Living Our Mission While Quarantined
The word “quarantine” comes from the Latin root “quadraginta,” meaning “forty.” The word for Lent in many romance languages comes from this root – Carême (French), Cuaresma (Spanish), and Quaresima (Italian). So as we live the quarantine, we are very literally living Lent! We have been asked to give up much more than we were anticipating this Lent – our ability to leave the house, our schools and work places, important life events, visits to loved ones… Yet, Lent is always looking towards Easter – the cross points to the resurrection!
Con-solatio, thus, is living this time carrying the cross and accompanying those experiencing great anxiety, loneliness, sickness, or fear and yet, with eyes fixed on the resurrection. How?
Accompanying people through phone calls: Although we cannot physically visit our friends, a voice can carry a presence. We spend our afternoons calling people and discovering that more important conversations that we wouldn’t have necessarily had before are coming to the surface.
Prayer: We pray morning, evening, and night prayer, two hours of daily adoration, the rosary, and the Divine Mercy Chaplet. We are asking for the intercession of the patron saint of each Con-solatio community around the world. We are joining in virtual prayer through daily broadcasted mass and the prayers led by Pope Francis’ for the Church worldwide.
Formation: We are seeking to enter more deeply into an environment of prayer by eating breakfast each day while listening to classical music, taking time to listen to talks and feed ourselves spiritually.
Work: For those of us who are now out of work, we are doing simple, manual labor like cleaning the house! For those who are still working from home, it has become an opportunity to cushion our work more deeply in prayer – to approach the daily tasks and to-do lists in the context of the greater meaning of our lives.
Hope: We are taking time to learn songs, create art, dance, or find beauty. And then share it! With the statistics and news always sharing fear-inducing information, we want to share stories of hope – because they are happening all around us! Like us on Facebook or follow us on instagram @heartshomeusa to see what we are sharing.
Con-solatio missionaries around the world continue to live our mission in many creative ways. Whether it’s praying the rosary from the balcony, singing happy birthday with instruments over the phone, doing stations of the cross throughout their houses, or making cooking videos to send their friends, our missionaries continue to live compassion!
How can you live this time more intentionally seeking God?