By: Sr. Meliza Arquillano, OP
Adrian Dominican Sisters, Philippines
This pandemic that we are all encountering right now is quite new to us. The first impact of this pandemic to me is the feeling of hopelessness― being controlled and manipulated by the protocols mandated by the government because of the situation. In terms of relationship with my family, I learned now to value more my family in terms of giving them my time whenever it is possible because before this pandemic happened, I admit that I am not really giving so much effort to visit my family, first, I find it, time and energy consuming because the travel time will normally take 5-6 hours, considering that I can only have 2 days home visit including the travel time. And second, as a full-time student, I always find it hard to find time for home visit and now because of the pandemic, it’s quiet now impossible for me to visit them but luckily, we have all the means to communicate with our family though in different ways like video calls and messenger. With regards to my relationship with the community member, it becomes more challenging in many ways. Challenging, because we now have so much time together- more time to discover one another’s limitation. But, despite the challenges in the community, I consider this pandemic as an opportunity to develop patience, humility to accept the limitation of one another and a room to learn ourselves deeply. God allows all these things to happen for us to realize that in time of uncertainty we cannot depend or hold on to nothing but only with Him. The situation right now taught me to be gentle and bare the wrongdoings patiently through the help of prayer. The community is now practicing a daily adoration wherein we only did that before once a month. I also have more time to learn new things like cooking and baking, and lastly a great chance to serve the community through the things that I am passionate about. Same thing with the colleagues in ministry, I take time to talk and listen to them. I guess listening and acknowledging their feelings is the best thing to do now instead of forcing them to divert their focus or instead of saying “Get busy and distract yourself”.
The COVID-19 pandemic did not sink in with me until the Government has announced the total lockdown. I did not feel any fear before because deep within me, there’s trust and hope to God that He will never allow this pandemic to ruin His people. But, after 2 months, that is the only time that I feel worried about many things, about the poor people who lost their jobs and can no longer provide food for their families, about the students including me who cannot have a proper study and the sisters in the congregation who are expose including those who are susceptible, as well as my family. I came to the point that I questioned God, many people died and most of them are poor, when this pandemic will end? I prayed and asked Him to stop the spreading of COVID-19 virus, but it seems that God does not hear any of our prayer. But I never get tired of praying and hoping that one day God will touch the world with His healing hand and the Blessed Virgin Mary will wrap the world with her mantle to save us from this pandemic. I think, God wants to teach us something. He wants us to value our family, value our time, health and including the world that we live in and most of all to respect human life. God is not yet finish with His plan, this pandemic is most probably His way of reshaping and recreating us, pruning our imperfections so that we can bloom again according to His plan.