Quarantine and Lent
Those who manage to live this long quarantine, which enters the second year, as perspectives and hopes are true, but also with anguish and concerns, understand that there is a cause for attention, encouragement and concern, especially with the anguished. There was no carnival, and there is no reason to party, it is true that some groups insist, but if we look at the number of people compared to society as a whole, they are a minority, the majority are concerned and want us to have a way out of this suffering soon.
For Christians it is a period of prayer, fasting and abstinence, it means to abstain from some things that the new normal is already taking away from us, however this can be done voluntarily, thinking about the society as a whole that suffers. Representative of Catholicism, but also of Christianity, Pope Francis always looks at the whole human family with tenderness and passion as a good Latin, in his February 12 message he invited us “Let’s go up to Jerusalem…” (Mt 20, 18) which means how he himself explains a “journey of conversion, prayer and sharing of our goods”, and so to live this Lent with an attentive eye to those suffering from abandonment and anguish because of the pandemic (in the photo the door where Jesus began his final journey in Jerusalem).
When Jesus approaches Jerusalem, he goes there to live the days of the Passover, the Jews already celebrated it and still celebrate it today, but it does not always coincide due to the Jewish calendar being different from our Christian, but the lamb that is “sacrificed” during Easter, referring to the sacrifice Abraham made in place of his son, it is Jesus himself this lamb at Christian Easter.
The quarantine of all is the pandemic, saying words of encouragement that comfort, comfort, strengthen, stimulate instead of words that humiliate, distress, irritate and despise emphasized the Pope.
I think that due to the quarantine situation it will be a different Lent, in which we will go deeply into our pains as humanity, and we will be able to think about a much more promising and hopeful future ahead, Lent is not just death, we go through it , but the resurrection that is on the other side for the one who accepts to pass through the narrow door.
All humanity suffers, so it is a moment of passion for all humanity, and those who are fraternal and supportive will know the way to alleviate the pain of those who suffer.
It is time to think about the essentials of life, to review our false paths of progress and to review our personal lives.