The Hydra community in Algeria share their experience in the shadow of the Coronavirus, following the themes of our last chapter: “Bearers of hope listening to the voice of the Spirit, moving forward together towards the peripheries”
Bearers of Hope:
Cultivating and radiating this hope during this confinement consisted in:
Taking more time for personal and community prayer, thus living a mission of intercession;
Maintaining a rhythm and regularity between work, relaxation, meetings and community recollections;
Choosing what information to follow;
Coping personally and together with the loneliness linked to social distancing;
Developing creativity in decoration, cooking, prayer…
Exercising regularly to manage our energies and tensions;
Holding conversations that give life and that maintain positive energies;
Living compassion and maintaining it on a daily basis.
The major challenge: to live in serenity without sinking into psychosis especially in the face of news/information on the progression of this pandemic in the world and the disaster that it causes.
Listening to the voice of the Spirit:
It is choosing to live in the present moment and enjoy today;
It is to live our times of personal and community prayer with new depth;
It was to Live Holy Week and Easter celebrations in deep communion with “our diocesan Church” and the universal Church through modern means of communication. The homilies and strong gestures made by Pope Francis inspired, challenged and stimulated us;
It was (for two of us) to live the retreat offered online by the Jesuit Fathers of the Ben Smen House;
It is to hear, see and share information from different media with discernment;
Finally, it is to reconnect with nature: take care of our little garden, contemplate the resplendent life in these plants, flowers, insects; listen to the morning song of the birds; taste the silence!
Moving forward together towards the peripheries:
This time of confinement is like a time to face our own peripheries, to go to the peripheries of our community life: accept our fragile health, our loneliness; to live the lack of normality with serenity and above all turn to others, the most vulnerable.
