How To Be Holy and Happy During the Coronavirus Quarantine

BREAKING NEWS: India has just been put on lock down for the next three weeks, so this post is even more relevant. PS Please ration your supplies!

It's easy to write a post about what NOT to do because all I have to do is take notes from my own life and everybody else I know. But what we really need is a not-too-complicated list of what we CAN and SHOULD do. So here goes:

1. Make a daily schedule! Structure structure structure! Anyone who works from home can tell you the best way to sabotage yourself is to have great ambitions and refuse to put them into a schedule. Spontaneity is all very well for a while, but most of us humans need some kind of rhythm to our life in order to be productive and peaceful. Some of my friends have done this (especially those with kids). It doesn't have to be a tight schedule with every minute accounted for, but it should exist.

2. Get offline for at least a few hours every day! The Online World of Coronavirus News is a disease in itself. There's too much information! It's everywhere! There are gossip, jokes, news, opinions, medical advice, explanations, home remedies, warnings, predictions, but they can leave us sucked dry, motionless, anxious, panicky, or just distracted. You will find you mind relaxing, and your heartbeat returning to normal as you cook while listening to instrumental music, or clean your house, or draw a picture, or play an instrument, or go for a walk (for those who are still able to).

3. Pick two or three online pastimes, but stop there: Apart from Coronavirus news, there's also SO MANY productive options to spend time online - online retreats, online Masses and rosaries and reflections, free audio books, free operas, free concerts, online museums. We're spoiled for choice. We could learn new languages, watch movies, documentaries, learn crafts, research topics we're interested in... but if you're anything like me, perhaps the fact that there are so many options is paralyzing, and it's easier to just keep scrolling through social media feeds and thinking about how many great options there are and perhaps I should do that one.. and that one.. or perhaps that one? Just pick two or three, add them to your schedule, and stop there.

4. Take prayer breaks: Start your day with prayer and coffee, end your day with prayer, but don't forget to take little pauses during the day to pray too. Some people say a Hail Mary every time they wash their hands. I've been trying to do an Examen at least once a day. Say little prayers like "I love you, Lord." "I offer this moment to you." "Jesus, I trust in you." Participate in an online Mass if that helps you. Say a Rosary. My husband reminds me to pray the Angelus when the church bells ring. Pray a Divine Mercy chaplet for people dying alone. It's surprising how these little prayer habits make room for peace in your heart, home and day.

5. Take time alone and together: If you're living with other people, add some alone, quiet time to your schedule. If you tend to do things by yourself most of the time, add some people time to your schedule. Eat meals together and watch a movie. Play board games. Do jigsaw puzzles. If you're living alone, set up a video call to a friend at least once a day. This is a good time to reconnect, to love each other by 'wasting time together'. Don't let the desire to be productive or the temptation to anxiety and panic rob you of family time or people time.

6. Talk about things other than the pandemic: It's already on everyone's minds. But there is more to life than that, and our minds need a break from it. So intentionally choose to talk and think about other things as well - hopes, dreams, plans, memories, ideas, jokes.

7. Rediscover the Bible: Rather than focussing on what we have been deprived of (the sacraments, for a while). let's rediscover the gift and jewel most of us have lying in our homes. Eh. the bible, you say. Approach it in new ways! Start reading one book of the bible, underline verses that stand out and journal about them. (Look up a commentary to help you understand them.) Do a bible sharing with your family every day. Pick one bible verse every day to memorize and illustrate. Play bible trivia games:
- Everyone gets one chapter or book of the bible to read and study, and quiz questions will be asked at the end of the day.
- Everyone gets 5 minutes to study and memorize the names and order of the books in the bible, and then write them out without referring to the bible.
- Pick a bible verse at random and get the rest of the family to guess which book it comes from.
- Find the biblical passages certain famous hymns are based on.
- Choose a keyword like 'light', or 'bread', or 'mountain' and see how many bible verses each person or team can find in 10 minutes.
- Say a bible reference (book, chapter and verse) and the first person to find it wins the point
- Write your own song or tune based on a Psalm. Record it

8. Find ways to reach out to others: Just because you have been asked to distance yourself socially doesn't mean you have full permission to be as selfish and self-absorbed as possible. Ask God to show you how you can still reach out to others. Phone someone who might be lonely. Donate to those who have lost their livelihood because of the shutdowns. Make sure you are continuing to pay your maids, domestic workers, etc who are not allowed to go to work. Check in on your friends. Find little ways to bless your family members or housemates - join them in activities they would prefer, help them in their work, ask them how they are doing.

