As many of you know, the key focus of the Permanent Diaconate is pastoral ministry. Most of you will see Deacons in our liturgical ministry (assisting at Mass, preaching, baptisms, weddings funerals). You are unlikely to see us in our pastoral ministry – which is often with those on the fringes of our community, on the streets, in prisons, in hospitals.
For about half of the 30 years since my ordination to the permanent Diaconate, my ministry was as a hospital chaplain.
The very first patient I saw and spent time with was dying of AIDS. And in some of the last visits I made as chaplain, I was wrapped in protective gowns, face masks and face shields visiting dying patients during the SARS epidemic.
So, Covid-19 isn’t my first rodeo. And coming face to face with the fragility of life isn’t new to me either.
In a way, these experiences helped me gain a unique perspective on life – for so many of us live our lives blissfully unaware of just how fragile the balance is between sickness and health, freedom and seclusion, life and death.
In those days I would leave my office, where I was one of the owners of a successful engineering business, step out of the corporate world and into a world where people lived on the bleeding edges of existence. Where one more day, or one more hour, became the most precious thing in the world. Where being with someone, holding their hand as they passed, was both a privilege and a blessing.
It helped me put into perspective the petty matters that infuse business and family lives and needlessly consume our energy.
For when you have regularly experienced life’s fragility, it helps you appreciate each and every moment where life doesn’t appear so fragile. And frankly, it helps you to “not sweat the small stuff”.
If there is something profound that covid-19 has given to a huge number of people, it is the opportunity to gain an insight into what is truly important in their life. What gives their life meaning and purpose. The pandemic, perhaps more than any other event in their life, has caused them to reassess their priorities. Their relationships. Their sense of purpose. And maybe even the place of God and faith in their life.
As with any life-changing shift in perspective, it comes at a price. And invariably, that price’s currency is suffering. In a society that wants to find no sense or purpose in suffering, life has taught us a hard lesson.
The choice of how we apply that lesson is entirely in our hands. We can rail against the virus, the countries, the politicians, the governments, the businesses, our neighbours.
Or we can take the insights gained in our experience to make some fundamental changes in our life, in the way we decide what is important to us. To change our perspective.