How impractical to worship as a Community adhering to Social Distancing!

P C THOMAS

The response of churches to the challenges presented by the global COVID-19 pandemic invites a closer examination during a time of social distancing where every religious institution is permitted now to reopen for worship.

As the country is still under the slavery of Covid-19, human life is now rapidly returning to normalcy with a few important restrictions after almost a three-month long hiatus due to Covid-19 lockdown. The central government has set a number of community guidelines which include that all religious places such as temples, mosques, churches must follow stringent rules, like  no touching of statues, idols, holy books and other things inside the premises of the places of worship, no offerings like prasad or sprinkling of holy water etc.. It is also demanded that the doors of these holy places are to be opened only for a limited period of time and numbers of the faithful to attend the worship will have been vigilantly restricted. For Churches, thermal scanners are to be used at the entrance, allot sitting places with numbers on the pews.  After each Holy Mass, sanitize the church, pews, chairs etc and the Priests carry sanitizers and if need be, use it during the worship.

In my point of view, with the restrictions it is not all conducive and comfortable to worship as a community of the faithful because the Christian worship has both personal and communitarian dimensions. Since the community of the faithful cannot worship together without restrictions it is better to be satisfied with personal worship of God with our minds concentrating on God and in communion with all humans of goodwill in the privacy of our homes for a little while longer until the conditions become favorable for public communitarian worship. There is also no pressing need for the faithful to seek public places of worship for his or her spiritual exercises amid the fast spreading virus.  None would be a ‘lost sleep’ in the lockdown period because he or she is unable to go to church, temple or mosque. In this circumstance, we should ask ourselves whether we would get the mental peace and serenity we seek in a worshiping place when there are many restrictions on getting a darshan or a blessing. How impractical for us to get divine blessings at this point adhering to these stringent social distancing and protocol?

In a way it is good that several states including Madhya Pradesh have now determined to extend the re-opening of religions places, knowing that the virus spreads fast, there is no medicine yet to combat it for certain.  Every believer should be aware that the number of patients is already alarmingly high in the country and it may take some time to fully cope with the situation. Therefore, it is the obligation of the believers to take necessary precautions in order to contribute to the survival and security of society in which they live. Love and worship of God need to be expressed in the love of others. Perhaps, not visiting the places of worship at this time of social distancing due to coronavirus is a better act of worship of God than visiting them and probably causing danger to the lives of others. Only those who are able to experience God in the temple, church and mosque of their hearts will be able to experience God in those temples, churches and mosques made of stone and wood!.

The Author can be reached at askpcthomas@gmail.com

This article was published in Metro Vaartha on 10.6.2020