9. Take time for silence: You don't have to fill up every moment of the day. Take a few minutes here and there just to BE, to breathe, to surrender. It's hard, I know. But in the moments of silence, your soul will breathe.

Are you doing any of these things already? Any other suggestions?

How NOT To Do the Coronavirus Self-Quarantine

Welcome to the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020. Most of our cities, places of work and worship, and public areas are closed. We are constantly being blasted with messages to self-quarantine, aka Just. Stay. Home. How do we respond?

1. Pick up your phone the moment you wake up. Spend all day obsessively scrolling through every news article, Whatsapp forward, social media post about COVID-19, and forward them to everyone you know. If you know everything that's happening, moment by moment, you will feel more in control! Right?

2. Spend all day wallowing in indiscipline. Binge-watch another TV series on Netflix. Forget about all your Lenten commitments and fasts. It's a worldwide state of emergency, you are excused from being a productive, or fruitful member of society. Holiness is for normal days, not such strange ones as the ones we live in. God will understand.

3. Get mad at the bishops for suspending public Masses. They obviously don't care about the state of our souls. If I were in their place, I would make better decisions. Somebody elect me Pope! I'll show those cowards how to take care of a 1.2 billion member Church during a worldwide pandemic.

4. Wallow in self-pity. What an unfair twist of events! I had so many plans for the next few weeks that are cancelled or postponed. This was not how my life was supposed to go! Yet here I am stuck in my home with the Internet and food and water and too much free time to know what to do with. How unlucky I am!*

5. Give full reign to panic and fear. Doomsday is here! The end of the world is nigh. Never before has the world been in lockdown! I was right - everything really IS terrible and bad and scary and hopeless! Even if the world doesn't end, a global recession is coming! Unemployment and poverty and homelessness is going to increase! Is God REALLY in control? Doesn't look like it.

6. Go into conspiracy or blame or extreme religious theory mode. This whole coronavirus thing is a hoax created by the sellers of face masks and sanitizers to make a profit. Or it is a punishment by God for our irreligious behaviour. He's angry so He's unleashing plagues like in the Old Testament. But the blood of the lamb is the only vaccine I need! My family and I are safe, nothing will happen to us because we trust in God (unlike those sinners out there who have been infected). If only the world will repent, the coronavirus will end.

7. Ignore this whole coronavirus nonsense and party on. Unexpected holidays? Perfect time to get the gang together, go on a family outing, get some shopping done, visit some old friends, hit the bars. People are just exaggerating the danger. I'm going to be fine. They can't really expect me to stay at home for weeks on end, can they? That's probably fake news.

8. Go into selfish survivor mode. Stockpiling is the only sensible thing to do! There's a pandemic, I'm sure that basic necessities are going to somehow disappear any moment now. BUY ALL THE STUFF! Who cares about the rest of the world? It's each man for himself!

9. Go into fallacious hyper-spiritual blind faith mode. I am a Christian, and I refuse to live in fear! So I will go about my daily life as normal trusting that God will keep me safe. There is no way that going to MASS could be dangerous to anyone. Anyway, which is more important - the body or the soul? Isn't God more powerful than a mere virus? If I really believe that, there is no need to self-quarantine.

Which of these are you struggling with? Which ones have you seen other people doing, and are driving you crazy?

*I assume the people REALLY struggling are not here reading my blog post. 

Coming Soon: How To Be Holy and Happy During the Coronavirus Quarantine

Adventures in Panchgani

Last week my husband and I spent a couple of days in Panchgani, my favourite holiday spot a few hours away from the big cities. It was a special trip with just the two of us as a birthday treat for me – yes, I’m 34! Though a quiet, serene spot in the lap of nature (I sound like a resort commercial), we did not miss out on our share of adventures.

The Prophesying Wife 

I have been known to sleep-talk in the past. I thought I was mostly over it, until our first night in the Panchgani cottage. We had just finished watching a season of Dr. Who, so I was dreaming about saving the universe. In my sleep, I shouted, “Don’t be afraid!”

My husband woke up from a dream where he was worried about the future. “What did you say?”

“Don’t be afraid!”

What I meant to say after that was, “We have found enough traces of human DNA in the TARDIS to reboot the universe,” but apparently that was too complicated for my sleep-addled brain to enunciate. I did half-wake up and realized I was sleep-talking, so then I also tried to say, “That’s good advice no matter the occasion,” but according to my husband, I didn’t actually say those words aloud either.

Anyway, isn’t he privileged to have a wife who gives him solid biblical advice to respond to his nightmares in the middle of the night?

