CORONAVIRUS TIME IN BRAZIL.

Vivere la conformità di amore a Gesù in tempi di COVID-19 Una meditazione nel Venerdi Santo 10/04/2020

This Holy Friday has a unique feature compared to the others. All over the world, we live it in the midst of perplexity before the growing numbers of people affected by this pandemic and at the same time, locked in our homes to protect us from this disease. In this reality, as stated by Sr. Ermanna Ballotta: “Faith turns tears into hope, loneliness in solidarity, distress in confidence: all the Lord sees and welcomes ... everyone's life is in his hands "( https://www.dimesse.it/2020/04/05/tempo-di-coronavirus/ ). Meditating on the Paschal Mystery in this context, we are called to look more deeply at the love of Jesus which is at the heart of this mystery. A love that becomes novelty and called to a new way of being and living. We have our eyes on this day, Jesus who gives himself totally out of love to us and to the Father on the cross and the multitude of people who in many countries of the world suffer from a disease and in many cases a death without explanation. What can we find in common in these two realities? First of all, we draw closer to Jesus. He lives his last day of walking in the mystery of the incarnation. His life has always been a generous "yes" to the Father and his brothers, especially to the most suffering. He lived radically towards us, the full love received from the Father. He has made his life a gift without limits of love. And today, we see it disfigured, umigliato, tried in human courts in an unfair trial and sentenced to death. A reality that leaves us perplexed, without words and with a pained heart. Humanly speaking, a great injustice. For Jesus, the supreme act of love. At the Last Supper, with his, He offers us a key to understanding and welcoming pain as a path of redemption and as a light which, in addition to illuminating suffering, is a source of true and profound meaning and a call to conformity: the key is called "love". An agape love, a love gift that comes from God and only in God finds fullness. In the gesture of washing the apostles' feet, Jesus becomes visible the logic of love, service and donation which has guided his whole existence and which reveals his dignity and sonship of the Father: it is by serving and giving oneself that Christ becomes available in the hands of the Father, becoming his image and transparency: God is love!”. Contemplating this love that begins at the last supper and has its full fulfillment on the cross is a light and a hope in this moment in which we live. Approaching now the suffering of many people in this historical moment, we contemplate three elements illuminated by love: 1. Unlimited care by health professionals - many, in several countries today they are already caught by the disease of COVID. For them it was not a fatality, but a consequence of a love without limits. They have assumed love in response to their vocation until the last consequences. Their children, friends, his, they certainly mourn their departure, however they look deeply into the strength of their delivery and their service. They have become for humanity, says Pope Francis, the martyrs of today. Thanks to you doctors, nurses, priests, men and women religious, anonymous people who gave your life so that many others could have life and full life. In you you can witness the conformity of love to Jesus on the cross. 2. The call to stay at home as a call to limitless love within the limits of family and fraternity - this century brought with it a novelty: we are close to those who are far and away from our neighbors. How many people today have deep friendships across the ocean, but they cannot find those who live together. Social isolation has brought us closer to our homes and communities, to meet together to celebrate in the domestic Church the mystery of love that Jesus revealed to his family in the intimacy of the Last Supper. His, with his passion and death he left us a new commandment: "Love one another as I have loved you". He loved us to the cross and in brotherhood united in his name, it gives us the opportunity to love one another to the cross. These days, for many people, are days of eternity. What we do now, we may not be able to do it tomorrow. We live a kairòs time of unique opportunity to reveal to one another what it means to love like Jesus: how many waivers, how much I listen, how much closeness in this "isolation"! This makes us think: we can be more human in our relationships? We can be more supportive? We can learn something of this pain? 3. Solidarity - yes! This is the path that COVID-19, in the midst of pain it calls us to take on. Empty ourselves, like Jesus on the cross, to offer ourselves to those who are most suffering. We cannot remain selfishly in the cry of ours.. we must learn to cry for everyone, we must open our hearts to everyone, we need to understand the reality of a global family that goes beyond our home ... even while staying at home. How many people have discovered this path in the creativity of small solidarity gestures: to produce masks for those who do not have them, send messages online to encourage others, find the elderly neighbors who were not even seen ... and many other gestures. Praised be the Lord for humanity that begins to open itself to charity! Three lights that bring us to the conformity of love to Jesus in time of COVID-19. We don't walk in darkness. The Lord is with us and his Word sets us free, converts us, it purifies us to be new women and men in a new time. Nobody will ever be like before after this time kairòs. In this sense, Happy Easter to all those who read these words.

- Sr. Luzia Ribeiro Furtado – Delegazione Brasile Caxias, 10 April 2020-