From Fr Vasili: We are all suffering from the long duration of the current safety measures due to the COVID-19 virus. Many of us feel exhausted by it, and are frustrated that so many facets of our daily life have been impacted. On the national scale, we now see that our President has been hospitalized due to the virus, and many in his close circle have also tested positive. The sports teams that we enjoy watching are also experiencing troubles due to the virus, and it is now hitting closer to home: Anchorage has seen increases of over 100 every day for the past 10 days and now the ASD has pushed back the start of in-person education. Additionally, one of our local Orthodox parishes had an active parishioner get sick and test positive for Corona after attending services this past weekend, so they have had to shut down services for at least the next week. All of these things are a reminder that we need to stay vigilant. We are not being prevented from living our Faith, or from worshiping, but out of love for our neighbor we have been instructed to wear masks and practice social distancing while in the church. Many of us are not really concerned about contracting the virus - for most of us it will be a bad, or even mild, flu - but what about those that we infect? Is it loving or being a good neighbor to infect others accidentally because we did not know that we were sick at the time and disregarded the safety measures? I do not like having masks in church - I hate it, actually. But this is what we have been asked to do and so I support it. My friends, this does not mean that we should be afraid, or place concern for the body above concern for the soul. At this point, NOTHING about the current regulations is preventing us from worshipping God or receiving the Holy Sacraments. We can wear masks and stand 6' away from each other and still worship God. But we should not fall into the opposite trap of staying away from the Sacraments due to fear - what is worse, to suffer illness in our body or in our soul? If we stay away from the Sacraments out of concern for the body, we may be harming our soul - that is for each person to examine their own heart and say (we should be able to discern whether or not staying away is harming our relationship with God). In these days of political and social polarization, we want to do our best to walk the middle ground as humbly as possible, without fear, but with love for our neighbor. May God grant us and our Hierarchs the discernment to keep moving forward in Truth, without anxiety or shame, and help us to truly love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and to love our neighbor as our self.