The Drunk Local 

As we walked home from town one evening, we saw an obviously drunk old man weaving his way down the road. The mountain roads were narrow, and with vehicles speeding along them, so we were a little alarmed. “Jesus, please keep this man safe,” said my husband aloud. The next moment a young man on a bike stopped by the drunk man. “Thank you, Jesus, that was quick.”

My relief dissipated in a moment as the old man got on to the back of the bike, and promptly fell off as the bike started moving. The younger man couldn’t have been a relative because he seemed amused. “How much have you drunk?” he said to the man in Marathi. My husband starting crossing the road to help them, and called out in Marathi, “Hey grandfather, hold on tight.” He got on again, clutched the rider tight, and they rode off as I prayed, and my husband’s concern turned to uncontrollable chuckles at the comic sight. I guess the town drunk is funny to everyone else, but probably not to his family.

The Angry Pregnant Lady 

Just next to the cottage where we were staying is a campsite run by my mum’s cousin. We happened to be there at a time when a big group of young people were there for a camp. We passed them playing team building games in a field.

The first afternoon I was exhausted, and fell asleep in the bedroom with the curtains on the big glass windows open. My sleep was deep, but somehow loud voices intruded. Deep in my subconscious I realized someone was intruding, but I couldn’t wake myself up to deal with it. Instead I dreamed that we were sharing the house with a honeymooning couple with all their friends and family dropping in to visit.

In my dream, I kept getting more and more outraged as they overstepped boundaries, used our private kitchen, and talked REALLY loudly and partied in the veranda. I woke up to realize there were really three young people who were not just outside the house talking, but had actually taken over a table in the veranda and were working on a poster for their camp, while chatting away… EVEN THOUGH THEY HAD SEEN ME SLEEPING IN THE BEDROOM.

I’m not typically an angry kind of person, but the righteous anger of my dream took hold of me, and I stalked out and informed them that they were in a private area and that they needed to stay in the campsite area. I’m polite even when I’m angry, but I think the message got across and they soon left. I was fuming! Was it the pregnancy hormones? Oh yes, *I* was the angry pregnant lady. I feel like I would have been even more impressively scary if I had been visibly and heavily pregnant while telling them off.

 A little while later, I heard someone announcing to the kids in the next field, “Please don’t make a noise, there are people staying in the house and they will shout at you.” You bet they will! Grr. In spite of that, a guy and a girl showed up that evening taking selfies in front of the house and seemed surprised when I asked them to take their stuff (that they had deposited again in our veranda) and leave. “Just one more picture.” Some people have no concept of boundaries.

Related Stories 

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How Do I Know If I’m a Disciple?

A lot of us grew up in Catholic homes, attending Sunday Mass as a matter of course, the same way we attended school and wrote exams and ate our meals – just because it was a part of our life and culture and family tradition. As teenagers or adults, some rebelled or just lost interest and no longer identified as Catholic, while others just continued as a matter of course.

But being baptized a Catholic and growing up in a Catholic family no more makes one a disciple than hanging around in medical school makes you a doctor, or sitting in a car makes you a driver. Becoming a disciple takes intentionality and choice. You can’t sort of drift into a life-changing relationship.

But maybe you’re not sure. “I take my faith pretty seriously. It’s an important part of my life. Am I or am I not a ‘disciple’?”

Here’s a list of questions to ask yourself this Lent to know whether there is perhaps a further step God is inviting you.

1. Do I KNOW Jesus as a person, not just as a concept or name or idea? Am I able to talk to Him intimately every day, and believe that His presence is as real as my family members around my house? Am I able to chat to Him about what is going on in my life, or am I more likely to talk to myself, and remember Him at the end of a formal prayer at the end of the day… ‘in Jesus’ name, Amen.’ Being a disciple is primarily being in a relationship with Jesus, not just following a set of moral teachings.
If you don’t, ask Him to reveal Himself to you as a person, put your phone down, start sitting alone with Him every day for 20 minutes, and be very, very honest. He is more than able to reveal Himself to those who desire to meet Him. 

2. Do I hear God speaking with me regularly? Not as an audible voice, but usually through the bible, through the events and people of my life. I remember once reading my bible on the way to a youth camp where I was a volunteer, and a young man of about 16 asked me why I was doing so. I told him God often spoke to me through the words I read. He seemed shocked. “God actually TALKS to you?”
If you don’t, tell him you’d like to hear from Him, and start reading a short passage from the bible every day. We can’t expect to hear Him if we will not use the means He uses to communicate with us. 

