Caracas (Venezuela), 05/05/2020, Sr. Nícida Amparo Díaz Leal.- At this time, when the days go by and the situation of quarantine surprises our way of being and doing our tasks, building relationships, meetings, prayers... In this situation we hope that everything may go by lightly and in our own way; we are anxious and yearn for speed, urgency, actions that put us in constant movement outside of ourselves.
Living in the outside has become our daily routine for many years, but it emerges that now the quarantine surprises us and invites us to live inside the community, in the family, in my little corner... The truth is that we voluntarily assume the quarantine, thinking about our people, those inside and those outside... also thinking about my own safety.
Lock down has become the place and space that breaks the established patterns of our routine, giving us the opportunity to meet more with our brothers and sisters in the community, with the family...with myself.
The problem is that we are not used to living an interior life; this new reality is very long, because we do not know how to be, we do not have the patience and we need to do other things with speed and urgency: we invent them to calm our restlessness, not knowing how to be different. This invites us to be patient at this historical time in order to become patient at the pastoral and community spheres.
We also learn how to accompany and be with our people, since the loneliness of our people is felt, their hunger, unemployment, struggle to survive... How much pain and suffering we will find at the side of the road! This demand unlearning and learning a new way of being oneself and being with them as we said, to be patient pastorally.
In this reflection I remind you the quote from 2 Peter 3:15 “Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation”. It means, to be certain that God is involved in all our experience and he is saving us in it. It is a way that he takes hold of us, God suffers and endures our pain and suffering patiently carries each one of us in his heart and knows that, in the midst of our fears and confusions, we will be able to take a step forward and decide patiently to accompany our brothers and sisters in their anguish and loneliness.
The patience of God accompanies us and waits for us, this pleases our soul and makes us get away with our self-referentiality, to learn to be with the others and also to take our people in the depth of our heart, to suffer patiently with them, to accompany them in God's way, not doing things, but being with them, sharing their struggles and hopes, with humanizing and hopeful gestures, looking at their existential peripheries, approaching and committing ourselves fraternally, like the good Samaritan, like the owner of the vineyard who goes out to look for unemployed workers.
Let us take advantage of our quarantine to grow in patience in the manner of the God of Jesus, who saves us by accompanying us and taking care of each one of us with tenderness and mercy.