I was taught to pray all my life. From childhood it was a recitation of memorized words; but as I grew older and I began to understand more the difficulties and pains of life, it became the glue in times when nothing else could hinge my hope together.
Today, the world faces what the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called ‘our worst crisis since World War II’. This pandemic is a time that literally has kept us apart. Everything has come to a halt. This is a war with no peace talks.
The only peace talks possible come in prayer. Whether or not one is a believer of a particular or any faith, the Holy Week of 2020 is a stark reminder of the suffering we inevitably face in life, and how sacrifice in love will ultimately be our saving grace.
As a mother of an immunocompromised child and as a daughter taking care of her senior citizen mother, the anxiety brought by this pandemic is personally worrying and stressful. I am neither doctor nor scientist, so there is little I can do to protect my family other than making sure everyone stays healthy. We wash our hands, we wear masks, we practice social distancing, and we hope that it will be enough to remain safe.
But when there is nothing left to do, prayer remains the ultimate sanctuary. It does not matter what faith you are from; it only matters that in your heart you think about the many people who suffer today.
The virus cannot tell the difference between the rich or the poor, the politician, businessperson, jeepney driver or construction worker. It is a time to remember our shared vulnerability, our shared humanity. It is in meditating upon that shared humanity that we are anchored in the things that matter and the work that needs to be accomplished to pull us through.
It is that shared humanity that pushes our workers, medical & non-medical, to the frontlines of this life-threatening battle every day. It is because they know they carry the knowledge and the capability to make a difference that they do what they can—even if their lives are on the line.
It reminds me so much of what my own faith has taught me—the belief that each and every one of us deserves to be fought for and cared for. This pandemic is a reminder that our health and wellbeing is inherently tied to one another’s. That we must look out for each other the same way we look out for ourselves. It is love, paired with a concrete plan, with the creativity and conscientiousness of everyone, that will save us.
Architects and fashion designers, who crafted temporary quarantine units and protective equipment, are an example of intersectional collaboration and creative thinking that has reinforced our own competencies in facing the COVID-19 crisis. Teamwork, in ways we once thought unnecessary, holds the solutions we need.
We must continue to follow health protocols and share what we can—talent, time or treasure—to our frontliners. We must root for them in all ways that we can, through the donations that we share to the innovative measures we come up with.
This is a time that calls for us to partake in each other’s pains and to participate in safeguarding each other’s wellbeing. This is the path we must take from here on out, during and after these hard times. This pandemic teaches us that we all matter; and we must act like it. The strength of our hope and how we act on it is what will define us.
Our prayers, our generosity and our kindness are acts of hope, that our frontliners in this war against COVID-19 can and will make it through, for the sick, for the dying, towards and forward to the end of this pandemic.
Thank you to all our frontliners—our doctors, nurses, technicians, janitors, delivery people, transportation drivers, security guards, waste collectors, military & police personnel, so on and so forth. We find hope in you. It is your willingness to do the work that must be done when all are afraid that will save the Filipino people as we face these times of suffering. (Sen. Risa Hontiveros)
