May we learn to pray more deeply during this pandemic, and may we pray after it ends with the awareness that life is fragile and short, realizing that our journey here is our preparation for eternal life.

A Prayer for Our Uncertain Times [Offered by Fr. Jim Greenfield, OSFS, President of DeSales University]

"May we who are merely inconvenienced remember those whose lives are at stake.
May we who have no risk factors remember those most vulnerable.
May we who have the luxury of working from home remember those who must choose between preserving their health and making their rent.
May we who have the flexibility to care for our children when their schools close remember those who have no options.
May we who have to cancel our trips remember those who have no safe place to go.
May we who are losing our margin money in the tumult of the economic market remember those who have no margin at all.
May we who settle in for a quarantine at home remember those who have no home.
As fear grips our country, let us choose love.
And during this time when we may not be able to physically wrap our arms around each other, let us yet find ways to be the loving embrace of God to our neighbors."

Amen.

Kitty O’Meara offered this beautiful insight, may it be a prayer for us when we begin our recovery from the COVID 19 pandemic.

And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.

And listened more deeply.

Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.

Some met their shadows.

And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed.

And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed. 

Keep your heart, your mind and your soul firmly fixed on Jesus and “All will be well when the day [pandemic] is done.”

May God Be Praised!