Daily Meditation for April 12, 2022

We hope the long-awaited “New Normal” is coming. Normality means consistency and predictability that we have not experienced for two years. Time to get up, stretch, and get ready! Daniel Horan, OFM, suggests that five virtues will help us cope with the days ahead. 1. Patience: Feeling more irritable and annoyed is common and needs to be managed. 2. Humility: The pandemic has taken a toll on us. Some of our life skills may have slipped and need refreshing. 3. Empathy: Others are also going through hardships, loss and suffering. How can we help rather than express anger? 4.Trust: There is suspicion of motives, pervasive disinformation, and widespread lack of trust in others and in authorities. Build back a healthy sense of trust. 5. Flexibility: We need to become calm and accepting of changed schedules, disrupted plans and shortages. There is no panacea for all that we continue to face during this challenging time. Just as it was not easy to stop the whole world in March 2020, it is not easy to restart it now.

By Mary Jackle, OSB