COVID19 and...the cloister?

The fast-spreading coronavirus is no joke, and cities like Boston are right to take it seriously. Especially Boston, where a significant outbreak occurred after a meeting of a big health sciences company--in addition to the two people who contracted the virus in actual China and Italy and then came here.

Self-quarantine sounds to me a lot like making a retreat at home. You have to be prepared. It isn't easy to get through without resources. But you're basically cloistered. Only with extra amounts of soap and water involved.

Here in the convent we are hunkering down with our hand-washing instructions like everybody else. (Maybe a little bit more than everybody else, because we have an elder-care facility on the premises with a good many immuno-compromised sisters who would be at high risk if Covid19 came home with anyone.) Thankfully, we still have daily Mass, unlike our sisters in Italy who are making do with the Pope's televised morning Mass from the Santa Marta chapel. Imagine the pain of so many families whose loved ones are dying in a pandemic (168 deaths daily in Italy) and who cannot even have the consolation of a service where mourners can gather to remember and pray together.

It was when the Italian bishops agreed to exempt everyone in Italy from Sunday Mass until April 3 (to give the epidemic time to dissipate) that I came up with the idea of inviting Catholics in relatively unaffected areas to participate, if possible, in an extra Mass each week of Lent "in the name of" an Italian Catholic who is not able to attend Mass. I put the invitation out on Twitter on Monday:

In addition to getting a good number of volunteers right away (not counting retweets or likes), I started getting thank-you messages from people in Italy. And then one teacher in a Catholic school had the idea of telling the schoolchildren to offer their weekly school Mass for the people in Italy:

The children each received a paper with a crucifix superimposed on an outline of Italy, and were invited to sign their commitment to offer their participation in the Mass "for Italy." As you can see from the teacher's post, the children were shocked to learn that people could not even go to Mass.

I did get a bit of negative feedback, but it was from the Seattle area, where the virus has had a frighteningly rapid and deadly expansion. The writer seemed to think I was encouraging people to gather in large, close-knit groups that could only create more opportunities for contagion. (If that is the daily Mass situation in your parish, congratulations!!! Please ask your pastor and parish staff to share their secrets with the rest of the Catholic world.) Outside of such extraordinary circumstances, while we are still free to go to Mass, please do not contribute to anything that would amplify an epidemic. Act like a typical Catholic and stand six feet away from everybody else. Do the little three-finger wave if there is a Sign of Peace. Stay home if you or anyone around you is under the weather. You know the drill.

But if you can get to an extra Mass now and then for those who are under an enforced cloister for the first time in their lives, I think that would be a good thing.