To the entire Rosary community,

I am writing this article as I sit here in my office for the third week of officially being quarantined. It has been three weeks since all major league sports have been canceled, it has been three weeks since schools have either shut down or switched to online schooling. Pretty much the entire country has shut down.
I think what hurts the most out of all of this is that it has been three weeks since we’ve had no communion, no mass, or no physical Church community because the doors of our churches had to come to a close.

When this article gets published and you have the opportunity to read these things, it will be different. For the better? I hope so. I am here to write an encouraging story (well I pray that it can be for you) about the Rosary community and how getting through this together, rooted in Christ, is essential!
I am sure that you have already realized that, yes, we need Christ in our lives in order to get through this, but why? Why do we need Christ in this moment of struggle? Allow me to walk you through a few theological understandings and some biblical stories to put some things into perspective.

Lent.

Lent is a season in the Church in which as a community, we come to participate in a time period of forty days of suffering. Yes, suffering. During Lent, we are called to remind ourselves of the fasting that our Savior Jesus Christ undertook in order to prepare himself against temptation and eventually his crucifixion. “By the solemn forty days of Lent, the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert”(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 540.). It is this very mystery in which Christ himself faced forty days of isolation, forty days of suffering, and in those forty days, he faced temptations.

We as the Catholic community being members of the body of Christ unite ourselves in this very mystery. During Lent we prepare for the holiest week of the Church that commemorates the Paschal Mystery (passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ).

So what is our desert?

We are called to enter into the desert just like Christ did himself, and I truly believe we have entered into one that we did not expect. Isolation, suffering in some manner, and maybe even temptation as we experience the world in havoc and uncertainty due to this virus. However, let us remember that we have entered and passed through the desert united with Christ, and let us look towards him as an example that our savior has suffered as well, for Christ brings meaning to suffering.

How?

Remember his passion, death, resurrection, and ascension. Allow me to pull you away for a bit to tell you of a story. There was a group of men on a boat who were told by their leader to embark on a journey towards the horizon of the ocean. They did as they were told and after a few miles offshore, the boat began to rock very violently. The waves became stronger and the wind more powerful, which caused great fear to enter into the hearts of those men. Moments after this, they could see a figure in the distance, and they believed it to be their leader. However, this figure was walking on water (does this remind you of a certain story?). With great disbelief and fear they believed it to be a ghost as they cried out, terrified, “It is a ghost!” Their leader walking on water coming closer towards them, spoke these words, “Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!’’

If you haven’t realized what story I am sharing, it is the story from the Gospel of Matthew when Christ walked on water. In this very story, we see his disciples lack faith, trust, and courage. When the disciples saw him, they did not recognize who Christ was, and they called him a ghost! Even when Christ was standing right before them in his true bodily form, they did not believe that it was him until he spoke.

I think we can make a very important connection here. Ready? Yet, before I make this connection, I have to give credit when credit is owed. I discovered this connection from a group of sophomore Royals who are extremely bright and deserve this credit.

You and I are in this boat, the waves and wind are rocking this boat, and let’s say that the wind and waves is the virus and chaos in the world. We soon become very terrified and afraid just like the disciples did, but Christ is walking towards us. Do we believe that he is there? Do we also say “look it is a ghost!”?
Christ turns to us now just like he did to his disciples and speaks these words “Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!” Let these words pierce your heart in the midst of everything that has taken place: Christ is here before us calling us to be courageous in faith to see him, to trust him, and to not be afraid. Our resurrected Christ who walked on water walks with us in this moment of suffering that we are facing as humanity. Simple connection but it is so profound and has immense depth to it. It can really rejuvenate our trust in him if we truly contemplate upon it. At least it did for me. Good job Royals!

Okay now back to my earlier thought that I had you hold onto. Passion, death, resurrection, and ascension. When you will be reading this, we will be entering into the Easter season, but it is important to reflect on what has happened leading up to the feast of the feasts, Easter. Are you afraid? Do you maybe have a loved one or know someone who is sick with this virus? Are you maybe worried about the financial burden that this virus may have caused? Are you struggling at the fact that Churches have closed their doors? I know that I am.

Fear is natural as human beings, but once we allow our fear to overtake and diminish our faith, it is no longer just natural fear. It becomes a tool that the devil uses to pull us away from God. Christ endured a great amount of pain during his passion; he suffered just as we suffer. Christ experienced death just as some of our loved ones have and someday we will as well. Christ has resurrected and ascended into heaven, he has conquered death, sin, and suffering. This gives us hope and brings meaning to our suffering, by the very fact that we have a Savior who has paid the price for us and invites us to partake in his suffering.

Why?

So that we too can inherit the gift of eternal life!

St. Teresa of Calcutta puts it better than I ever can: “Suffering is nothing by itself. But suffering shared with the passion of Christ is a wonderful gift, the most beautiful gift, a token of love.” This suffering that we are enduring is a beautiful gift from Christ because we can remember his passion, and death and celebrate his resurrection and ascension into Heaven.

I will leave you with these last couple of sentences; hopefully, they will mean something to you. Enjoy your time with your family, allow yourself to grow in your domestic church, which is the very foundation and if not the most important component of the entire structure of the Church. Pray with your family. Remember in this time of Easter as St. John Paul the Great once said: “We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song!” If we believe in the Lord who says, “I am the way, I am the truth and I am the Light,” and we lean on God, we will have peace, and joy in the midst of all of this chaos.

As we go forward as Easter people to celebrate the resurrection of our Savior, God Bless you all! Let us continue to pray for the world. “We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song!” We are not looking for a shallow joy but rather a joy that comes from faith, that grows through unselfish love, that respects the “fundamental duty of love of neighbor, without which it would be unbecoming to speak of Joy.” We realize that joy is demanding; it demands unselfishness; it demands a readiness to say with Mary: “Be it done unto me according to thy word.” – St. John Paul the Great (ANGELUS paragraph 3)