"Observe Social Distancing without neglecting the commandment of Love"

Abu Dhabi, 25 March 2020

 
During this pandemic we are rightly told every day to maintain social distancing in order to protect ourselves and the others of a possible contamination through the Covid -19. It is a requirement of prudence and love during this critical time. – Unfortunately, there are many people who adopt the principle of social distancing also in their relationship with God. They seem to have the attitude telling: 

“Do not come too close. I shall call you, when I am really in need of you.” 

Such people may be happy with God in heaven but do not like his interference in our daily affairs - unless they touch the limits of their human capacities.
 
Today we are celebrating the Annunciation of our Lord to the Virgin Mary. It is the moment in the history of salvation when God is definitely breaking the rule of social distancing to the humanity and getting closer than ever. He is not afraid to get contaminated by the sinful humans. The opposite is true! He wants to overcome the virus of the original sin that contaminated humanity right from the beginning. He stated an example in the Immaculate Conception of our Lady and brought through her to the world the infallible vaccine against the deadly virus of sin. 
 
The approach of God to our World was radical. May be that sometimes we are so much used to certain words of the Bible that we are no more shocked by the world-shaking truth of the incarnation. Remember the words of Saint Paul to the Philippians about Jesus, 

“Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” (Phil 2:5-8)

God overcomes the social distancing in his Son in order to heal our sickness. The letter to the Hebrews speaks about Christ in a similar way: 

“When he came into the world, he said:‘Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me … Behold, I come to do your will, O God.” (Hebrews 10:5.7)

Finally keep in mind the famous verse in John’s gospel: 

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14) 

 
Truly, in Jesus God has moved from heaven to earth, has left the heavenly homeland and become a migrant in our midst. From now on the story of God is also a human story. Remember the Prayer of the Christmas Day mass: 

“O God, who wonderfully created the dignity of human nature and still more wonderfully restored it, grant, we pray, that we may share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” 

And today we prayed in a similar way: 

“O God, who willed that your Word should take on the reality of human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, grant, we pray, that we, who confess our Redeemer to be God and man, may merit to become partakers even in his divine nature.”

 
God took the initiative. It was first of all the free act of love within the Most Holy Trinity as it is beautifully expressed in John’s gospel: 

“ For God so loved the world that he gave  his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn  the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17)

For this purpose, God has chosen and prepared the virgin Mary to say “yes”. She conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word became flesh.
 
Dear brothers and sisters, right now we have to maintain social distancing because of the Covid-19. However, we can already now minimise it with signs of love. The technical means we have nowadays give us the possibility of a phone-call to a lonely person, an SMS or e-mail of encouragement to someone who needs a consoling word, listening on the phone to the griefs of a suffering person, praying insistently for so many people in distress, offer help where it is possible. Once the pandemic is over, we should never forget that as God broke the social distancing to us in Jesus Christ, we are called to bring over our love to the others. The Virgin Mary is the example. After the Annunciation she runs to her cousin Elisabeth and served her in her needs. We can do the same. Amen.