We Catholics truly miss the traditional easy access to our sacramental life and our community of worship. Prudence and a respect for the lives of our neighbors require these inconveniences of social distancing, very limited access to Mass, masks, and suchlike, and we are all grateful for the efforts of our Pastor and clergy to make as much as possible available to us within the limits required by the pandemic.
But this does not mean that just because it may be difficult or impossible to attend Mass within these limitations, we are deprived of material for our spiritual uplift. Re-acquaintance with Scripture, especially the Gospel of Luke and St Paul’s Epistles, and even the prayer books of our youth can elevate both mind and spirit. There’s one more thing.
I have long been inspired by an observation of history’s greatest detective, Sherlock Holmes. He observed that “there is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in
religion,” and said that “Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence (God) seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras.”
There is so much beauty all over creation to provide a sense of awe and wonder at the glory and loving generosity of God who created it. These may be difficult times, but we know that if we follow sensible rubrics, this too shall pass. And in the interim there is so much to remind us that the God who created this glorious world loves us and that we here in our Parish can say along with the Psalmist: “The lot has fallen unto me in a fair ground; I have a goodly heritage.” (Ps. 16)
