COVID-19: NOT ONLY DARKNESS, BUT CONCRETE RAYS OF LOVE AND HOPE
Inspired by the daily password, “May the wishes of others become your own.” (March 25). I braved the fear within me to love my neighbor concretely who was in need of help. The password was accompanied by a short thought from Chiara Lubich that states: “Becoming one means feeling ourselves how the other feels. We deal with these feelings as though they were our own, since love makes them our own. Become the other. We do this out of love for Jesus in our brother or sister.””(The Art of Loving, NCP, p 75).
Our local community in Tacloban has a Messenger chat group. One day, we got a message stating that one of us was exhibiting COVID-19-like symptoms. And probably this was contracted from one of her clients since she works in a courier company. She confined herself in a separate room so as not to pass on the disease to her husband and baby who were staying with her. Later, I discovered that she lives in the same barangay where I live. She felt nervous about openly disclosing her situation because she was afraid of being ostracized.
Reading the different suggestions, the group chat members offered, I remembered one of the online Masses I followed in Facebook. The celebrant pointed out that “Love, not COVID-19, should have the last word in these times.” With this in mind, I sent a private message to this member of our community encouraging her to disclose her situation to the barangay officials as her way of helping the community. And she agreed. I also assured her that I am ready to help her in any way I can and promised to contact her again.
After our conversation, I contacted some friends who had access to the town pharmacy and asked them a favor to buy some medicine for her. Eventually, I got the manager-pharmacist of the store to pick up payment at my house for the medicines. I also contacted the barangay official in charge of their zone to take the purchased medicines to her house, along with some grocery items that she would likely need.
In turn, this member of our community set up a chair outside her house where the barangay official could leave the goods I sent for her. She felt happy that she wasn’t alone in spite of her illness. I, for my part, felt happy as well that virus didn’t scare me as much as before. Love indeed makes things feel lighter, a much-needed response to the pandemic rather than fear.
In another occasion, I learned through the chat group that a fellow volunteer of the Focolare Movement in community needed maintenance medicines. I sent her a private message and she opened up to me that she did not have enough money to buy her medicines. Right then, I sent some money to her through online banking. Though I initially thought of saving money for the “rainy days”, I knew that this volunteer was a neighbor in need… as the Gospel states, “love your neighbor…”; “You did it to me!” Out of love for her, I took this opportunity to love in the present moment.
