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"Editor’s note: This is part one in a series of counsel from members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles during the COVID-19 outbreak."
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"Editor’s note: This is part eight in a series of counsel from members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles during the COVID-19 outbreak."
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As a general course, I am not a religious person. I do not follow a specific religion or practice many rituals. However, prior to the pandemic, I was attempting to build a community of my own. A circle of friends who could support me and I could spend time with--a bond. For context, I was in the same place I always had been--same school, same people. Unfortunately, personal circumstances left me lacking in the social department. I had built a reputation of being the intelligent introvert at the school, if people even knew who I was. So I was just beginning to reach out to other people and try to make new connections; I added a Monday club to my week and met someone new.
But this story wouldn’t be recent if COVID-19 hadn’t somehow gotten in the way. About a week or two after I began reaching out to potential new friends, my school had to close due to lockdown restrictions. I think that happened in early March. I made a prediction the first official day of lockdown (a Monday) that I would experience emotional issues due to a lack of social contact. Lo and behold, week 3 rolls around and I was right. That day, I began looking for ways to help my emotional state and relieve some of the distress. One of the things that was recommended to me was starting a gratitude journal. The idea was to make me appreciative of all of the positive things happening around me, like having pizza for dinner or watching a movie with my family, instead of focusing on the negative, like why does the lockdown have to take away face-to-face discussions and why does high school feel like such a chore. I have included the first paragraph of my first journal entry, but for privacy reasons, I will not include more than that.
Since then, I have journaled every day, whether I have much to say or not. At the end, I always have a list of positive events that happened (I try to think of at least four) and a reminder that I can get through whatever I need to because I am strong enough. Repeating those positive words has helped me get through the tougher moments in the pandemic. They could be similar to passages in religious works or sermons; it is designed (from my understanding) to help the listener feel at ease and more comfortable with their circumstances. I can appreciate religion--though I have mainly been exposed to Christianity in my neighborhoods--in this regard. The feeling of being accepted unconditionally by someone and by a community of kind-hearted people is priceless. That being said, I will not follow a specific religion due to the pandemic; the idea of giving myself over to someone I have never met--and therefore do not trust--does not sit well with me. However, I can see value in religious rituals and may come up with some of my own; they will certainly be applicable even in a non-pandemic case.
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Being Catholic is a very important part of my identity and values, thus praying daily and going to church weekly is a part of what makes my life my life. Altar serving and Eucharistic ministry are just two of my duties as a parishioner at my Cathedral, and yet I have not been able to do either since March, which truly makes me heartbroken. Not only do I feel obligated to serve in one way or another at my church, but I want to. I have felt a disconnect from my Catholic community since this pandemic started. It is strange not standing in Mass with my parents and fellow Catholics singing, worshipping, and receiving the Host. It is strange not walking out of Mass and shaking Father Frank’s hand, thanking him for his homily. It is strange not going out to dinner after 5:00 pm Mass with some of the other members of the church. The sense of community has completely dissipated.
My parish has worked extremely hard to create a platform where members of the church can watch livestream and watch pre-recorded mass. They also have specific prayer services and ministry meetings that can be attended by joining a Zoom call. And while I have tried my best to engage in many of these offerings, I haven’t had much luck connecting with God like I used to in the church setting. It is difficult to attend Mass in my bedroom and sit through such a sacred hour at my desk chair. It feels wrong to me. I also know that I am not alone. The priest at my church confessed in one homily how lonely he felt celebrating Mass in an empty Cathedral and how despite the many efforts he put forth, the community will never feel the same on a digital platform as it does in normal ideal real-life circumstances.
I live in Atlanta, and the state of Georgia was one of the earliest states to lift the stay at home orders, and gathering restrictions, thus as soon as the gathering restrictions were lifted I expected to go back to church. However, I haven’t been able to. My church is practicing social distancing by limiting the number of open pews, and requiring the parishioners to make reservations for Mass. There are thousands of parishioners at my church and only about one hundred seats available in each live Mass, thus it is extremely difficult to get a seat when reservations open. According to a newsletter from my church, reservations for Mass fill up within 30 seconds of its electronic opening, which I believe speaks volumes about Christ the King Cathedral. To me, this suggests that so many of my fellow Catholics are eager to rejoin the close-knit community and reconnect altogether. It also suggests that, just like me, my fellow Catholics miss attending live Mass too.
Although I have had no success in reserving a seat in Mass, I have gone to confession. By nature, confession is pretty socially distanced to begin with. I sit on one side of a screen/curtain and the priest sits on the other side. Going to confession was single handedly the best decision I have made religiously since the pandemic began. I immediately felt reconnected with my church, community, and God after going. I was able to explain everything that was on my mind to the priest and he was able to give me specific advice and prayers to help me during this uncertain time. It felt great to physically be back in my Cathedral too. While I know there is still so much progress to be had, my Church has made great effort to maintain the feeling of community as much as possible, and reopening confession was a great decision.
