Somewhere between St. Patrick’s Day and St. Joseph’s Day, San Antonio went into lockdown. Oblate School of Theology, where our offices are located, closed the campus to all but essential personnel. We were prepared. We all had particular vulnerabilities to the severe effects of COVID-19, and we did not want to tempt fate. We had met and decided that at whatever point we no longer felt safe coming to the office, we would begin working from home. We made all the necessary preparations, and our decision to work from home came just a few days before the whole city was required to do so. Consequently, there was no disruption to our work, though there was certainly a period of adjustment.
As it was for everyone else, working from home was just the beginning. We had to move all meetings online. We learned to adapt to the idiosyncrasies of the Zoom software. Some events had to be cancelled or postponed indefinitely. Travel had to be cancelled. We had to learn ways of staying productive by making up for the lack of personal contact afforded by being in the same space. We started with daily email check-ins.
We also discovered that the nature of our work permitted us to move most things online. Therefore, when the LEM formation program in Salt Lake City under the direction of the indefatigable Susan Northway moved forward with its online courses, it made sense that the formerly live presentations that our Resource Persons provided to supplement the online work could still be delivered live, but online as well. Susan worked with us to adapt our presentations to that medium in a way that was helpful for the participants and the presentations continued without a pause.
We also instinctually knew that we needed to do something different. We knew that many people were hurting, feeling isolated, anxious, and perhaps lonely. We wanted to reach out to them, especially those who have been walking with us in mission all these years. So often, when we reach out, it’s to ask for support. We didn’t want to ask for anything this time. We wanted to offer support.
We don’t have much, but our namesake, friar Yves Congar, OP, in his time also reached out to his fellow believers at a time of disorientation and confusion following World War II and provided them a resource: the opportunity to reflect theologically on what was going on around them in their daily lives. They hungered to know how to bring their faith to bear on these everyday questions, and theological reflection was the food that Congar fed them. What if we turned the simple act of careful 20-second handwashing into a meditation on the needs of others affected in various ways by the pandemic, and perhaps a prayer? What if the everyday realities of living with the coronavirus had the light of God’s Word shone on them?
So, we began to post daily 20-Second Meditations on our Facebook page encouraging our Facebook Friends to take 20 seconds each time they washed their hands that day to reflect on the needs and realities of different groups of people—healthcare workers, teachers, first responders, vaccine researchers, journalists, government leaders, working parents, etc.— affected by the pandemic.
We also invited our Resource Persons to challenge themselves to take one or more of the readings of the day and offer a reflection that supported and encouraged our readers, our companions in mission, around a specific challenge they might be facing during this time.
Of course, our plans took us through mid-June. That would surely be sufficient time for us to get to the other side of the pandemic—or so it seemed in late March. When the pandemic dragged on and the second wave hit San Antonio after Memorial Day, it began to sink in that this was for the long haul. So, the office team adapted and started doing video check-ins three times a week. We decided to take turns leading the team in prayer each time to begin the video check-in. We continued our weekly team meetings using Zoom.
And we thought about how we would continue to support those who have so faithfully walked with us in mission. We wanted to increase both our creative edge as well as our insights into what is happening around us. So, our first thought was to invite our Resource Persons and Board members to brainstorm with us on what needs they were observing around them and what ideas we could come up with together to help address those needs and be useful to our companions. Our current initiatives flowed out of that shared reflection with about 20 of our collaborators.
First, we could offer reflections and resources that would help our readers to cope with the situation over the long term. We recognized the need to help everyone to begin to imagine new ways of understanding what it means to be a Eucharistic people in the midst of a Eucharistic famine as so many were hurting from the limits placed on attendance at the Eucharistic liturgy. We wanted to emphasize that despite the limits placed on our access to the shared Eucharistic banquet, it does not mean that the Body of Christ does not continue to be present to us and through us. We want to help our fellow missioners to see new ways of understanding what it means to say “Amen” to the truth of the Eucharistic invitation all those weeks and days we were able to in person, and how that “Amen” can be manifested now, in the depths of the pandemic.
We also want to stir up hope and make the resources of our tradition that each of us bears in our hearts, sometimes unconsciously, more readily available for making meaning in these difficult times. We want to provide forums called “Congar Circles” where a small group of faith filled people can gather online to actually engage together in facilitated theological reflection on what is happening now. This effort requires a little legwork and will be available in the coming weeks. We hope you’ll want to join one of these virtual small communities or Congar Circles to reflect together on what new light the incredible riches of our Christian tradition can bear on our current experiences, and support one another in being witnesses of hope, even in the strange and challenging Time of Corona.