Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Paul MarianiFebruary 03, 2021

Lord, how is it this Corona Covid nightmare
still chews up half the news night after night,
as exhausted doctors plead with us to stay
at home? How is it those beds in the makeshift
ICUs keep filling up and up and up
until exhausted nurses keel over with fatigue
or (worse) succumb themselves, and the numbers
of the dead multiply then rise and rise again?


Oh, dear God, please help us. Please save us
if it is your will. Or at least help us better
understand what this thing is really all about.
What is it you want us to take away from this,
as the coffins keep piling up in tents and makeshift
plywood corridors? We read the sacred texts
and history books, searching the past and those plagues
of yesteryear for what they have to tell us now.


And still, still, here we are, a year into
all of this and, despite news of this vaccine
and that and of more to come, with all those vials
swarming beelike off those cold steel counters
and those Fed-Ex trucks leaving docks and racing off
with police escorts somewhere to the rescue (though not
anywhere, it seems, near here), still we hold out hope
that light (mehr licht!) will come again. And soon.


But will it? And as the days and months roll on,
and one tenth of the promised number get their shots
and the news goes burbling on, we ponder what
the new normal will look like down the line.
Still, the restaurants stay closed, along with all
those gathering places—bars, gyms, even schools
and churches—and as we choke our words through masks,
we plead, dear Lord: what shall we take away from this?

We don’t have comments turned on everywhere anymore. We have recently relaunched the commenting experience at America and are aiming for a more focused commenting experience with better moderation by opening comments on a select number of articles each day.

But we still want your feedback. You can join the conversation about this article with us in social media on Twitter or Facebook, or in one of our Facebook discussion groups for various topics.

Or send us feedback on this article with one of the options below:

We welcome and read all letters to the editor but, due to the volume received, cannot guarantee a response.

In order to be considered for publication, letters should be brief (around 200 words or less) and include the author’s name and geographic location. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

We open comments only on select articles so that we can provide a focused and well-moderated discussion on interesting topics. If you think this article provides the opportunity for such a discussion, please let us know what you'd like to talk about, or what interesting question you think readers might want to respond to.

If we decide to open comments on this article, we will email you to let you know.

If you have a message for the author, we will do our best to pass it along. Note that if the article is from a wire service such as Catholic News Service, Religion News Service, or the Associated Press, we will not have direct contact information for the author. We cannot guarantee a response from any author.

We welcome any information that will help us improve the factual accuracy of this piece. Thank you.

Please consult our Contact Us page for other options to reach us.

City and state/province, or if outside Canada or the U.S., city and country. 
When you click submit, this article page will reload. You should see a message at the top of the reloaded page confirming that your feedback has been received.

The latest from america

The 12 women whose feet were washed by Pope Francis included women from Italy, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Ukraine, Russia, Peru, Venezuela and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"We, the members of the Society of Jesus, continue to be lifted up in prayer, in lament, in protest at the death and destruction that continue to reign in Gaza and other territories in Israel/Palestine, spilling over into the surrounding countries of the Middle East."
The Society of JesusMarch 28, 2024
A child wounded in an I.D.F. bombardment is brought to Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on March 25. (AP Photo/Ismael abu dayyah)
While some children have been evacuated from conflict, more than 1.1 million children in Gaza and 3.7 million in Haiti have been left behind to face the rampaging adult world around them.
Kevin ClarkeMarch 28, 2024
Easter will not be postponed this year. It will not wait until the war is over. It is precisely now, in our darkest hour, that resurrection finds us.
Stephanie SaldañaMarch 28, 2024