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When coronavirus originally hit, it was something so far from impacting me individually that I thought it was nothing. In January there were rumors of international students who came back to school and may have been infected, but this still didn’t scare me. I didn’t think it was real. The week we got sent home from school, I will never forget. Everything happening so suddenly. My mom visited the weekend before and left on Sunday. By that Wednesday I was in the car with two of my friends and we got an email from the president of Miami University telling us we had to leave. At this point I was still living in the dorms which meant I would literally be kicked off campus. I quickly got a rush of many emotions. I was excited, nervous, stressed, scared, and sad. I was excited to go home and see my family and friends from high school. I liked the idea of school going online because it allowed my upcoming midterm exams to be postponed. I was stressed about finding a flight home that wasn’t absurdly experience. I was scared of the unknown and if we were actually going to come back or if I had to pack up my dorm room, find a storage unit, and fly home with just one suitcase.
I managed to get all of my stuff together and out of my dorms for a flight home on Saturday. Once I got home, I was so thankful to be with my family because the six of us are never all together. My dad and I got in an amazing routine of coffee at 7 am while getting our work done. We would go running and make lunch. I would then go to the grocery store with my mom and help her with dinner. After dinner we would walk in the golf course around my house while my brothers all got to play. We would then watch documentaries at night.
I finally had time to sit back and take care of myself. After being at home from March until June I finally decided to get a job. I wanted to do something different and make the most out of what would be a boring summer. I packed up a bag and headed to Nantucket, Massachusetts. A small island I was not very familiar with, but I went with some girls from my high school in the year below me. We all got a job at a grocery store and shared a house together. Again, I got a rush of emotions when deciding to take this chance and live with girls I only knew of and some I had never met in my life. The first week was a mix of really fun times but also some bad ones. I found myself upset, always cleaning and never getting the recognition I thought deserved. I eventually broke down. I shared my feelings with my housemates and realized it was totally okay to feel the way I did. I began to accept the fact that living with so many people is not always perfect. Once I accepted this and felt more than comfortable talking with my housemates’ things started looking up again. I began to live each day at a time and truly make the most of it. I did what I wanted and when I wanted to. I went to work, I worked out, and I went to the beach nearly every day. These things made me happy.
When the summer quickly came to an end, I looked back and am so beyond thankful for everything it brought me. Not only did I have so much fun, but I managed to do it while holding a job which required me to work 40 hours a week, lived on my own, and made incredible friends. The relationships I made this summer are ones I will never forget. I grew as a person. I haven’t felt the genuine happiness that I found in Nantucket every in my life but especially since going to college. I truly thought that I wasn’t ever going to be happy after freshman year really hit hard for me. I took a chance and it was the best thing I could have done. I encourage everyone to take these chances when they come, go somewhere new, live on your own and do things that make you happy. This pandemic allowed me to see why people are religious and in what ways it can help you get through the toughest times but also be there when times are great. In the simplest times, religion is there, all you have to do is take a step back and truly think of the people that you have with you and the lessons they teach you.
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This story is not of me, but of a friend of mine who switched religions this past may. I asked him to tell me his story, in short, for this assignment, and he agreed as long as his name was left out of it. This story is summarized because he didn’t want his exact details out there because they could trace back to him, but still has enough details to get the message across.
It started with his questions regarding religion. He was raised Lutheran and never identified closely with his religion. His parents were both strong Catholic’s, yet they never raised them as strict as he was. His parents just figured he would adopt the same religion and follow it as closely as they did when he was older, yet they were wrong. When he got to high school he realized how religion affects our world today and how diverse it could be. He began to examine the differences that people of different religions have, and what makes them different. He tried to gain as much knowledge as he could on the different branches and types of religion.
After he graduated, he enrolled at community college and one of his first classes he signed up for was Introduction to Religion, not comparative religion, but a class that went into depth of the different branches and beliefs. He thoroughly enjoyed the class, and he found that after completing it he had a lot of questions of his own. He wanted to know more about his beliefs and went to his parents to ask his questions regarding them. He would assume that since they were very strong catholics that they would know the answers, or at least have an answer they could come up with on the top of their heads, but he was wrong. He asked his parents many questions regarding sins, what is bad and good, the cycle of life, how he should lead his life, and many others. They didn’t have many answers for him, and he was very upset.