3. Am I aware of my own personal sin? It’s so much easier to be aware of all the other sinners in the world than to take responsibility for my own selfishness, laziness, lack of love, deliberate neglect of God and His invitations and commands. Once you start rationalizing your sin, there is no room for a Saviour in your life. "Those who (think they) are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance, but sinners." Lk 5: 31-32
If you are not and feel like you’re on the whole a pretty righteous person, ask God to shine His light into every corner of your life and heart and reveal to you the truth. 

4. Am I engaged in ongoing repentance and conversion? It’s not enough to be aware of my sin, to wallow in my own dirt, and to get complacent about the fact that I’m a sinner. ‘Oh well, a sinner I was conceived in my mother’s womb.’ Shrug. I need to be actively fighting the sin in my life, going to Confession regularly, asking forgiveness of the people I am hurting, and allowing the mercy of Jesus to cleanse me of my sin. When’s the last time I asked someone to forgive me?
If you are not, go to Confession, and do a daily Examen. Ask God for a greater desire for holiness. 

5. Do I talk and think more about Jesus than about anything or anyone else? This is a good way to know who or what my passion is. Not that we are not called to have interests, passions and hobbies as disciples, but where do our hearts lie? Who or what do I think of as I fall asleep at night? What do I get into passionate discussions about regularly? What do I promote and want people to know about? Even if we talk more about the Catholic Church, or a particular saint, or our community or organization, or some devotion, or some awesome leader, than we do about JESUS Himself, we’re missing out on the core of being a disciple.
If you do not, ask Him to help you fall in love with Him again (or for the first time). 

6. Am I willing to change my plan when I hear God convicting me to do so? We all have plans, preferences and desires, and we often make our choices based on them. But a disciple brings everything to the Lord and allows Him to direct his or her life. It could mean giving up a plan to emigrate, pursuing reconciliation in a relationship that I’d rather wash my hands off, being open to a spouse and a life in a different culture than I wanted, using my free time for His work, making a career change, and a great number of other things.
If you are not, ask Him for the grace to trust Him more than you trust yourself, to give up the illusion of control, and to grow in obedience and abandonment. 

7. Am I willing to obey the challenging teachings that Jesus gives me through His Church? If the only teachings I obey are the ones I am comfortable with, then I have chosen myself as God, and not Him. Trust includes obedience and humility. Just because I do not fully understand why Jesus asks the things He asks, doesn’t mean He is wrong and I am right. Like a child who takes his medicine or eats his vegetables because Mama says so, sometimes we obey even as we seek understanding. For example, staying away from artificial methods of birth control, accepting that IVF, surrogacy and artificial insemination are not legitimate ways to bear a child, choosing to love those with same-sex attraction while not endorsing gay marriage or relationships, reserving sex for marriage, rejecting abortion even in the case of unexpected or difficult pregnancies, rejecting the death penalty, etc. It also means accepting the smaller but also difficult requirements like fasting for an hour before receiving Communion, not eating meat on the Fridays of Lent, fasting on Good Friday and Ash Wednesday, attending Mass on Sunday and other days of obligation without fail, etc.
If you are not able to accept these teachings, ask God to open your heart and help you understand. There are good reasons for all these hard teachings, and we need to be willing to find out what they are. (Links below.) 

8. Have I intentionally placed myself in relationship with other disciples? It’s easy to think you’re being a disciple on your own because there’s no one to call you out, to challenge you when you’re getting complacent or lazy or making excuses, and to encourage you when you’re slackening in zeal. It’s obvious that Jesus didn’t come to save us in isolation, but in community. Unfortunately our parish communities don’t usually offer an opportunity to grow in relationship with other disciples, so we have to be very intentional about fighting our laziness and our fear of vulnerability and either joining some kind of community or creating some kind of community.
If you have not, start looking for disciples and ask them where they find fellowship. 

9. Am I regularly consuming content that remind me of what it means to be a disciple? Whether it is attending solid talks and formation, listing to podcasts, reading spiritual books (apart from the bible), learning about the saints, we need to consume healthy disciple-making food, or our growth will be stunted. I can see the difference when I stop doing that, or when I only consume mindless entertainment – I lose my appetite for God. We are what we eat.
If you do not, Lent is a great time to start! Ask me for recommendations: Abiding Together podcast, any Henry Nouwen or Fulton Sheen or Jacques Philippe, etc.

Related Links

[Video] Why We Don't Use Contraception in Our Marriage by Jackie and Bobby Angel

After the Vows: Sex Within Marriage By Brian Kissinger

[Video] Fr. Mike Schmitz explaining IVF and Contraception 

Birth Control - Catholic Answers

Catholic Teaching on Openness to Life - Jennifer Fulwiler