-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Outlines the canceling of mass times in response to coronavirus
-
This share plans to return to worship
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
My family, as a unit, is not deeply connected to religious faith and the beliefs of the catholic church. We affiliate with the catholic church and follow the basic yearly calendar of holidays, sacred days, and other forms of celebration or worship that coincide with the catholic church. Although we affiliate, we do not actively participate in our religious community. We don’t go to church weekly or even really on the holidays. We don’t pray every time we eat or expect each other to pray those prayers learned from the church. I pray my own individual prayers independently from whatever my immediate relatives do with their forms of worship. Since the coronavirus pandemic broke out, my family was not super impacted as we weren’t attending mass face-to-face in the church. We used to be more involved, but now our involvement has not changed since the cancellation of gatherigs due to COVID-19. One thing we did do for the first time, though, was follow along with mass on Easter Sunday. We normally do not attend mass on Easter Sunday as it is a huge holiday and many families go to mass. The church is usually packed and we often end up having to stand in the back. Ever since I can remember, we haven’t gone to church on Easter Sunday or followed along with a mass. This year, though, the vatican did a virtual mass with English translation. My family seemed to become more interested in the idea of virtual mass and actually practicing and investing in our faith due to the greater accessibility of the mass ceremony because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We sat together in front of the television and actually followed along with the entire Easter mass that was conducted at the vatican church in Italy. While we had to follow the English translation, our family was usually not invested on Easter in religious practices. Because of COVID-19 and mass being online, my family practiced some religious activities unlike they would if Easter mass was only conducted in person. The increase in accessibility to and flexibility of practicing religion virtually and in one’s own home may provide other families with the same experience my family had. We have become more invested in religious practices and attending mass since it has become a virtual event rather than taking the time to get ready, drive to the church, take part in mass, and drive back home. COVID-19 may be causing less gatherings, but it has provided more resources virtually for people to practice their faith and be active in religious groups without actually being present in the church and community.
-
I found this sermon interesting because the pastor tested positive for COVID-19 and still preached a sermon by recording himself at his house (23:34).
-
-
-
-
-
-
Comment on submission: Not sure if this URL is going to always reflect the pandemic, so I made a PDF with 4 sermons that did talk about the pandemic.
-
When I was younger, I would wake up to the holiday of Eid al-adha to presents, a lavish breakfast, and getting all dolled up to head down to the mosque for the special Eid prayer to then spend the rest of the day with friends and family. Unfortunately, this important holiday was spent six feet apart and wrapped up in masks.
The day before Eid, my dad sat all of us down and told my family how this year would work, considering the mosque was able to open back up with certain regulations regarding the pandemic. At first I was so excited to hear that we were allowed back there, until he began telling us that we have to keep our masks on the entire time, you won’t be allowed to stick around and socialize afterwards, and we have to remain a certain distance apart from each other at all times. I started to reminisce on the thousands of people of all different backgrounds that would always come to Eid prayer, if anything else. I took for granted how significant this day is for Muslims once it actually came, and none of us could celebrate it the way it should be celebrated.
Once I got there, we immediately had someone come up to us to take our temperature, make sure we were sanitized, and gave us each masks if need be. He guided us into the mosque, and to my astonishment, the beautiful place of worship I’ve known since I was a kid was all marked up with placeholders that were each six feet apart to tell us where we were able to sit. We got in, completed our traditional prayer, and left. The energy was not how it usually was in there. The minute I come inside the mosque, there are always people greeting me and waving, and the whole room is buzzing with laughter and smiling faces, but this year everyone's countenance was masked.
Our Imam told us to never lose hope, and that we will all be able to look back at this and remind ourselves how far we have come together. The pandemic has truly caused the Muslim community to become more and more grateful for everything they have, because it can all be taken away in the blink of an eye.
-
The holy month of Ramadan comes every year and brings an abundance of joy and connection to each other at the mosque. Taraweeh is the additional prayer after Isha prayer at night where everyone would pray together from 11 pm and would end around 1 or 2 am. This was held every night of Ramadan. Due to COVID-19 our mosque was closed for the holiday this year. This was the first time in years our mosque has been closed down. Instead of meeting in person live streams were held of the Taraweeh prayer.
I remember being crammed by hundreds of other women as we prayed side by side for hours. The children run around in the shoe room so they wouldn’t distract those praying. The breaks between prayers when you would socialize with your friends and mothers spoke to each other. After the long prayer was over I would follow a single file line out the busy doors and then there would be food tents set up that everyone would gather at. Grabbing a plate and filling up your plate with fruits, delicious foods made by the community, and sitting around with my friends. My mother would come outside with a plate in her hand as well and say that it’s time to go home. By this time it was around midnight. We would leave and the next night was the same thing. This year praying Taraweeh to a live stream in my empty living room was hard. The change was drastic and didn’t even feel real. The vibe of the month was off and very isolating. There was no connection within the community and to the holiday this year because of COVID-19.
-
-
-
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.
-
-
-
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.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
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.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-