The Post-Covid19 Church

Coronavirus has put “normal” Church life on hold, with many still deprived of access to the Mass and sacraments. The timing of the coronavirus was significant because it took place just few weeks before Holy Week and Easter which celebrate the foundation of Christianity.

The covid19 lockdown introduced a wide range of experiences, insights and challenges. As a priest I felt unemployed as I could carry out my services to the people, particularly celebrating the Eucharist. The covid19 lockdown challenges Priests to be creative and reach out to people through the Eucharist. We took risks. One priest was taken to court for celebrating Eucharist with more than twenty people. I felt that we were re-living the early Christian era when the church was persecuted, imprisoned and martyred.

The covid19 lockdown called for Church creativity. The Catholic Church focused its ministry by providing prayer services that families and small Christian communities can use on Sundays. While the doors of the Churches closed, another church door opened, namely Social Media and Television. We began televising and livestreaming Sunday and weekday Masses. We also recorded daily reflections that were uploaded early in morning. I conducted a Holy Week Online retreat, which was viewed by between 3,000-4,000 people. Daily reflection videos and other videos to address certain themes and issues became a new way of reaching out to people. Our TV Online Sunday Mass was the most viewed TV One Sunday program reaching on average around 10,000 – 17,000 people. Through TV and through Facebook the Archdiocese of Suva became a global church reaching to Catholics throughout the world. Some Catholics who have not attended Mass for some years, reconnected with the Church. We were reaching out not only the Catholics but other Christians and religions. A friend who belongs to the Baptist Church told me that his family tune in to our Sunday TV Mass every Sunday. Trade Unionists, politicians and mainstream media are interest and visiting our Facebook. Through Facebook we are truly “A Church in the World.” We have invested in a Facebook team to plan how ministry through social media. People are in Facebook and the Catholic Church has to be there as well.

As the lockdown restrictions are progressively lifted, Catholics are now gradually returning to Sunday and weekday Masses, but only with 100 people. This is unlikely to change anytime soon, and the Church must adapt to the new situation. Things will not easily go back to how they were before.
To facilitate Re-Opening of Churches and Schools we got together a consultative group to reflect on how we can pastorally be sensitive as we look forward to Churches and Schools Re-Opening. We introduced the Look Listen Love Bible Sharing method (LLL) to our Small Christian Communities. There are three steps in the Look Listen Love:
1. Look at life
2. Listen to God
3. Love in action

LLL bible sharing allowed people space to share their stories of covid19, listen to God and love.
We also used the LLL bible sharing method to help teachers attend to their covid19 experience and feelings as they return to school. With the help of some teachers we designed a program to help teachers give space of students to share their covid19 and cyclone experiences and feelings.

Theological Reflection: The Healing of Lazarus (part of Archbishop Peter’s 5th Sunday Lent Homily)
Martha and Mary want Jesus to heal Lazarus from illness. Usually when we read in the Bible about people asking Jesus to help them, he helps them right away. But in this Gospel, he doesn’t respond immediately.
When we pray to ask God for something, the answer could be “yes,” “no,” or “not right now.” Sometimes we may think we want something (like Martha and Mary wanted healing for Lazarus) but God eventually gives us something better, Lazarus’ resurrection.

What is better about the resurrection? The resurrection is not merely the resuscitation of life or restoration of life, rather it is the transformation of life. Resurrection is to be with God, to share in the fullness of life – shalom which means the fullness of life. The risen Jesus offered the disciples peace, the breath of God, the fullness of life. According to Fr. Ronal Rolheiser, God does not simply rescue us for sickness, rather God redeems us. God is not a rescuing God but a redeeming God.

