If COVID is over….

The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II
Friday, Memorial of St. Andrew Dung-Lac & Companions, Martyrs, 24 November 2023
1 Maccabees 4:3-37, 52-59   ><}}}}*> + ><}}}}*> + ><}}}}*>   Luke 19:45-48

If COVID is over,
If COVID is no longer
that threat,
I wonder, dear God our Father,
why we especially in the Church,
have not set any major celebration?

Why have we not staged any
major celebrations for COVID'S 
demise or waning?

Do we not care anymore
that is why we have stopped praying
and celebrating Masses in churches
because you have heard our prayers, God?

Oh, not to forget, dear God,
the evil among us who took
advantage of the poor and
suffering during pandemic by
profiteering from others miseries!

How I wish and pray today,
God our Father,
that we imitate Judas Macabeus
of the first reading to rededicate
ourselves, our world
to you as we reel from COVID;
may we also have some serious
cleansing of our selves and
the Church like Jesus at the temple
to gather and assess 
the important implications and 
lessons from the recent pandemic
by working to close the big gaps and 
imbalances among peoples and nations.

Since COVID started,
Christmas countdowns and
decorations have started earlier
than usual to uplift our spirits
dampened by the pandemic;
now that COVID is almost gone,
may we remember too how
you, O Lord Jesus came among us
in our darkest hours to bring your light
of healing and life, joy and peace
during those troubled years of pandemic;
May "we praise your glorious name,
O mighty God" like the psalmist today.
Amen.