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Father Francisc Dobos responded to MEDIAFAX questions about the experiences of believers in a pandemic year. Francisc Dobos describes the year 2020 as challenging and with new opportunities. Before, people ran the risk of losing essentials and the pandemic brought them the gift of finding it.
The year 2020: challenging and with new opportunities. In fact, they may be the same opportunities, but experienced differently. I mean, they put us in crisis, because what we live on automatic pilot, here I also refer to religiosity and participation in the liturgies, in the church, suddenly closed. But if everything is closed from the outside, how can the heart remain open to God, to the transcendent, to the encounter with Him, knowing that it is not our fault? How do we stay anchored in the sky? That was.
There are things that I have lost, but they can become, for a true believer, an opportunity to purify their own way of living the relationship with God, through the incarnation of Heaven in me, with the church. An opportunity to purify yourself, not just to lose habits or to fast, to go to church, on pilgrimage or anywhere. He who truly believes, even if he loses a lot, does not lose himself and does not lose God during this period.
Any trial period can bring “spiritual benefit”
People understood very well that it is a trial period, but any trial period can bring a benefit and a “spiritual benefit”, that what we consider “lukewarm”, that spiritual experience that was not disturbed by other factors, nor by viruses , without pandemic, without other restrictions and what I can – I want to specify: maybe – I did not value it at its true value.
Pandemic and religious persecution can become the seed of Christians
The pandemic makes us value not only spiritual life, but also our human relationships, our family relationships to value them at their true value.
God is creative and creative. The pandemic did not give us, but in any case God visits us. We have the eyes of the mind, the soul, the inner ear ready to recognize it in the midst of the pandemic and not panic when, in fact, God can win us over or draw our attention to the things that really matter.
If I could have done more? I don’t think the solution is always to do more, but to be more present. It does not mean only the quantity, but a preparation of the people, of the believers, of the loved ones, of the communities to be authentic, taking into account the reality. And the reality is fear, insecurity, panic. We can be authentic now. The quantity is not a guarantee of our depth, of our authenticity. Doing more often justifies us to our own conscience, not necessarily to God. Doing more “makes me enter the position of God, that is, to be, in some way, the God of my life. Allowing ourselves to be visited spiritually by this whole situation, by these restrictions, challenges me as a priest, challenges believers: how we allow ourselves to be visited by God and how we manage to distinguish, recognize and not confuse it with “our work”, that is, with our activities , with our projects. They are beautiful, we will return to them. That is why I insist: this entire period of pandemic for someone who is truly penetrated by his own relationship with God, both the pandemic and the religious persecution, can become the seed of Christians In fact, the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians. Even periods of persecution bring that human root to heaven. We go back to what really matters.
2021: people to be spiritually deeper. Let us realize that others, with their fears, are not against us.
The pandemic brought a lot of fear and a lot of insecurity. After going through insecurity – it’s human – it’s not fear or insecurity that dictates our actions, our reactions because if we remain alone in fear and insecurity we become a human relational jungle and everyone will try not to drown. What does it matter if others drown? When man grows up in a jungle and everyone tries to live and feels the danger of others, we enter that dimension of devouring, of mutual tears.
After fear passes … fear does not pass by itself – hence the need for God – to realize that other people, with their fears, are not against us. If we are left without God, all fear will make us eat ourselves up. With God we realize that the other, overwhelmed by fear, is like me and only together, in a deeply spiritual relational dimension, can we overcome all these obstacles.
In fact, they can remain, but we will be different and it will not be fear that dictates our rules and reactions.
Whoever does not come out stronger will be destroyed, even if he seems to be more sure of it. But let’s avoid temptation: let’s not become the God of our life and the measure of our life. Because then, at a certain moment, the enthusiasm ends and we see that “the magic of the holidays does not work because it no longer belongs to us or our magic wand.”
We should not pretend to live alone in a relational structure
That doesn’t mean we don’t see where we come from. Yes, we see it, but that’s not all. Because who has only “oh, what a miserable year we had, let’s forget about 2020” … no, let no one forget about 2020. Because in life we never forget anything. Whenever we say “Yes, I want to forget about my enemies, about certain people who have hurt me.” Nobody forgets anything, because there is a memory of negative things that over time, if it does not have a spiritual lens, that memory destroys us. Remembering the past, remembering the next year 2020, means how we save, indeed, God does, but how we make God save our past, the one with wounds, and how our scars can become an inner beauty. We should not pretend to live alone in a relational structure. Let us have the courage of vulnerability. We are not Ironman.
A moment that particularly marked me was the beginning of the pandemic, when we woke up that everyone stayed at home, we were celebrating the holy liturgies with the church empty… and… somehow. Know when the Cathedral of San José was full of people and suddenly there was nobody, nobody in front of you. In fact, there may be many more online. And the pandemic has its opportunities. And times of trial and difficulty can open up new opportunities, for when we return, we can return better. Many families were found. Many discovered problems, but many rediscovered what they failed to appreciate when they had everything. But then we could risk losing the essentials. Now, concentrating on the essentials, maybe, and I want to, be more thankful to God next year.
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