After this, he read the bible to see if his practices and proposed religion would answer his questions, but they didn’t. In fact, it drove him farther away from Lutheranism and he felt he didn’t belong. He told me that when he was in his religion class he found Islam made a lot of sense to him. He then read the Quran, and it answered the questions he had. He kept reading the book and found that he identified with the practices, most of them, and that he belonged. Shortly after this, he converted to muslim and felt happier and at peace with the topic. He has told me to look into the Quran, and I haven’t yet but plan to, especially since I have a lot of questions myself.
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As a twenty year old college junior, labeling myself as an expert on religious studies would be one of the very last things I would consider doing. Although I have had my fair share of experiences, doing so would be a disservice to the more knowledgeable peers of mine who have outstanding additions to the archive. Throughout this pandemic, I’ve spent a fair amount of time around other people through my job almost exclusively. Working in a restaurant, I’ve had the privilege of meeting and getting to know a plethora of amazing individuals who come from all walks of life. As I worked in the spring and summer, religion would come up as a semi-frequent conversation topic solely due to how curious all of my coworkers’ (and myself included) were about how all of each other’s congregations were responding to the pandemic. Among my colleagues, we had individuals who were Roman Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Presbyterian and Lutheran. Through lengthy and enlightening discussions with my coworkers, we were all able to learn that each of our congregations were actually handling the COVID-19 pandemic in incredibly similar ways. Each of our places of worship had made the decision to cancel in person prayer within two weeks of each other, and to this day, are still all not holding full-capacity in person prayer sessions. Although my coworkers and I do not make up the perfect representative sample of American places of worship, it was beyond interesting to learn about how different places of worship, expanding across multiple denominations of multiple religions, all handled their strategic response to the COVID-19 pandemic in incredibly similar ways.
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New Found Faith: Through a Virtual Lens
The Coronavirus, global pandemic known as COVID - 19 that began to spread throughout the United States in the middle of March has had a great impact on many, if not all religious groups. Whether the group shift serves or sermons to an online, virtual format or the new topic made its way into the content of the services the pandemic has been very present. People across the globe have been greatly impacted by this same disease simultaneously making it easy for religious groups to communicate their message in a very comparative way. This means that many groups are discussing the same topic from different angles and through different lenses allowing their reaction to the pandemic to be compared to the reactions of other religious groups. These reactions and shifts in styles of preaching are becoming easily accessible through the use of social media and the internet. Larger groups of people across the world have gained access to many religions they may not have had readily available to them, thus changing the religious views and practices of many people. I have personally experienced this phenomenon of new perspectives and I have witnessed various religious responses to the pandemic.
I was born and raised in Northwest Ohio as a Roman Catholic I was heavily exposed to the practices of Catholicism. I attend private, Catholic schools five days a week for thirteen school years. Despite my exposure and upbringing I have never been overly involved in religious life outside of basic requirements set by school as well as religious obligations. The pandemic has affected me in various unexpected ways.
The Catholic Churches in my area, as well as many around the country, moved mass to online, virtual recordings. Some churches streamed a live video while others pre-recorded services to post for viewing at the leisure of the individual. As many young teenagers who are trying to figure out what they personally believe and are not avid church goers, I can not lie that I was relieved that masses were now online and I did not have to wake up early Sunday mornings to attend. Over the course of quarantine my family began to develop a new pattern of partaking in mass. We would watch mass in the evenings since school work was done and it was a good way to destress before dinner on Sundays. As quarantine progressed my mother's work schedule, since she works in a healthcare facility, began to pick up and there were quite a few weeks where she would prefer to watch mass in bed before going to sleep. My older sister moved back to her house in Southern Ohio and I was left to watch mass on my own. This is when I began to take on the responsibility in not only watching mass, but retaining the message that had been shared. This online formatting of mass allowed for me to sit in the comfort of my own home and watch mass at my leisure allowing for a more informal relationship between myself and God. I quickly began to grow fond of this new type of relationship and mass became much more enjoyable and convenient.
The switch to online services or sermons has been just that, comfortable, for many people. There is much more flexibility with timing as well as setting allowing more people to attend. I also have found it very interesting that in my REL 101 course at Miami University some students have spoken about their research and findings regarding the influx of attendees to religious services and the various places around the world that these new people are tuning in from. I know from personal experience that this new way of virtual preaching has allowed for exploration of new groups and beliefs. While I have not looked into other sermons with the intent of following a new religion I have viewed Catholic Priests in various states to find ones that I found particularly interesting. I have also tuned into a few different religions services to broaden my horizon and give me a new perspective on the pandemic as well as regions I may not have otherwise been exposed to.
I think that the pandemic has been a major learning curve for myself as well as many religions across the world. The way in which preaching is conducted as well as the information shared in sermons has shifted. COVID - 19 has had a massive impact, but it has allowed for growth in those who are open to new experiences and it has provided religious meaning to the lives of those who have only attended services as a means of checking something off the “to - do” list.
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