The Invisible Enemy

Yesterday, I got an unexpected call from a dear friend who was praying her daily rosary. She invited me to pray a decade with her on the phone. After catching up on who was home from college and everyone’s health, we mentioned the intentions we wanted to pray for and began the Third Sorrowful Mystery, the Crowning with Thorns, together. I was touched, I was lifted up, I was filled up with grace by this simple call and short prayer time together.

After sleeping on it, I made it my goal to call at least five people today to pray a decade of the rosary on the phone with them, and low and behold, I ran out of decades. Being a resourceful Catholic, with plenty of devotions to choose from, I sprung right into calling five more friends to pray a decade of the Divine Mercy Chaplet after that. I was touched, I was lifted up, I was filled up with grace again by these simple calls and short prayer time together.

During those calls, we talked about all things Covid-19 including how stressful it is to wipe, disinfect and eliminate every possible little droplet of the virus that we may have come in contact with during our necessary trip to the grocery store or the gas station. We are hypervigilant, hand sanitizer at the ready, disinfectant wipes in every room and we are scouring surfaces and nooks and crannies that could potentially contain this invisible, evil, enemy virus. It has us nervous and anxious since we can’t see it like we can see a glass of spilled milk and know we are getting every drop cleaned up.

We have social distanced ourselves from everyone and have suffered the pain of not being able to hug our friends, our priests and those who are despairing and could truly use a hug. We have lost the ability to receive the Eucharist and gather as a faith community to worship Jesus in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We have lost the ability to go out to dinner, have our friends over for a meal and get our grey hair spruced up. We have lost it all for an invisible enemy we can’t see but we know is all around us. There are concessions we are making in our lives to combat this invisible enemy at all costs.

Why haven’t we been this hypervigilant about the invisible enemy that confronts us daily, the one all around us waiting for the chance to infect us? Why haven’t we been this relentless in wiping out every little droplet the evil one sprays across our world with his sneezes of pride, hatred, and accusation? We can’t see him so do we just settle in and don’t think about how he hangs in the air and pollutes the surfaces of our televisions and media and how he infects us with moral relativism? While we have out our hand sanitizer and bleach, perhaps it’s time for us to also grab our rosaries, our Bibles and our car keys in order to pray, meditate and drive ourselves to Reconciliation to wipe out the bigger invisible enemy that lurks among us. Call a friend today, on the phone, not by text or email, pray a decade of the rosary together or a simple Hail Mary, and fight back against the invisible enemy that always hovers around us.