During Times of Crisis: How to Fight Coronavirus on a Spiritual Level

Take a deep breath and breathe in peace...God is with us.

Quick poll: Do you believe that Grace can protect you and your household from the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic?

Feel free to answer, "Yes." Or, "No." It's also ok if - honestly - you're not sure.

 

The answer is...yes.A nuanced yes, though. With a sliver of not exactly... God's Divine Life, the essence of all Grace, can technically protect you. Some would even argue that His Grace is all we need right now. Yet, a very famous adage from Saint Thomas Aquinas professes that "Grace builds on nature", meaning that: on the human side, God has gifted us with the common sense to reason through human issues and take very practical measures. We are living this out right now: taking on good health practices as being suggested by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), and our national and international leaders. E.g. "Wash your hands." E.g. "Social distancing", right when we need each other most. E.g. Cancellations, especially of any event with a gathering over 50. Some of us, with deep distress, are experiencing the shut down even of our churches, no more Sunday mass, and a lack of access to all sacraments. It would be foolish to wish for a "rescue" by Grace alone, when we've been gifted with such eminent faculties (like our brains) to deduce what we can about prevention, prevision, and survival...but what place does Grace have, then?

Unleash the Protective Powers You Hold Within

Grace is God's Life itself. God's Brilliance shining into our small minds. God's power empowering our small wills. God's Divine Love flowing into our small hearts. Is there anything healthier, more vivifying, more needed than this Life inside of us? The Creator who breathed original life into each one of our beings, who holds us in existence, chooses to live again within us. What could be more life-giving? God's Son, God Himself, died and then rose again to infuse - restore - this Grace into us. What can Grace not do...be...for us?

Grace gives us more than we have on our own, on our human level. "Grace builds on nature" means that God's Grace helps us do more than we can on our own. God brings us to truths that we could never discover without the help of Grace. We are desperately in need of being surrounded by this Grace right now.

Father, Protect Me

If you have no one to protect and provide for you...remember you have a Heavenly Father who is watching over you and will be your protector in this time of crisis. Let Him wrap His comforting arms around you, and keep you. That is Grace: those protective arms that hold and guide you in time of need.

A Warrior's Poem of Protection

In the darkness of the Easter Vigil, the Church proclaims the Easter Exsultet - see this post for Easter...especially if we're unsure if Easter mass will happen - an ancient hymn sung in darkness in or outside a church extinguished of all light. In that dark night of body and soul, a roaring fire is lit, and from it, an Easter candle. Patrick once lit an Easter fire - in defiance of malicious druids - in defiance of darkness! - in front of a king. Plagued by a lifetime of capture, slavery, attack, torture, plots at every turn...Patrick penned his warrior's poem, his Breastplate of Protection and deliverance. "I arise today," Patrick cried each morning, for his life after poisonings and constant death attempts made his every breath a miracle, "by the strength of heaven." By the strength...of Grace. Today, we are those plagued on every side. For this reason, we send out this Perimeter Prayer and an accompanying collection of deliverance and binding prayers. Everyone is talking about the COVID-19 Pandemic and those who are not, are still worrying about it secretly. Perimeter Prayers were developed through the ages as Christian men and women came face to face with the evil forces which abound in the fallen world. They don't carry magic, nor spells, nor luck of any type. (No leprechaun charms.) What they do possess, however, is rightfully ordered words of faith which help establish with clarity that God is in control and welcome to flood your home or office with His Grace, ie. His Divine Presence. Practically speaking:

1. Download the free blessing below.
2. Choose which prayer to pray.
3. We invite you to walk the perimeter of you own homes, using Holy Water to bless yourselves and your possessions, remembering that Sacramentals like this prayer blessing set, this small Holy Water set and this large Holy Water set - use your own holy water or holy oil! - opens our hearts to His grace in a way proportional to our own faith. As you do, imagine the darkness receding everywhere before the light, the darkness of our own struggles and falls, the darkness of disease and sickness, of all our relationships, and the darkness within our world.

A Prayer of Power, and of Deliverance, like Patrick

There is an enemy of Grace. It's not just ignorance...and not just even indifference. In the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, the utterly creepy master devil tells his demon nephew, "Never let a good crisis go to waste..." Ughhhh. He creeps even further, of course. "In time of disease and epidemic, humans give in to their fears and turn in upon themselves, instead of the One who can help them solve it." That is our enemy. There is an army of enemies just prowling against our turning to God, easing themselves into our imaginations and circumstances, insinuating fear, confusion and despair. Pandemic...into pandemonium. Let us defy our enemy. Let us resolve to turn to God and to each other in crisis. We're turning to the One who can solve it. We're asking for His Grace, because we want the ultimate of truth.

This year, join billions of others and let the light of His victory drive the darkness forth from your homes too. Pray this perimeter prayer around your home, around your neighborhoods, around your family and your communities. Don't stop with yourself. Draw the circle of family nice and wide. Let us not let this crisis go to waste...but instead of it breeding fear and hysteria, let it foster hope and commitment to God and each other. Rejoice in the conquest of our King, and let His light burst forth in your own hearts.

One Last Note

• Many Catholic masses are being livestreamed daily and especially on weekends. Normally this wouldn't be "google-able", but right now, a google search of "live stream Catholic mass" will bring results!
• Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is also being livestreamed on YouTube. Google as well, or check here or here.
• This video: in a time where we need protecting, let us not forget we have a loving Father who is with us. May this song be balm to your soul today and always.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGHWiAGpIP0

Prayer Resource Sets Offered by House of Royals. Shop from the Safety of Your Home...

(At House of Royals, everything comes brand new, is stored in its packaging, and, just like you, we are taking extra precautions with the health of our team members and disinfecting fulfillment spaces.)