Christmas time is now behind us. Young Dehonian confreres in India have built a COVID-19 crib: a symbol that goes beyond Christmas.
During the Christmas season, we built a special nativity scene: The Covid Nativity. It symbolizes solidarity with suffering humanity. It also represents Solitude with the Suffering Multitude! .Positively speaking the Cosmic Covid Crisis has resulted in the following 3 fold benefits as reflected in this Covid Christmas Crib.
Trans-personal Closeness:
The pandemic has reinstated the faith in the Divine, the Supernatural reality and to have total trust in Him. People are found to spend time with the Lord in prayer irrespective of the religions and are looking for new hope and above all the immediate end to this terrific disastrous reality.
Interpersonal Closeness:
The pandemic has reminded us of the core values of humanity, integrity and fraternity. Many helping hands and generous hearts have come to the fore and they extend help to the people who are hopelessly helpless on the humanitarian basis (such as providing food, provisions, health care, hospitality etc). The pandemic has emotionally put us together to experience affective bonding as human beings. Now we are made to believe that no natural disaster can divide or no suffering can disrupt the spirit of being humans.
Cosmic Closeness:
The pandemic reality is the nature’s fury due to the exploitation it has endured over the years by the so-called stewards (humankind as a whole) and their failure to foster and to procure the natural resources given for the well-being of humanity. The more we tamper with nature, nature, in turn, will tamper with our normal rhythm. The pandemic has given us cosmic consciousness and ecological awareness and enables us to care for Mother Earth, ‘our common home’ (Pope Francis, Laudato Si) with dignity and respect it deserves. We begin to contemplate on the cosmos and to empathise with the ecology which makes all of us as steadfast stewards and not as wandering wayward!
Let our closeness, uniqueness & oneness shine forth in this dark era of distance, disaster & difficulty!!!
