Encountering Eucharistic Jesus in the Covid-19 - the Formator in Novitiate
Life is education and Covid-19 is the starting point to experience the mercy of the Eucharistic Jesus and fall back to God with total self-surrender realizing that we are limited and we cannot do anything without the grace of God. “Life offers a battle to be fought before victory is won”. And therefore this is the time to “Will to Live” by turning minus (-) into plus (+) meaning, coming out of negative attitudes to become positive in this hard phase of life that the whole world is experiencing. Negative attitudes are minus and they do not help us in any way.
They tend to follow the line of the least resistance and incline a person to give up in the phase of obstacles like ‘Coronavirus’, and many others. But this is the time when we can be strong and positive only to the extent that we allow the Spirit of God to penetrate our hearts and minds, to see God’s illumined light shining in the darkness of this pandemic like that of our dear founder St. Peter Julian Eymard who was so strong and hopeful in the mercy of Eucharistic Jesus, even amid cholera pandemic that hit the whole world especially France in the year 1854. He never grumbled about the pain of the virus that the whole world was facing nor did he stopped his vision to establish the great order of the Blessed Sacrament dedicated to Jesus in the Eucharist. Life went on as it could be because he was full of vitality and positivity to see the burning and transforming fire of Jesus in the Eucharist that he was going to give to the Church.
This has been my experience of the pandemic ever since it started and sneaked into our society (India). Initially, I was a kind of pessimistic about the situation and even queried about the existence of God because so many people died around the world yet there was no sign of God’s intervention and healing on his creatures. But over a period of time as I sunk into deep reflection and lived my life in the spirit of St. Peter Julian Eymard being hopeful and trustful in God’s healing power, things started falling into positivity, and thereby life started moving with a great and drastic change.
In the month of May when the whole world was under lockdown when there was no movement of anything at all, we could still have the ceremony of the 1st vows of eight brothers done smoothly even though there was no participation from outside. And this became one of the memorable events of my life where I could experience and witness the unconditional love of God poured unto each one of us.
It was not that the Province wanted to have it as usual on the same date and month but it was the power of Eucharistic Jesus which made it possible with our co-operation of hope and trust in the Lord. There are many other experiences apart from this, like live streaming of Mass that we had for some time, keeping myself equipped with spiritual reading and music that could help me hold onto God, and rendering service in the community as part of my growth. All this becomes a kind of springboard in my formation giving a deep sense of hope and positivity to admire and marvel at God’s creative work to put things right into its own track and bring the whole universe back to Himself.
July 12, 2020
Brother Amiya Ranjan Paik, sss
Novice