On-going theological developments on Covid19 at the Vatican and Pope Francis
A document produced by a unique collaboration including Vatican dicasteries, bishops’ conferences and Caritas was released. It highlighted and amplified the prophetic message of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’. Everything is connected, there are no separate crises: the “common home” humankind shares with the whole of creation faces a single and complex socio-environmental crisis, and requires a true ecological conversion.
Addressing God, Pope Francis said that “it is not the time of your judgment, but of our judgment: a time to choose what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is necessary from what is not. It is a time to get our lives back on track with regard to you, Lord, and to others.”

Fr. Sean McDonough, a Columban eco-theologian said, “The ways humans destroy much of the natural world and engage in factory farming is based on the fallacy that what we do to the natural world will not have a negative impact on human health and well-being. The Covid-19 pandemic shows that this is untrue. Either we drastically change our ways of relating to the natural world, or we must get ready for the next pandemic. A time to heal? The choice is in our hands.”
“This is a time to reset,” Fr. Augusto Zampini-Davies, the Argentinian priest who the Pope has asked to play a leading role in the Vatican’s Covid- 19 commission. He poses hard questions to the Church: “What is essential? This is the question. What is essential for the Church to resume, to regenerate and to allow the Holy Spirit to ignite the essential dimension of Christianity? If Christ is walking with us in this tragic moment, where does he want to lead us?”

A Theological Directive
The new-normal is not only about rescuing the world from covid19, finding a vaccine, re-bubbling the economy, and returning to what life was before covid19. The new-normal is about reflecting on our lives with creation and the creator. The new-normal is about resetting our lives. Covid19 calls us to heal and transform the world.
God is not simply a rescuing God. God does not want us to simply rescue the world from covid19 and so that we continue our lives as usual; that is to guided or ruled by globalization. God offers peace, shalom, the fullness of life. To attain peace requires an ecological conversion. A band-aid conversion, lockdown or even a vaccine is not enough. We need metanoia, a change of attitude, a change of mind about life.
My brief theological reflection offers the world two Global Challenges:
The world needs an ecological conversion – change of attitude – change of mindset regarding our relationship to humans and creation.

To heal climate change and covid19 – we need to humanize globalization to serve human kind and creation. Climate change and covid19 are not to be treated as piece-meal – but in relation to globalization.
What the Post-Covid19 Church will look like.
The world sets the agenda of the Church. Covid19 is the new context for the Church in the World. Below are some reflections on how the post-covid19 Church should understand itself.
The Prophetic and Charity Church – Lord requires that you ‘act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly[a] with your God’. (Hosea 6:6; Micah 6:6-8; Mt 12:17. Post covid19 Church will be one that listens to the Cry of the Poor and Cry of the Earth. Pope Francis wants a Church that is outward-facing, in a permanent state of mission and focused on the poor, rather than inward-looking and self-referential.

Church outside the Church building and Mass. The Church has to be in the world just as Christ has been in the World since beginning of creation (big bang) for 13.8 billion years. The Church should witness to the cosmic Christ communicated by John’s Gospel (Jn1:1-2,14) and Letters of St Paul (Col 1:15-29 Eph 1:7-10)
Christ is not limited to Jesus of Nazareth. Christ was in the beginning of creation. Therefore, we cannot limit our Catholic life and practice to an hour for Sunday Mass. This is why Small Christian Community pastoral program is the Way to be Church Today. The church of the Small Christian Community will listen better to the cries of the poor and sick.

The Poor Church: The post covid19 Church will be a poor church for poor people. Churches have lost their income and will be called to serve the poor. During the covid19 lockdown Caritas-Archdiocese of Suva provided food rations to families in the Nadi. Some parishes also reached out to families financially affected.
Church has to fill the vacuum in peoples’ lives – non-meaning, non-being. How does the Church respond to human spiritual and mental crisis? The psycho-social-spiritual, healing and reconciliation will be an important dimension of Church ministry.

The post covid19 Church will use the Social media as the new medium of reaching out to people. Social media is where people are meeting and hence the Church has to be there-where people are.
May we see the hand of God writing in the crooked lines of our history and work with him.

+ Archbishop Peter Chong