Spiritual Response to CoronaVirus Self-Quarantine

In these days of isolation, my family here, like many Orthodox Christians around the country, is more cut off from church, and we are still adjusting to what we should do in response. Our prayer rule is most certainly changing, and though I will speak more specifically about this in tomorrow's post, we are mainly trying to keep our normal church schedule (whenever we would normally be going to church) here at home.

Here is mainly why I write, though: I received a note last night from our spiritual father addressing these days of no church gatherings, and hope you will find it as encouraging as I did:

And dear Father, I know this is a time of difficulty for all the clergy. Like the Apostles, you now find yourself locked up, away from the broader community of the Church, just relying on Christ...but relying on Christ alone is always a good place to be. Your little home is your little your ark, your little Church, your little Jerusalem in a darkened world. Do your best to profit from this time together: a time of prayer, a time of waiting on the Lord. At some point, like with St. Peter, the chains will fall, the gates will open, and you will all be together with the rest of the Church, to the rejoicing of all. If you need me, feel free to call. You are very much in my prayers.

Most likely, you are in the prayers of your priest. And even if not, (in the OCA) our monasteries have been given a blessing to continue the divine services (with resident monastics only), which means that we are all being prayed for, indeed the whole world is being prayed for, and it also means that we Christians are, through God's grace, communing with one another even though we are not physically gathered together.

So, in this time of isolation, we are "locked up" from our brothers and sisters for the time being and are relying solely on Christ...and "relying on Christ alone is always a good place to be".