to unite themselves spiritually with the Holy Masses celebrated by priests behind closed doors, even in their towns or in their vicinity. Such a Sunday Holy Hour of a domestic church could be done, for instance, in the following way:
Prayer of the Rosary, Reading of the Sunday Gospel, Act of contrition, Act of spiritual communion, Litany, Prayer for all who suffer and die, Prayer for all who are persecuted, Prayer for the Pope and the priests, and Prayer for the end of the current physical and spiritual epidemic.
The Catholic family should also pray the Stations of the Cross on Fridays of Lent. Furthermore, on Sundays, parents could gather their children in the afternoon or in the evening to read to them from the lives of the saints, especially stories drawn from times of persecution of the Church. Catholics who are now deprived of assisting at Holy Mass and receiving sacramental Holy Communion, perhaps only for a short time of some weeks or months, may think about those times of persecution where the faithful, for years, could not assist at Mass and receive other sacraments, as was the case, for instance, during the communist persecution in many places of the Soviet Empire.
Let the following words of God strengthen all Catholics who are currently suffering from being deprived of the Holy Mass and Holy Communion:
From First Peter 4, 12, 13, “Do not be surprised at a fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice in so far as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”
From Second Corinthians 1, 3 to 4, “The Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
And from First Peter 1, 6, 7, “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”
In a time of cruel persecution of the Church, St. Cyprian of Carthage, from the third century, gave the following definitive teaching on the value of patience. I quote, “It is patience which firmly fortifies the foundations of our faith. It is this which lifts up on high the increase of our hope. It is this which directs our doing that we may hold fast the way of Christ while we walk by his patience.”
“How great is the Lord Jesus, and how great is His patience. He who has dwelled in Heaven is not yet avenged on Earth. Let us, beloved brethren, consider his patience in our persecutions and sufferings. Let us give an obedience full of expectation to His Advent.”
We want to pray with all our trust to the Mother of the Church, invoking the intercessory power of her Immaculate Heart. May the current situation of being deprived of Holy Mass bring abundant spiritual fruits for the true renewal of the Church after decades of denial of the persecution of true Catholics, clergy, and faithful, which has happened inside the Church.
Let us hear the following inspiring words of St. Cyprian: “If the cause of disaster is recognized, there is at once found a remedy for the wound. The Lord has desired His family to be proved, and because a long peace had corrupted the ecclesiastical discipline that had been divinely delivered to us, the heavenly rebuke has aroused our faith, which was giving way, and, I had almost said, was slumbering. And although we deserved more for our sins, yet the Most Merciful Lord has so moderated all things that all which has happened has rather seemed a trial than a persecution.”
God grant that this short trial of the deprivation of public worship and Holy Mass may instill in the heart of the Pope and the bishops a new apostolic zeal for the perennial spiritual treasures which were divinely entrusted to them. This means zeal for the glory and honor of God, for the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and His redeeming sacrifice, for the centrality of the Eucharist and its sacred and sublime manner of celebration, for the greatest glory of the Eucharistic Body of Christ, for the salvation of immortal souls, and for a chaste and apostolic-minded clergy.
May we listen to the following encouraging words of St. Cyprian: “Praises must be given to God, and His benefits and gifts must be celebrated with thanksgiving, although even in the time of persecution, our voice has not ceased to give thanks. For not even an enemy has so much power as to prevent us, who love the Lord with our whole heart and life and strength, from declaring His blessings and praises always and everywhere with glory. The day earnestly desired by the prayers of all has come, and after the dreadful and loathsome darkness of a long night, the world has shone forth, irradiated by the light of the Lord.”
Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus. Amen.