I am not sure we are walking through the valley of the shadow of death or not, but these are certainly scary times. Every day the news seems to get worse, the number of people infected with the coronavirus rises, the number of deaths goes up and the predictions of how many possible deaths are extremely high. One can’t help but ask “Am I next?”

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

Psalm 23:4. RSV2CE

In my last post, I wasn’t completely sure how to take this whole thing. Now that it is getting closer to home (I know of someone in my extended family who may have it and is now hospitalized, as well as another who is in self-quarantine) it is becoming more real.

I don’t know if this is a sign of the end times or if this is somehow the work of Satan, but I do know that now more than ever we need to trust in God. As the verse above states, “I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” We must keep this in mind, that God is with us. It may not seem like it right now, but He is. And we can not live in fear. If it is God’s will, then “thy will be done.”

Does it suck because we can’t go to Mass, especially in the time when it would be most helpful? Yes, but as we are taught, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Do you want someone to infect you? Of course not, so you should not want to infect them.

If ever there was a time to pray it is now. Those of us who believe in God are in the minority, meaning we need to pray twice as hard to make up for those who don’t pray. I don’t have the answer, but God does. I don’t know what his plans are, I don’t know what is coming tomorrow, but I do know that we need to go on living, not in fear (although with the necessary precautions) but with knowing this could be our last day in this life, and therefore we need to be ready for the next.

But isn’t that something we should be doing anyway?