Does the Pandemic Bring Us Closer to God or Further Away from Him?

The pandemic really tests our faith as it limits our ways of worshipping God in mass and celebrating his invisible divine graces, we call the sacraments. This is quite a predicament as the sacraments are the building blocks that shape us into the follower of God we truly are. This causes us to question “does the pandemic bring us closer to god or further away from him?”

To look in it in a catholic view we believe that nothing separates us from God other than sin. The relationship we have with God is depicted as a shepherd to his sheep in John chapter 10 where Jesus says “I am the Good shepherd and the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.” Jesus goes on and talks about how only he is our lord and we listen to only him truly. Jesus also says that the we the sheep listen to only his voice and anyone before him is a thief who has the intention of only to kill and destroy while Jesus’ intention is to come so that we may live life to the full. 

From this word of God, we can interpret that our relationship with God is strong and sin makes us lost and so as sheep we become lost but when we hear Jesus’ voice, we come back to him.

We sustain the relationship by praising God and going for confession so we are pure of sin meaning we are closer to God. The pandemic however restrains us from this so it can be hard for some of us to sustain the relationship. This doesn’t mean we give up and give in to sin. Its taught in the Bible that Jesus always loves us unconditionally meaning that whatever the condition is or however deep we are in sin we are always welcome to God’s love. We can think of the pandemic like a condition so we must ignore the condition and keep our faith and hope in God and he will acknowledge on this and treasure us. 

In my view I can understand that keeping your faith in God is very challenging in these times as we no longer go to mass which is Gods home and even if we can it can be hard if your parents are key workers so time is valuable. I think we should still try to pray at least once a day and remind yourself that your savior will save you. You should ask God to help you in any way he can and he will do what needs to do which the best for you. God can be hard to understand but he only wants the best for you. This is supported when Jesus said that he has come so that we may live life to the full. We must remind ourselves that our saviors will save us, because we are his flock and we love him unconditionally as so does he. 

BY Joel Jobby